ABSTRACT
The textual history of a Dickens novel is not always particularly lively and interesting. It cannot compare, for instance, with the field offered by the works of Proust or, before him , of Balzac. On the other hand, the student of Dickens's text enjoys certain advantages: the materials required for that kind of examination are plentiful and accessible. And, because it was only after the Second World War that Dickens's work came to be regarded as real literature, these materials have, so to speak, just begun to be exploited. They had lain untapped for several decades after the novelist's death.
