ABSTRACT
I have brought two novels together in this chapter, because I think it important to discuss the considerable leap that Dickens takes in moving from one to the other. In particular, I want to discuss the limits of inspiration that are reached in Martin Chuzzlewit, since it is in this novel that Dickens's fabulous imaginative gifts are put under the severest strain and finally crack. Martin Chuzzlewit, indeed, is a crucial novel in Dickens's development. To speak plainly, it is a crisis novel. The evidence of the subsequent novels shows that after Chuzzlewit Dickens was determined that never again would he compose in so slapdash a way, be so prodigal with his material, or allow himself to waste his genius instead of taxing and extending it.
