ABSTRACT
In his excellent study Other Dickens published at the turn of the present century, John Bowen begins by explaining why he chose to devote an entire book to Charles Dickens's first six novels. Highbrow disdain for Dickens took nearly a century to abate, and throughout this period the reputation of Our Mutual Friend and his other post-Copperfield fiction tended to rise or fall as Dickens's did. The story of Our Mutual Friend after 1870 is very much the story of Dickens himself: so long as he was disregarded by critics, his last finished novel mostly was, too. Scholars wanting an exhaustive description of materials related to Our Mutual Friend should consult Brattin and Hornback's work or Heaman's supplement. Readers generally admire the novel more than ever, but even Dickens fans are still not unanimous in singing its praises.
