Dickens was no theologian. His direct statements on religion can only take us so far. His task of representing London in words, however, led him grapple with Christianity imaginatively and at a much deeper level. This new book shows how Dickens's London draws upon various forms of symbolism and secular discursive practices and brings them into tense dialogue. Taking its cue from criticism of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, it focuses on how traditional religious symbolism fares when it is brought into dialogue with its counterparts in metropolitan reality. A picture emerges of Dickens's London as a melting pot of images created by needs both within and outside the story that provides an insight into how relevant Dickens could be in the metropolitan age.

'Taking his cue from T. S. Eliot, Karl Smith explores the spiritual values of Dickens's symbolic city through the lens of The Waste Land. Combining alert attention to detail with wide range of reference, Dickens and the Unreal City offers judicious discussion of the complex relationship between the mundane and the transcendent in Dickens's world view.'  - Paul Schlicke, University of Aberdeen, UK 
 
'This is a judicious study which fully recognises that 'any position of overview from which Dickens's London can be seen in its totality is an artificial construct' ...Rather like the novelist's writing about the city perhaps, this study also serves to revivify a reading of the novels and is a further reminder of their layered richness and complexity and of a spiritual dimension which goes beyond simple ideas of human charity.' The Use of English

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Reading Dickens's Novels After The Waste Land
'A revelation by which men are to guide themselves': Dickens and Christian Theology
'The debilitated old house in the city': London as Haunted House
'A great (and dirty) city': London's Dirt and the Terrors of Obscurity
'Angel and devil by turns': The Detective Figure in Bleak House
'A road of ashes': London's Railways and the Providential Timetable
'The secrets of the river': The Thames within London
'A dream of demon heads and savage eyes': The Metropolitan Crowd
Conclusion: 'What is the city over the mountains?'
Notes
Bibliography
Index

KARL SMITH studied at St Andrews University, UK. He held a teaching fellowship at the University of Dundee for six years and is currently involved in educational work in Malawi. He has published articles in Dickens Studies Annual and Dickensian, and an introduction and notes to Dombey and Son.