Slater, Michael 1936-

PERSONAL:

Born 1936. Education: Oxford University, B.A., 1960, Ph.D., 1965.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet St., Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX, England. E-mail— [email protected]

CAREER:

Birkbeck College, University of London, professor of Victorian literature; writer and editor. Distinguished Visiting Professor, Ohio State University; visiting lecturer, University of Debrecen, Hungary; visiting lecturer, University of Kyoto, Japan; Murphy Lecturer in English, Hendrix College, 1982, 1983, and 1984. Chairman of board of trustees, Dickens House Museum, 1996—.

MEMBER:

International Dickens Fellowship (president, 1988-90), Dickens Society of America (president, 1973).

WRITINGS:

Dickens and Women, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1983.

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Dickens, Duckworth (London, England), 1999.

Douglas Jerrold: 1803-1857, Duckworth (London, England), 2002.

EDITOR

Dickens 1970: Centenary Essays, Stein & Day (New York, NY), 1970.

(And author of introduction and notes) Charles Dickens, The Christmas Books, Penguin Books (Harmondsworth, England), 1971.

(And author of introduction) The Catalogue of the Suzannet Charles Dickens Collection, Sotheby Parke Bernet (Totowa, NJ), 1975.

Charles Dickens, Dickens on America and the Americans, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1978.

(And author of introduction and notes) Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, illustrated by Hablot K. Browne, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 1978.

(Author of introduction) Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby: Reproduced in Facsimile from the Original Monthly Parts of 1838-39, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1982.

(And author of introduction) Thomas Love Peacock, Headlong Hall; and Gryll Grange, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Nicolas Bentley and Nina Burgis) The Dickens Index, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers, 1833-39, illustrated by George Cruikshank, Dent (London, England), 1993, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1994, later edition published as Dickens' Journalism: Sketches by Boz and Other Early papers, 1833-39, Phoenix Giants (London, England), 1994.

Charles Dickens, The Amusements of the People and Other Papers: Reports, Essays, and Reviews, 1834-51, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1996.

Charles Dickens, Gone Astray and Other Papers from Household Words, 1851-59, Dent (London, England), 1998, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 1999.

(With John Drew) Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller and Other Papers, 1859-70, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 2000.

(And author of introduction and notes) Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings, Penguin Books (London, England), 2003.

Former editor, The Dickensian.

SIDELIGHTS:

Michael Slater is a professor of Victorian literature with a special interest in Charles Dickens. To quote Catherine Peters in the Times Literary Supplement, Slater "has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Dickens's writings." Peters went on to comment that Slater's An Intelligent Person's Guide to Dickens is "the distillation of a lifetime's immersion in Dickens." Through the "Dent Uniform Series," Slater edited four volumes of Dickens's journalism, covering the entire length of the illustrious author's career. Slater has also written a book, Dickens and Women, that examines not only Dickens's relationships with the women in his life but also his creation of female characters for his fiction.

Even Slater's biography Douglas Jerrold, 1803-1857 does not stray far from Dickens scholarship, as Jerrold, a playwright and journalist, was Dickens's contemporary and close friend. Well known in his lifetime, Jerrold slipped into obscurity after his death. Slater was the first author in nearly a century to pen a full-length biography of the writer. In a Times Literary Supplement review of Douglas Jerrold, Richard D. Altick wrote: "There was a valuable book to be written about one man's long experience in the symbiotic realms of early Victorian theatre and journalism, and, happily, this is it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albion, fall, 2002, Chris R. Vanden Bossche, review of The Uncommercial Traveller and Other Papers, 1859-70, p. 523.

Notes and Queries, December, 1997, James A. Davies, review of The Amusements of the People and Other Papers: Reports, Essays, and Reviews, 1834-51, p. 564.

Times Literary Supplement, January 14, 2000, Catherine Peters, "Dimming the Sparkler," p. 9; January 5, 2001, D.J. Taylor, "His Restless, Unappeasable Gaze," p. 32; January 17, 2003, Richard D. Altick, "Robespierre of Grub Street," p. 9.