When Charles Dickens enters the house of fi ction...Armelle Parey WHEN CHARLES DICKENS ENTERS THE HOUSE

Abstract: Charles Dickens is probably THE Victorian novelist posterity remembers best, or at least the most, to the extent that he also occasionally appears as a character of fi ction. Part of his private life is thus rewritten in Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs (1997) which also dwells on his activity as a writer, pretending to account for the circumstances of the writing of Great Expectations. Dickens has also appeared in Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea (2002), where circumstances for his writing are emphasized too. This paper is thus a modest attempt at assessing these fi ctional representations of Charles Dickens in today’s novels. Key-words: Charles Dickens, Peter Carey, Joseph O’Connor, rewriting, Postmodern novels, self-refl exivity. Resumen: Charles Dickens probablemente es EL novelista victoriano que la posteridad mejor recuerda, o al menos, al que más recuerda, hasta el punto de que ocasionalmente aparece como un personaje de fi cción. Así, un parte de su vida privada está reescrita en la novela Jack Maggs de Peter Carey (1997) que también se concentra en su actividad como escritor, fi ngiendo explicar las circunstancias de la novela Great Expectations