‘Humming-tops’ and ‘Steampunk synergies’: Dickens’s Journalism and Non-Fiction since the turn of the Twenty-First Century

This article opens a special edition of the journal 'Nineteenth-Century Prose' dedicated to the non-fiction of Charles Dickens, in particular his work as a writer for magazines and periodicals, and as an editor, responsable for the 'humming-top' of a weekly magazine, for over twenty years (1850-70). It offers a review of the field, outlining a critical history of Dickens's journalism since the late 1990s, explaining, analysing and critiquing its shape and contours. It concludes with a review of the digital manifestations of interest in this side of Dickens's output, which seek to establish 'steampunk synergies' between the technological revolutions of the mid-Victorian era and those of our own. The Bibliography serves as a finding list for future researchers in this area