Dickens, melodrama, and the parodic imagination

"Dr. Rem examines the Inimitable's comic method in several of his more popular novels, focusing on Dickens's double generic use of the melodramatist's emotional excesses and the parodist's detached and ironic stance. In the hands of a master like Dickens, the results give us a picture of a writer both rooted in and shaping the popular culture of his time - that, and works of genius seen, as it were, for the first time."--BOOK JACKET.