This begins the 53rd volume of Dickens Studies Annual, subtitled since volume 8 as Essays on Victorian Fiction. We'd like to mark this occurrence with two signifiers.
The first is we dedicate this volume to the memory of Michael Timko (1925–2021). Without his efforts, the journal would likely not have persisted. As some readers will know and some even remember firsthand, the journal was launched in 1970 to mark the sesquicentennial of Dickens's birth and was edited by Robert B. Partlow Jr. and published by Southern Illinois University Press. The quality was strong, but the reign ended with volume 7. While volume 1 appeared in 1970, volume 7 appeared in 1978, thus seven volumes in nine years, if you are counting. Enter Mike Timko.
At that time, he was the Deputy Executive Officer of the PhD program in English at the Graduate Center of the City University of...
