In this impressive study, Hager (English, Simmons College, Mass.) travels through the rich land of Dickens' novels, keeping her eye firmly focussed on his treatment of marriage. As she relates in her opening chapter, marriage and divorce were subject to specific laws and mores. The struggle of men and women in unhappy marriages, marrying for money, dashed expectations in marriage, staying married because of money, and many varieties of these conditions are the stuff of Dickens' fiction, here highlighted by Hager to reveal a frequent theme--the failed marriage plot--that is found not only in Dickens, but in his contemporaries, including Thackeray and Brontë. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)