English professor Anna Gibson received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to complete the Digital Dickens Notes Project (DDNP). The interactive website turns the author’s working notes into a digital exploration of his writing process and the serialized publication strategies that shaped his storytelling.

The two-year, $172,167 NEH grant adds three more annotated novels to the four already on the free website, bringing the total to seven novels with working notes, introductions and editorial comments. The funding will also enable Gibson, who co-directs the project, to publish annotated planning documents for three other Dickens works and integrate images of the original working notes into the existing and new online editions.

By focusing on Dickens’s working notes, the DDNP enables users to explore the author’s creative process. It also brings literary scholarship beyond the classroom and into the hands of a broader audience through detailed annotations and analysis.

Describing the significance of finishing the project, Gibson said that she and her team will create a complete open-access, fully annotated edition of all surviving working notes for Dickens’s novels, offering valuable insights for scholars and students of Dickens, the novel, and serial publication.

“It’s quite fascinating to see Dickens changing his mind, giving himself reminders, moving whole chapters from one place to another, even changing the title of a novel as he’s in the process of writing it (Little Dorrit),” said Gibson. 

“The project is interdisciplinary, in that, as a digital humanities project, we are thinking about how innovative digital tools and literary criticism can work hand-in-hand.“

“The project is interdisciplinary, in that, as a digital humanities project, we are thinking about how innovative digital tools and literary criticism can work hand-in-hand.“

Dickens authored 15 novels, all written, conceived and published in serial installments, but he only began keeping notes halfway through his career. The author preserved the notes with his manuscripts, which are archived in libraries in England and New York. 

The first phase of the project included digitizing the working notes of four of Dickens’s novels – David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times and Little Dorrit – and uploading them to the website, along with critical introductions and annotations.

With the new funding, the three remaining full sets of Dickens’s working notes for Dombey & Son, Our Mutual Friend, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood will be uploaded to the site. The planning documents for The Old Curiosity Shop, Martin Chuzzlewit and Great Expectations will also be added.

Gibson and her co-director, Adam Grener, a literature professor in New Zealand, will once again visit the archives, transcribe the original working notes and add annotations to accompany them online. The recent grant will also enable them to integrate 132 images of the original working notes in the online editions.

Doing so allows users to engage directly with the rich, visual aspects of Dickens’s writing process — his handwriting, ink colors, markings and page layout. Gibson said that pairing these manuscript images with legible transcriptions and annotations helps users read Dickens’s challenging handwriting and explain the relevance of, and contexts for, entries.

She added that she and her team are also gathering assignments, activities and resources from teachers to help others think about how to teach with attention to Dickens’s notes, serial form and compositional practice.

The DDNP is one of 97 projects, totaling $34.79 million, that the NEH recently funded. The NEH is an independent federal agency and among the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States.