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The purpose of this paper is to provide a profile of the novelist Charles Dickens.

Several biographies and articles about the life of Charles Dickens were examined, to see if there was evidence that he experienced mental health problems.

While Dickens has been acclaimed for his ability to authentically portray the living conditions of the poor in the nineteenth-century Britain, there is comparatively little historical record of the fact that he may have experienced bipolar disorder. This paper suggests that he displayed many of the characteristic symptoms of bipolar.

The story of Dickens’ own childhood is an amazing example of personal resilience. It no doubt enhanced the quality of his writing, but it may also have “sown the seeds” of a later mental illness.

So much attention has been focused on the colourful characters from Dickens’ novels, but little on the problems of the man himself.

The story of Charles Dickens is as fascinating as any of the fictional characters he created, if not even more intriguing. His story confirms the link between writers, creativity and mood disorders.

Given the huge attention and worldwide acclaim paid to the books of Charles Dickens, which have inspired numerous films as well as musicals, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to the author himself and his struggles with mental illness.

ONE MUST BEGIN with Dickens. A chapter by Christopher Hibbert in Charles Dickens, 1812–1870: centenary volume, edited by E. W. F. Tomlin, and The London of Charles Dickens, published by London Transport with aid from the Dickens Fellowship, make a similar study here superfluous; both are illustrated, the latter giving instructions for reaching surviving Dickensian buildings. Neither warns the reader of Dickens's conscious and unconscious imaginative distortion, considered in Humphrey House's The Dickens World. Dickens himself imagined Captain Cuttle hiding in Switzerland and Paul Dombey's wild waves saying ‘Paris’; ‘the association between the writing and the place of writing is so curiously strong in my mind.’ Author and character may be in two places at once. ‘I could not listen at my fireside, for five minutes to the outer noises, but it was borne into my ears that I was dead.’ (Our Mutual Friend)

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

DESPITE the critics who arise to condemn the onward march of the Public Library movement there can be little doubt that after the settling process has been gone through it will be more seriously reckoned with as a factor within our social evolution than at present; and meantime it were well to remember that fine definition of Dickens in regard to the Public Libraries of fifty years ago, and to see whether it was a prophecy or a realisation when he said, “It is grand to know that … the immortal mechanism of God's own hand, the mind, is not forgotten in the din and uproar, but is lodged and tended in a palace of its own.” Let us extend the meaning and see how the Public Library movement has grafted itself upon the mind of the great public by whom it is supported, and how it stands in regard to the authorities by whom it is controlled, and then, taking this position, let us ask the two questions: “How does it express itself popularly, and do people look at it in the light which Dickens did?”

With this number the Library Review enters on its ninth year, and we send greetings to readers at home and abroad. Though the magazine was started just about the time when the depression struck the world, its success was immediate, and we are glad to say that its circulation has increased steadily every year. This is an eminently satisfactory claim to be able to make considering the times through which we have passed.

OUR publication date precludes more than the beginning of our study on the Library Association Conference which, from the point of view of numbers, has been one of the largest. We shall continue in our next issue such comment upon it as the importance of the subjects under discussion would seem to warrant.

The Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the use of preservatives and colouring matters in the preservation and colouring of food, have now issued their report, and the large amount of evidence which is recorded therein will be found to be of the greatest interest to those concerned in striving to obtain a pure and unsophisticated food‐supply. It is of course much to be regretted that the Committee could not see their way to recommend the prohibition of all chemical preservatives in articles of food and drink; but, apart from this want of strength, they have made certain recommendations which, if they become law, will greatly improve the character of certain classes of food. It is satisfactory to note that formaldehyde and its preparations may be absolutely prohibited in foods and drinks; but, on the other hand, it is suggested that salicylic acid may be allowed in certain proportions in food, although in all cases its presence is to be declared. The entire prohibition of preservatives in milk would be a step in the right direction, although it is difficult to see why, in view of this recommendation, boric acid should be allowed to the extent of 0·25 per cent. in cream, more especially as by another recommendation all dietetic preparations intended for the use of invalids or infants are to be entirely free from preservative chemicals; but it will be a severe shock to tho3e traders who are in the habit of using these substances to be informed that they must declare the fact of the admixture by a label attached to the containing vessel. The use of boric acid and borax only is to be permitted in butter and margarine, in proportions not exceeding 0·5 per cent. expressed as boric acid, without notification. It is suggested that the use of salts of copper in the so‐called greening of vegetables should not be allowed, but upon this recommendation the members of the Committee were not unanimous, as in a note attached to the report one member states that he does not agree with the entire exclusion of added copper to food, for the strange reason that certain foods may naturally contain traces of copper. With equal truth it can be said that certain foods may naturally contain traces of arsenic. Is the addition of arsenic therefore to be permitted? The Committee are to be congratulated upon the result of their labours, and when these recommendations become law Great Britain may be regarded as having come a little more into line— although with some apparent reluctance—with those countries who regard the purity of their food‐supplies as a matter of national importance.

THE greatly increased interest in historical studies since the second world war has been, I hope, a welcome challenge to librarians, but it has been very difficult to meet it. That the librarians of our new universities should have had little research material to offer was only to be expected. Unfortunately, research scholars have discovered that our older libraries were also deficient, that source materials had either not been purchased, in the years when they were readily available, or had been acquired only to be discarded at a later date. Recently, therefore, both old libraries and new have found themselves in competition for a small and dwindling supply of out‐of‐print publications.

THE June conference at Margate is so near that we must needs be pre‐occupied with it at the moment although two months ago we were able to give an anticipatory description of the programme. The protracted and cold winter, culminating in the most “perishing” April of the century, possibly of any century since the Great Ice Age, seems on the threshold of May to have dissolved at last in warmer weather. Margate is a lady in the sun, but perhaps something else under cloud, and wise people take warm clothes when they visit her. We hope, however, that they will not be necessary and that for some hundreds of our readers Margate air will be an invigorating experience.