The Dickens Universe is a unique cultural event that brings together scholars, teachers, students, and members of the general public for a week of stimulating discussion and festive social activity on the beautiful Santa Cruz campus of the University of California—all focused on one or two Victorian novels, usually (but not always) one by Charles Dickens. In 2022, the Dickens Universe will pair one of the best-known novels of Dickens, David Copperfield, with the most famous of all nineteenth-century African-American novels, Frances…