Jonathan Arac Commissioned Spirits: The Shaping of Social Motion in Dickens, Carlyle, Melville, and Hawthorne. Rutgers University Press, 1979. First edition. 0813508746 xiii/200 pages. Volume, measuring approximately 6.5" x 9.25", is bound in light brown cloth, with stamped black lettering to spine. Book and dust jacket are like new. Dust jacket is preserved in mylar cover. ""Commissioned Spirits" is an innovative study in literary history. It brings together English and American writers who lived at the same time but are usually studied in isolation from each other. Using advanced, modern techniques of textual analysis. Jonathan Arc focuses closely on specific works. These include not only such well-known novels as Melville's masterpiece, "Moby-Dick," and Dickens's "Martin Chuzzlewit" and "Bleak House," but also Thomas Carlyle's titanic "History of the French Revolution," which is still worth the attention of anyone who thinks seriously about social upheaval. Other works singled out for scrutiny are Hawthorne's "House of Seven Gables," Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero-Worship," and Dickens's "Dombey and Son," "Little Dorrit," and "Our Mutual Friend."