Getting A Head Start On The Competition: Union College's Dickens in America.Although 2012 marks the bicentennial of Charles Dickens's birth, Union College in Schenectady, New York is jumping the gun with an exhibit at the Schaffer Library entitled Dickens in America. The Schaffer is showcasing several rare volumes of the author's works, including a recently acquired first edition of A Christmas Carol. The exhibit highlights the Victorian novelist's celebrated lecture tours of the United States in 1842 and 1867-68, and includes archival materials from several of Dickens's contemporaries. The collected papers of noted author, editor, statesman, and lawyer John Bigelow,...