Mention

THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS--John Forster, Edited and Annotated by J. W. T. Ley--Doubleday Doran ($10). The standard dignified biography by Dickens' intimate friend is amplified, contradicted, completed, by 600 modern footnotes.

CHARLES DICKENS, A Biography From New Sources--Ralph Straus--Cosmopolitan ($4). Dickens the showman sketched with humor and sympathy.

THIS SIDE IDOLATRY, A Novel Based on the Life of Dickens--C. E. Bechhofer Roberts ("Ephesian")--Bobbs Merrill ($2.50). The faults and foibles of ''the Inimitable" show him less noble, less lovable, more humanly possible. Dickens lovers will chafe, disagree.