To begin,
The society was founded by forty participants during the Modern Language Association Convention in New York City on 29 December 1970.
The following were among those present on the occasion:
William Axton, Philip Collins, Paul Davis, Richard Dunn, Donald Erickson, K. J. Fielding, Donald Fanger, Gordon Fleming, George Ford, David Foster, Joseph Gold, Wendell Harris, Bert G. Hornback, Merrit Y. Hughes, Louis James, Edgar Johnson, E. D. H. Johnson, Lauriat Lane, Steven Marcus, R. D. McMaster, Jerome Meckier, J. Hillis Miller, Sylvére Monod, Ada Nisbet, Robert Partlow, Robert Patten, Ladell Payne, E. Pearlman, Edgar Rosenberg, Lance Schachterle, Lionel Stevenson, Michael Slater, Michael Steig, Richard Vogler and George Wing.
The year before, thirty-seven people attending a Dickens Seminar at the 1969 MLA Convention in Denver had expressed interest in several issues related to the study of Dickens. On a motion from Edgar Johnson, a panel consisting of Ada Nisbet, Joseph Gold, William Axton and Robert Patten, moderated by Robert Partlow, was elected as an ad hoc planning committee charged to investigate and report on possible future activities of the group. Among the proposals entertained, several came to fruition, including the establishment of a society to encourage and foster the study of Dickens and a newsletter to serve as a forum for exchanging scholarly information.
The latter, which took shape as a quarterly newsletter, distributed its first issue in March 1970, edited by Robert Patten and under the auspices of Dickens Studies Annual. On 1 July 1970, The Dickens Society assumed control of the publication, which continued to appear in March, June, September and December as Dickens Studies Newsletter. In March 1984, a new series took over, when the title changed to Dickens Quarterly. From the beginning of 2015, the publication and distribution of the Dickens Quarterly has been in the hands of Johns Hopkins University Press.