FIRST BOOK, AND ORIGIN OF PICKWICK.
1836.
_Sketches by Boz_--Fancy-piece by N. P. Willis:
a Poor English Author--Start of
_Pickwick_--Marriage to Miss Hogarth--First
Connection with Chapman & Hall--Mr. Seymour's
Part in _Pickwick_--Letters relating
thereto--C. D.'s own Account--False Claims
refuted--Pickwick's Original, his Figure and
his Name--First Sprightly Runnings of
Genius--The _Sketches_ characterized--Mr.
Seymour's Death--New Illustrator chosen--Mr.
Hablot K. Browne--C. D. leaves the
Gallery--_Strange Gentleman_ and _Village
Coquettes_.
THE opening of 1836 found him collecting into two volumes the first
series of _Sketches by Boz_, of which he had sold the copyright for a
conditional payment of (I think) a hundred and fifty pounds to a young
publisher named Macrone, whose acquaintance he had made through Mr.
Ainsworth a few weeks before.[7] At this time also, we are told in a
letter before quoted, the editorship of the _Monthly Magazine_ having
come into Mr. James Grant's hands, this gentleman, applying to him
through its previous editor to know if he would again contribute to it,
learned two things: the first, that he was going to be married; and the
second, that, having entered into an arrangement to write a monthly
serial, his duties in future would leave him small spare time. Both
pieces of news were soon confirmed. The _Times_ of the 26th of March,
1836, gave notice that on the 31st would be published the first shilling
number of the _Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, edited by Boz_;
and the same journal of a few days later announced that on the 2d of
April Mr. Charles Dickens had married Catherine, the eldest daughter of
Mr. George Hogarth, whom already we have met as his fellow-worker on the
_Chronicle_. The honeymoon was passed in the neighborhood to which at
all times of interest in his life he turned with a strange recurring
fondness; and while the young couple are at the quiet little village of
Chalk, on the road between Gravesend and Rochester, I will relate
exactly the origin of the ever-memorable Mr. Pickwick.
A young publishing-house had started recently, among other enterprises
ingenious rather than important, a Library of Fiction; among the authors
they wished to enlist in it was the writer of the sketches in the
_Monthly_; and, to the extent of one paper during the past year, they
had effected this through their editor, Mr. Charles Whitehead, a very
ingenious and very unfortunate man. "I was not aware," wrote the elder
member of the firm to Dickens, thirteen years later, in a letter to
which reference was made[8] in the preface to _Pickwick_ in one of his
later editions, "that you were writing in the _Chronicle_, or what your
name was; but Whitehead, who was an old _Monthly_ man, recollected it,
and got you to write The Tuggs's at Ramsgate."
And now comes another person on the scene. "In November, 1835,"
continues Mr. Chapman, "we published a little book called the _Squib
Annual_, with plates by Seymour; and it was during my visit to him to
see after them that he said he should like to do a series of
cockney-sporting plates of a superior sort to those he had already
published. I said I thought they might do, if accompanied by
letter-press and published in monthly parts; and, this being agreed to,
we wrote to the author of _Three Courses and a Dessert_, and proposed
it; but, receiving no answer, the scheme dropped for some months, till
Seymour said he wished us to decide, as another job had offered which
would fully occupy his time; and it was on this we decided to ask you to
do it. Having opened already a connection with you for our Library of
Fiction, we naturally applied to you to do the _Pickwick_; but I do not
think we even mentioned our intention to Mr. Seymour, and I am quite
sure that from the beginning to the end nobody but yourself had anything
whatever to do with it. Our prospectus was out at the end of February,
and it had all been arranged before that date."
The member of the firm who carried the application to him in Furnival's
Inn was not the writer of this letter, but Mr. Hall, who had sold him
two years before, not knowing that he was the purchaser, the magazine in
which his first effusion was printed; and he has himself described what
passed at the interview: "The idea propounded to me was that the monthly
something should be a vehicle for certain plates to be executed by Mr.
Seymour; and there was a notion, either on the part of that admirable
humorous artist, or of my visitor, that a NIMROD CLUB, the members of
which were to go out shooting, fishing, and so forth, and getting
themselves into difficulties through their want of dexterity, would be
the best means of introducing these. I objected, on consideration that,
although born and partly bred in the country, I was no great sportsman,
except in regard to all kinds of locomotion; that the idea was not
novel, and had already been much used; that it would be infinitely
better for the plates to arise naturally out of the text; and that I
would like to take my own way, with a freer range of English scenes and
people, and was afraid I should ultimately do so in any case, whatever
course I might prescribe to myself at starting. My views being deferred
to, I thought of Mr. Pickwick, and wrote the first number; from the
proof-sheets of which Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the club and his
happy portrait of its founder. I connected Mr. Pickwick with a club,
because of the original suggestion; and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly
for the use of Mr. Seymour."
Mr. Hall was dead when this statement was first made, in the preface to
the cheap edition in 1847; but Mr. Chapman clearly recollected his
partner's account of the interview, and confirmed every part of it, in
his letter of 1849,[9] with one exception. In giving Mr. Seymour credit
for the figure by which all the habitable globe knows Mr. Pickwick, and
which certainly at the outset helped to make him a reality, it had given
the artist too much. The reader will hardly be so startled as I was on
coming to the closing line of Mr. Chapman's confirmatory letter: "As
this letter is to be historical, I may as well claim what little belongs
to me in the matter, and that is the figure of Pickwick. Seymour's first
sketch was of a long, thin man. The present immortal one he made from my
description of a friend of mine at Richmond, a fat old beau, who would
wear, in spite of the ladies' protests, drab tights and black gaiters.
His name was John Foster."
On the coincidences, resemblances, and surprises of life, Dickens liked
especially to dwell, and few things moved his fancy so pleasantly. The
world, he would say, was so much smaller than we thought it; we were all
so connected by fate without knowing it; people supposed to be far apart
were so constantly elbowing each other; and to-morrow bore so close a
resemblance to nothing half so much as to yesterday. Here were the only
two leading incidents of his own life before I knew him, his marriage
and the first appearance of his Pickwick; and it turned out after all
that I had some shadowy association with both. He was married on the
anniversary of my birthday, and the original of the figure of Mr.
Pickwick bore my name.[10]
The first number had not yet appeared when his _Sketches by Boz,
Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People_, came forth in two
duodecimos with some capital cuts by Cruikshank, and with a preface in
which he spoke of the nervousness he should have had in venturing alone
before the public, and of his delight in getting the help of Cruikshank,
who had frequently contributed to the success, though his well-earned
reputation rendered it impossible for him ever to have shared the
hazard, of similar undertakings. It very soon became apparent that there
was no hazard here. The _Sketches_ were much more talked about than the
first two or three numbers of _Pickwick_, and I remember still with what
hearty praise the book was first named to me by my dear friend Albany
Fonblanque, as keen and clear a judge as ever lived either of books or
men. Richly did it merit all the praise it had, and more, I will add,
than he was ever disposed to give to it himself. He decidedly underrated
it. He gave, in subsequent writings, so much more perfect form and
fullness to everything it contained, that he did not care to credit
himself with the marvel of having yet so early anticipated so much. But
the first sprightly runnings of his genius are undoubtedly here. Mr.
Bumble is in the parish sketches, and Mr. Dawkins the dodger in the Old
Bailey scenes. There is laughter and fun to excess, never misapplied;
there are the minute points and shades of character, with all the
discrimination and nicety of detail, afterwards so famous; there is
everywhere the most perfect ease and skill of handling. The observation
shown throughout is nothing short of wonderful. Things are painted
literally as they are, and, whatever the picture, whether of every-day
vulgar, shabby-genteel, or downright low, with neither the condescending
air which is affectation, nor the too familiar one which is slang. The
book altogether is a perfectly unaffected, unpretentious, honest
performance. Under its manly, sensible, straightforward vein of talk
there is running at the same time a natural flow of sentiment never
sentimental, of humor always easy and unforced, and of pathos for the
most part dramatic or picturesque, under which lay the germ of what his
mature genius took afterwards most delight in. Of course there are
inequalities in it, and some things that would have been better away;
but it is a book that might have stood its ground, even if it had stood
alone, as containing unusually truthful observation of a sort of life
between the middle class and the low, which, having few attractions for
bookish observers, was quite unhackneyed ground. It had otherwise also
the very special merit of being in no respect bookish or commonplace in
its descriptions of the old city with which its writer was so familiar.
It was a picture of every-day London at its best and worst, in its
humors and enjoyments as well as its sufferings and sins, pervaded
everywhere not only with the absolute reality of the things depicted,
but also with that subtle sense and mastery of feeling which gives to
the reader's sympathies invariably right direction, and awakens
consideration, tenderness, and kindness precisely for those who most
need such help.
Between the first and the second numbers of _Pickwick_, the artist, Mr.
Seymour, died by his own hand; and the number came out with three
instead of four illustrations. Dickens had seen the unhappy man only
once, forty-eight hours before his death; when he went to Furnival's Inn
with an etching for the "stroller's tale" in that number, which, altered
at Dickens's suggestion, he brought away again for the few further
touches that occupied him to a late hour of the night before he
destroyed himself. A notice attached to the number informed the public
of this latter fact. There was at first a little difficulty in replacing
him, and for a single number Mr. Buss was interposed. But before the
fourth number a choice had been made, which as time went on was so
thoroughly justified, that through the greater part of the wonderful
career which was then beginning the connection was kept up, and Mr.
Hablot Browne's name is not unworthily associated with the masterpieces
of Dickens's genius. An incident which I heard related by Mr. Thackeray
at one of the Royal Academy dinners belongs to this time: "I can
remember when Mr. Dickens was a very young man, and had commenced
delighting the world with some charming humorous works in covers which
were colored light green and came out once a month, that this young man
wanted an artist to illustrate his writings; and I recollect walking up
to his chambers in Furnival's Inn, with two or three drawings in my
hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suitable." Dickens has
himself described another change now made in the publication: "We
started with a number of twenty-four pages and four illustrations. Mr.
Seymour's sudden and lamented death before the second number was
published, brought about a quick decision upon a point already in
agitation: the number became one of thirty-two pages with only two
illustrations, and remained so to the end."
The Session of 1836 terminated his connection with the gallery, and some
fruits of his increased leisure showed themselves before the close of
the year. His eldest sister's musical attainments and connections had
introduced him to many cultivators and professors of that art; he was
led to take much interest in Mr. Braham's enterprise at the St. James's
theatre; and in aid of it he wrote a farce for Mr. Harley, founded upon
one of his sketches, and the story and songs for an opera composed by
his friend Mr. Hullah. Both the _Strange Gentleman_, acted in September,
and the _Village Coquettes_, produced in December, 1836, had a good
success; and the last is memorable to me for having brought me first
into personal communication with Dickens.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] To this date belongs a visit paid him at Furnival's Inn in Mr.
Macrone's company by the notorious Mr. N. P. Willis, who calls him "a
young paragraphist for the _Morning Chronicle_," and thus sketches his
residence and himself: "In the most crowded part of Holborn, within a
door or two of the Bull-and-Mouth Inn, we pulled up at the entrance of a
large building used for lawyers' chambers. I followed by a long flight
of stairs to an upper story, and was ushered into an uncarpeted and
bleak-looking room, with a deal table, two or three chairs and a few
books, a small boy and Mr. Dickens, for the contents. I was only struck
at first with one thing (and I made a memorandum of it that evening as
the strongest instance I had seen of English obsequiousness to
employers), the degree to which the poor author was overpowered with the
honor of his publisher's visit! I remember saying to myself, as I sat
down on a rickety chair, 'My good fellow, if you were in America with
that fine face and your ready quill, you would have no need to be
condescended to by a publisher.' Dickens was dressed very much as he has
since described Dick Swiveller, _minus_ the swell look. His hair was
cropped close to his head, his clothes scant, though jauntily cut, and,
after changing a ragged office-coat for a shabby blue, he stood by the
door, collarless and buttoned up, the very personification, I thought,
of a close sailer to the wind." I remember, while my friend lived, our
laughing heartily at this description, hardly a word of which is true;
and I give it now as no unfair specimen of the kind of garbage that
since his death also has been served up only too plentifully by some of
his own as well as by others of Mr. Willis's countrymen.
[8] Not quoted in detail, on that or any other occasion; though referred
to. It was, however, placed in my hands, for use if occasion should
arise, when Dickens went to America in 1867. The letter bears date the
7th July, 1849, and was Mr. Chapman's answer to the question Dickens had
asked him, whether the account of the origin of _Pickwick_ which he had
given in the preface to the cheap edition in 1847 was not strictly
correct. "It is so correctly described," was Mr. Chapman's opening
remark, "that I can throw but little additional light on it." The name
of his hero, I may add, Dickens took from that of a celebrated
coach-proprietor of Bath.
[9] The appeal was then made to him because of recent foolish statements
by members of Mr. Seymour's family, which Dickens thus contradicted: "It
is with great unwillingness that I notice some intangible and incoherent
assertions which have been made, professedly on behalf of Mr. Seymour,
to the effect that he had some share in the invention of this book, or
of anything in it, not faithfully described in the foregoing paragraph.
With the moderation that is due equally to my respect for the memory of
a brother-artist, and to my self-respect, I confine myself to placing on
record here the facts--That Mr. Seymour never originated or suggested an
incident, a phrase, or a word, to be found in this book. That Mr.
Seymour died when only twenty-four pages of this book were published,
and when assuredly not forty-eight were written. That I believe I never
saw Mr. Seymour's handwriting in my life. That I never saw Mr. Seymour
but once in my life, and that was on the night but one before his death,
when he certainly offered no suggestion whatsoever. That I saw him then
in the presence of two persons, both living, perfectly acquainted with
all these facts, and whose written testimony to them I possess. Lastly,
that Mr. Edward Chapman (the survivor of the original firm of Chapman &
Hall) has set down in writing, for similar preservation, his personal
knowledge of the origin and progress of this book, of the monstrosity of
the baseless assertions in question, and (tested by details) even of the
self-evident impossibility of there being any truth in them." The
"written testimony" alluded to is also in my possession, having been
inclosed to me by Dickens, in 1867, with Mr. Chapman's letter here
referred to.
[10] Whether Mr. Chapman spelt the name correctly, or has unconsciously
deprived his fat beau of the letter "r," I cannot say; but experience
tells me that the latter is probable. I have been trying all my life to
get my own name spelt correctly, and have only very imperfectly
succeeded.