of warehouse or stable for a parcels delivery company, and the
neighbourhood round about has somewhat changed since the days of
"Copperfield" and "Pickwick." The Charing Cross Railway Station has come
upon the scene, replacing old Hungerford Market, and palatial hotels have
been built where the gardens of Northumberland House once were.
St.-Martin's-in-the-Fields is still in its wonted place, but with a change
for the worse, in that the platform with its ascending steps has been
curtailed during a recent alleged improvement in the roadway in St.
Martin's Lane.
The National Gallery remains as of yore, except that it has recently been
isolated by pulling down some adjoining structures to the northwest, as a
precautionary measure against fire.
The Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square, then newly arrived, is as it was
in the days of Dickens' early life. But there is little suggestion in the
hotel or its surroundings of its ever having been a "mouldy sort of an
establishment in a close neighbourhood," and it is hard to believe that
Copperfield's bedroom "smelt like a hackney-coach and was shut up like a
family vault."
DICKENS' LITERARY LIFE
A brief account is here given of Dickens' literary career, which presents
chronologically a review of his productions as they appeared.
The first of his literary efforts was the tragedy of "The Sultan of
India," written in his precocious school-days at Chatham, when, if we
except his Parliamentary journalistic work, nothing else was put forth
until "The Dinner at Poplar Walk" was published in the _Monthly Magazine_
(1833). The original "Sketches by Boz"--the first of which bore no
signature--also followed in the _Monthly Magazine_. Other sketches under
the same generic title also appeared in the _Evening Chronicle_, and yet
others, under the title of "Scenes and Characters," were published in
"Bell's Life in London" and the "Library of Fiction."
In 1836 a number of these fugitive pieces were collected into a volume,
the copyright of which was sold to one Macrone for £100, who published
them under the first and best known title, "Sketches by Boz." The
familiar story of "Pickwick," its early conception and its final
publication, is well known. Its first publication (in parts) dated from
1836-37. About this time Dickens had another bad attack of stage-fever,
and wrote a farce, "The Strange Gentleman," the libretto of an opera
called "The Village Coquettes," and a comedy, "Is She His Wife?" more
particularly perhaps for amateur representation, in which he was very fond
of taking part. "Oliver Twist," a courageous attack on the Poor Laws and
Bumbledom, followed in 1838, though it was not completed until after
"Nicholas Nickleby" began to appear in 1839.
At this time was started _Master Humphrey's Clock_, a sort of miscellany
in which it was intended to publish a series of papers written chiefly by
Dickens himself after the style of Addison's _Spectator_ of a former day.
It was not at first successful, and only upon the commencement therein of
the "Old Curiosity Shop" did it take on in any sense.
Master Humphrey's Clock ran down with the completion of the novel, though
this story, in company with "Barnaby Rudge," a tale of the riots of '80,
was not issued in book form until 1848 and 1849.
The authorship of "Pickwick" was unknown by the great mass of the public
until very nearly the completion of the work in serial parts. Much
conjecture was raised, and a writer in _Bentley's Miscellany_ published
the following lines under the title of:
IMPROMPTU
_"Who the_ Dickens _'Boz' could be_
_Puzzled many a learned elf,_
_Till time revealed the mystery,_
_And 'Boz' appeared as_ Dickens' _self."_
The other contributions made by Dickens to this periodical were afterward
added to his published works under the title of "Master Humphrey's Clock."
Dickens' first tour to America followed the abandonment of the periodical
in 1842. This event called forth the following verses by Tom Hood,
entitled:
TO CHARLES DICKENS
_On his Proposed Voyage to America, 1842._
_"Pshaw! away with leaf and berry_
_And the sober-sided cup!_
_Bring a Goblet and bright Sherry!_
_And a bumper fill me up.--_
_Tho' I had a pledge to shiver,_
_And the longest ever was,--_
_Ere his vessel leaves our river,_
_I will drink a health to 'Boz.'_
_"Here's success to all his antics,_
_Since it pleases him to roam,_
_And to paddle o'er Atlantics,_
_After such a sale at home_
_May he shun all rocks whatever,_
_And the shallow sand that lurks,--_
_And his passage be as clever_
_As the best among his works."_
With what favour his visit was received in America is too well known to
require detailed mention here. His experiences and observations recounted
in "American Notes," first published in 1842 upon his return to England,
has told these vividly and picturesquely, if not exactly consistently.
As a reader, Dickens stood as preëminently to the fore as when posing as a
writer. His phenomenal success on the platform is given in detail in a
volume written by George Dolby, who accompanied him and managed his
American tour. The mental and physical strain was such that in fifteen
years of combined editorial, literary, and reading labours, it left him
attenuated and finally curtailed his brilliant work.
What the readings really did accomplish was to increase and firmly assure
the permanence of his already wide-spread fame.
"Martin Chuzzlewit" had begun to appear in shilling parts in 1843, and at
that time was considered by the novelist to be by far the best work he
had yet written. "Dombey and Son" followed, and afterward "David
Copperfield," to which Dickens transferred his affections from
"Chuzzlewit." This new "child of fancy," as he called it, was so largely
autobiographical as to be accepted by many as being a recounting of his
own early struggles as a poor boy in London, and his early literary
labours. He himself said: "I seemed to be sending a part of myself into
the shadowy world."
While "Chuzzlewit" was appearing in serial form, that masterpiece perhaps
of all Dickens' shorter stories, "A Christmas Carol,"--the first of the
"Christmas Stories,"--appeared.
This earned for its author the sobriquet, "The Apostle of Christmas."
Its immediate popularity and success was, perhaps, influenced by the
following endorsement from Thackeray:
"It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it
a personal kindness."
Others under the same generic title followed: "The Chimes," 1844; "The
Cricket on the Hearth," 1845; "The Battle of Life," 1846; and "The Haunted
Man," 1848. In January, 1846, Dickens began his short connection with the
_Daily News_. Here his "Pictures from Italy" appeared, he having just
returned from a journey thither.
"Dombey and Son," which Dickens had begun at Rosemont, Lausanne, took him
from 1846 to 1848 to complete.
In 1850 the idea of _Household Words_, the periodical with which Dickens'
fame is best remembered, took shape. His idea was for a low-priced
periodical, to be partly original, and in part selected. "I want to
suppose," he wrote, "a certain shadow which may go into any place by
starlight, moonlight, sunlight, or candle-light, and be in all homes and
all nooks and corners." The general outlines and plans were settled, but
there appears to have been no end of difficulty in choosing a suitable
name. "The Highway of Life," "The Holly Tree," "The Household Voice," "The
Household Guest," and many others were thought of, and finally was hit
upon "Household Words," the first number of which appeared on March 30,
1850, with the opening chapters of a serial by Mrs. Gaskell, whose work
Dickens greatly admired. In number two appeared Dickens' own pathetic
story, "The Child's Dream of a Star." In 1859, as originally conceived,
_Household Words_ was discontinued, from no want of success, but as an
expediency brought about through disagreement among the various
proprietors. Dickens bought the property in, and started afresh under the
title of _All the Year Round_, among whose contributors were Edmund Yates,
Percy Fitzgerald, Charles Lever, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, and Lord
Lytton. This paper in turn came to its finish, and phoenix-like took
shape again as _Household Words_, which in one form or another has endured
to the present day, its present editor (1903) being Hall Caine, Jr., a son
of the novelist.
Apart from the general circulation, the special Christmas numbers had an
enormous sale. In these appeared other of the shorter pieces which have
since become famous,--"Mugby Junction," "The Seven Poor Travellers," "The
Haunted House," etc.
In the pages of _Household Words_ "The Child's History of England," "The
Uncommercial Traveller" (1861), and "Hard Times" (1854) first appeared;
while _All the Year Round_ first presented "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859)
and "Great Expectations."
"Bleak House" was issued in parts in 1852. "Little Dorrit," originally
intended to be called "Nobody's Fault," was published in 1857.
"Our Mutual Friend" dates from 1865 in book form. "Edwin Drood" was left
unfinished at the author's death in 1870.
In 1868 "The Uncommercial Traveller" was elaborated for the first issue in
_All the Year Round_, and subsequently again given to the world in revised
book form.
Curiously enough, though most of Dickens' works were uncompleted before
they began to appear serially, they have been universally considered to
show absolutely no lack of continuity, or the least semblance of being in
any way disjointed.
Dickens' second visit to America in 1867 was, like its predecessor, a
stupendous success. A New York paper stated at this time that: "Of the
millions here who treasure every word he has written, there are tens of
thousands who would make a large sacrifice to see and hear a man who has
made so many happy hours."
Dickens' fame had deservedly attracted a large circle of acquaintances
around him, who, in truth, became firmly converted into fast friends.
His literary life and his daily labours had so identified him with the
literary London of the day that all reference to literary events of that
time must make due allowance of his movements.
The house at 48 Doughty Street still stands, and at the end of 1839 the
novelist removed to the "handsome house with a considerable garden" in
Devonshire Terrace, near Regent's Park, the subject of a sketch by
Maclise which is here given. His holidays during his early and busy years
were spent at Broadstairs, Twickenham, and Petersham on the Thames, just
above Richmond. Dickens was always a great traveller, and his journeys
often took him far afield.
[Illustration: DICKENS' HOUSE IN DEVONSHIRE TERRACE.
_From a drawing by Maclise._]
[Illustration: NO. 48 DOUGHTY STREET, WHERE DICKENS LIVED.]
In 1841 he visited Landor at Bath, and in the same year he made an
excursion to Scotland and was granted the freedom of the city of
Edinburgh. The first visit to America was undertaken in 1842; his Italian
travels in 1844; residence in Switzerland 1846; three months in Paris
1847; Switzerland and Italy revisited in 1853. Three summers were spent at
Boulogne in 1853, 1854, 1856; residence in Paris 1855-56; America
revisited 1867-68.
Such in brief is a review of the physical activities of the author. He did
not go to Australia--as he was variously importuned--but enough is given
to show that, in spite of his literary associations with old London and
its institutions, Charles Dickens was, for a fact, a very cosmopolitan
observer.
As for Dickens' daily round of London life, it is best represented by the
period of the magazines, _Master Humphrey's Clock_, _Household Words_, and
_All the Year Round_, particularly that of the former. In those days he
first met with the severe strain which in after life proved, no doubt, to
have shortened his days.
Considering his abilities and his early vogue, Dickens made some
astonishingly bad blunders in connection with his agreements with
publishers; of these his biographer Forster tells in detail.
After the publication of "Martin Chuzzlewit," Dickens expressed
dissatisfaction with his publishers, Messrs. Chapman and Hall, which
resulted in his making an agreement with Messrs. Bradbury and Evans.
To conserve his intellectual resources, he resolved to again visit Italy,
to which country he repaired after a farewell dinner given him at
Greenwich, where Turner, the artist, and many other notables attended. He
accordingly settled in a suburb of Genoa, where he wrote "The Chimes," and
came back to London especially to read it to his friends. Writing from
Genoa to Forster in November, 1844, he said:
"... But the party for the night following? I know you have consented to
the party. Let me see. Don't have any one this particular night for
dinner, but let it be a summons for the special purpose, at half-past six.
Carlyle indispensable, and I should like his wife of all things; _her_
judgment would be invaluable. You will ask Mac, and why not his sister?
Stanny and Jerrold I should particularly wish; Edwin Landseer, Blanchard
... and when I meet you, oh! Heaven, what a week we will have!"
[Illustration: THE READING OF "THE CHIMES" AT FORSTER'S HOUSE IN LINCOLN'S
INN FIELDS.
_From a drawing by D. Maclise._]
Forster further describes the occasion itself as being--
"Rather memorable ... the germ of those readings to larger audiences by
which, as much as by his books, the world knew him."
Among those present was Maclise, who, says Forster, "made a note of it" in
pencil, which is reproduced herein. "It will tell the reader all he can
wish to know, and he will thus see of whom the party consisted."
Of Dickens' entire literary career nothing was more successful than his
famous public readings. From that night at Forster's house in Lincoln's
Inn Fields (No. 58, still standing, 1903), afterward made use of as Mr.
Tulkinghorn's in "Bleak House," and later among other friends, at first in
a purely informal and private manner and in a semi-public way for
charitable objects, these diversions, so powerful and realistic were they,
ultimately grew into an out-and-out recognized business enterprise.
The first series was inaugurated in 1858-59, and absolutely took the
country by storm, meeting with the greatest personal affection and
respect wherever he went. In Dublin there was almost a riot. People broke
the pay-box, and freely offered £5 for a stall. In Belfast he had enormous
audiences, being compelled, he said, to turn half the town away. The
reading over, the people ran after him to look at him. "Do me the honour,"
said one, "to shake hands, Misther Dickens, and God bless you, sir; not
ounly for the light you've been to me this night, but for the light you've
been to me house, sir (and God bless your face!), this many a year." Men
cried undisguisedly.
During the second American tour, in 1867, the public went almost mad. In
Boston his reception was beyond all expectations; and in New York the
speculators assembled the night before the reading in long lines to wait
the opening of the doors at nine the next morning for the issue of the
tickets. They continued to come all night, and at five o'clock in the
morning there were two lines of eight hundred each, whilst at eight there
were five thousand. At nine o'clock, each of the two lines reached more
than three-quarters of a mile in length, members of the families were
relieving each other, waiters from neighbouring restaurants were serving
breakfasts in the open December air, and excited applicants for tickets
offering five or ten dollars for the mere permission to exchange places
with other persons standing nearer the head of the line. Excitement and
enthusiasm increased wherever he travelled, and it has been freely
observed by all who knew him well that this excitement and strain finally
culminated, after he had returned to England and undertaken there another
series of readings, in an illness which hastened his death.
THE HIGHWAY OF LETTERS
In Dickens' time, as in our own, and even at as early a period as that of
Drayton, Fleet Street, as it has latterly been known, has been the abode
of letters and of literary labours.
The diarists, journalists, political and religious writers of every party
and creed have adopted it as their own particular province. Grub Street no
longer exists, so that the simile of Doctor Johnson does not still hold
true.
The former Grub Street--"inhabited by writers of small histories,
dictionaries, and temporary poems" (_vide_ Doctor Johnson's
Dictionary)--has become Milton Street through the mindful regard of some
former sponsor, by reason of the nearness of its location to the former
Bunhill residence of the great epic poet. But modern Fleet Street exists
to-day as the street of journalists and journalism, from the humble
penny-a-liner and his product to the more sedate and verbose political
paragrapher whose reputation extends throughout the world.
Nowhere else is there a long mile of such an atmosphere, redolent of
printers' ink and the bustle attendant upon the production and
distribution of the printed word. And nowhere else is the power of the
press more potent.
Its historian has described it as "a line of street, with shops and houses
on either side, between Temple Bar and Ludgate Hill, one of the largest
thoroughfares in London, and one of the most famous."
Its name was derived from the ancient streamlet called the Fleet, more
commonly "Fleet Ditch," near whose confluence with the Thames, at Ludgate
Hill, was the notorious Fleet Prison, with its equally notorious
"marriages."
This reeking abode of mismanagement was pulled down in 1844, when the
"Marshalsea," "The Fleet," and the "Queen's Bench" (all three reminiscent
of Dickens, likewise Newgate, not far away) were consolidated in a new
structure erected elsewhere.
The unsavoury reputation of the old prison of the Fleet, its "chaplains,"
and its "marriages," are too well-known to readers of contemporary
literature to be more than mentioned here.
The memory of the famous persons who were at one time or another confined
in this "noisome place with a pestilential atmosphere" are recalled by
such names as Bishop Hooper, the martyr; Nash, the poet and satirist;
Doctor Donne, Killigrew, the Countess of Dorset, Viscount Falkland,
William Prynne, Richard Savage, and--of the greatest possible interest to
Americans--William Penn, who lived "within the rules" in 1707.
The two churches lying contiguous to this thoroughfare, St.
Dunstan's-in-the-West and St. Bride's, are mentioned elsewhere; also the
outlying courts and alleys, such as Falcon, Mitre, and Salisbury Courts,
Crane Court, Fetter Lane, Chancery Lane, Whitefriars, Bolt Court, Bell
Yard, and Shoe Lane, the Middle and Inner Temples, and Sergeant's Inn.
The great fire of London of 1666 stopped at St. Dunstan's-in-the-West and
at the easterly confines of the Temple opposite.
Michael Drayton, the poet, lived at "a baye-windowed house next the east
end of St. Dunstan's Church," and Cowley was born "near unto the corner of
Chancery Lane."
The "Horn Tavern," near which was Mrs. Salmon's celebrated waxwork
exhibition (for which species of entertainment the street had been famous
since Elizabeth's time), is now Anderton's Hotel, still a famous house
for "pressmen," the name by which the London newspaper writer is known.
A mere mention of the sanctity of letters which surrounded the Fleet
Street of a former day, is presumably the excuse for connecting it with
the later development of literary affairs, which may be said so far as its
modern repute is concerned, to have reached its greatest and most popular
height in Dickens' own time.
The chroniclers, the diarists, and the satirists had come and gone.
Richardson--the father of the English novel lay buried in St. Bride's, and
the innovation of the great dailies had passed the stage of novelty. _The
Gentleman's Magazine_ and the Reviews had been established three-quarters
of a century before. _The Times_ had just begun to be printed by steam.
Each newspaper bore an imprinted government stamp of a penny per copy,--a
great source of revenue in that the public paid it, not the newspaper
proprietor. (_The Times_ then sold for five pence per copy.) The
_Illustrated London News_, the pioneer of illustrated newspapers, had just
come into existence, and _Punch_ under Blanchard Jerrold had just arrived
at maturity, so to speak. Such, in a brief way, were the beginnings of the
journalism of our day; and Dickens' connection therewith, as
Parliamentary reporter of _The True Sun_ and _The Morning Chronicle_, were
the beginnings of his days of assured and adequate income, albeit that it
came to him at a comparatively early period of his life. The London
journalist of Dickens' day was different in degree only from the present.
_The True Sun_, for which Dickens essayed his first reportorial work, and
later _The Morning Chronicle_, were both influential journals, and
circulated between them perhaps forty thousand copies, each bearing a
penny stamp impressed on the margin, as was the law.
The newspapers of London, as well as of most great cities, had a localized
habitation, yclept Newspaper Row or Printing-House Square, and other
similar appellations. In London the majority of them were, and are,
printed east of Temple Bar, in, or south of, Fleet Street, between
Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges. To borrow Johnson's phrase, this is the
mart "whose staple is news."
_The Times_--"The Thunderer" of old--was housed in a collection of
buildings which surrounded Printing-House Square, just east of Blackfriars
Bridge. In 1840 _The Times_ had, or was understood to have, three editors,
fifteen reporters, with a more or less uncertain and fluctuating number of
correspondents, news collectors, and occasional contributors. These by
courtesy were commonly referred to as the intellectual workers. For the
rest, compositors, pressmen, mechanics, clerks, _et al._, were of a class
distinct in themselves. The perfecting press had just come into practical
use, and though the process must appear laboriously slow to-day when only
2,500 _perfected_ copies of a four-page paper were turned out in an hour,
_The Times_ was in its day at the head of the list as to organization,
equipment, and influence.
The other morning and evening papers, _The Post_, _The Advertiser_, _The
Globe_, _The Standard_, _The Morning Chronicle_, and _The Sun_, all had
similar establishments though on a smaller scale.
But two exclusively literary papers were issued in 1840--_The Literary
Gazette_ and _The Athenæum_, the latter being to-day the almost universal
mentor and guide for the old-school lover of literature throughout the
world. _The Spectator_ was the most vigorous of the weekly political and
social papers, now sadly degenerated, and _Bell's Life in London_, which
had printed some of Dickens' earlier work, was the only nominal "sporting
paper." Church papers, trade papers, society papers, and generally
informative journals were born, issued for a time, then died in those days
as in the present.
_Punch_ was, and is, the most thoroughly representative British humourous
journal, and since its birth in the forties has been domiciled in Bouverie
Street, just off the main thoroughfare of Fleet Street.
The literary production in this vast workshop in point of bulk alone is
almost beyond comprehension. In 1869, a year before Dickens' death, there
were published in London alone three hundred and seventy-two magazines and
serials, seventy-two quarterlies, and two hundred and ninety-eight
newspapers etc.
As for the golden days of the "Highway of Letters," they were mostly in
the glorious past, but, in a way, they have continued to this day. A brief
review of some of the more important names and events connected with this
famous street will, perhaps, not be out of place here.