Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ was written in white heat after he read of the suicidal charge by the light cavalry in the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War; 247 men of the 637 in the charge were killed or wounded. In wanting to maintain the jingoistic sentiments of the poem, Tennyson removed the line ‘Some one had blundered’. In this version – a copy from Charles Brasch’s library – the phrase has been restored. Tennyson was godfather to Dickens’s sixth child and fourth son: Alfred D’Orsay Tennyson Dickens.
[The Charge of the Light Brigade from Lord Alfred Tennyson's Poems II, page 225.]
‘Everybody is miserable…about the Crimea. I have an old belief that our Political Aristocracy will ruin this land at last, and altogether London looks gloomy.’ So wrote Dickens to Mrs Gaskell, on 3 February 1855, on the debacle that was the Crimean War (1853 to 1856), a conflict involving the Ottoman Empire, Britain, France, and Sardinia, against the Russians. While acknowledging the need for a balance of power in the area, Dickens railed against gross military and administrative incompetence; the decimation of the Light Brigade being the pinnacle of that mismanagement. To him, the War was a major distraction from the real problems at home. Alexander Kingslake’s informative volume depicts the position of the heavy cavalry, and a facsimile of Lord Cardigan’s understanding of troop positions on that fateful day (25 October 1854).
[Fold-out plate 4, Fac simile (reduced) of a Plan sketched by Lord Cardigan with a view to show... from Alexander W. Kinglake's The Invasion of the Crimea, Vol. IV.]
In the preface to the Cheap Edition of Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens wrote: ‘My main object in the story was, to exhibit in a variety of aspects the commonest of all vices; to show how Selfishness propagates itself.’ In fact, unlike his approach to his previous works, Dickens had an overall design and unifying theme for Martin Chuzzlewit. Published in monthly parts between January 1843 and July 1844, and edited by ‘Boz’ (used for the last time), the work was then produced in book form (as displayed). The character of Pecksniff, that epitome of hypocrisy, is delineated here by ‘Phiz’.
[Mr Pecksniff on his Mission. Illustration by Phiz facing page 235 in Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, 1st book edition.]
By his eighth novel, David Copperfield, Dickens was ready for a little more self-revelation, albeit with some difficulty in ‘dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world.’ David Copperfield (1850), his so-called ‘favourite child’, is the most autobiographical of his works, and is considered by scholars to be the dividing line between his early and later novels. Mirrored in the book are his Blacking Factory experiences; his early love interest with Maria Beadnell; and his early writing career. And of course there are the characters: Heep, Steerforth, Betsy Trotwood, Mr Dick, and Micawber, who is despatched to Australia. Two of Dickens’s sons lived in Australia and he contemplated a reading tour ‘down-under’. Unfortunately, this did not happen.
[I fall into captivity. Illustration by Phiz opposite page 274 in Charles Dickens's The Personal History of David Copperfield, 1st book edition, 1st issue.]
Another well-attended occasion was the Great Exhibition, which took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. During that time 6 million people visited the ‘Crystal Palace’, designed by Joseph Paxton. Somewhat reluctantly Dickens dragged himself along and while acknowledging the progress that the exhibits on display represented, he thought it a muddle and a major distraction from very real social problems. At the time he was disgruntled: London was ‘a vile place’; his father had died; Robert Peel had died unexpectedly, as did his own infant daughter Dora. And perhaps subconsciously he may have harboured feelings against his old fantastical rival, ‘sassage’ Albert, Victoria’s husband, to whom the triumph of the Exhibition largely belonged. The endpaper depicts the extent of the building; the catalogue is jammed full of choice exhibits.
[The VASE beneath, and the FAN-LIGHT...they exhibit several other excellent productions...Page 101 from The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue: The Industry of All Nations.]
Another well-attended occasion was the Great Exhibition, which took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. During that time 6 million people visited the ‘Crystal Palace’, designed by Joseph Paxton. Somewhat reluctantly Dickens dragged himself along and while acknowledging the progress that the exhibits on display represented, he thought it a muddle and a major distraction from very real social problems. At the time he was disgruntled: London was ‘a vile place’; his father had died; Robert Peel had died unexpectedly, as did his own infant daughter Dora. And perhaps subconsciously he may have harboured feelings against his old fantastical rival, ‘sassage’ Albert, Victoria’s husband, to whom the triumph of the Exhibition largely belonged. The endpaper depicts the extent of the building; the catalogue is jammed full of choice exhibits.
[A piece of SILK, contributed by...will be found in the Exhibition...Page 100 from The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue: The Industry of All Nations.]
Another well-attended occasion was the Great Exhibition, which took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. During that time 6 million people visited the ‘Crystal Palace’, designed by Joseph Paxton. Somewhat reluctantly Dickens dragged himself along and while acknowledging the progress that the exhibits on display represented, he thought it a muddle and a major distraction from very real social problems. At the time he was disgruntled: London was ‘a vile place’; his father had died; Robert Peel had died unexpectedly, as did his own infant daughter Dora. And perhaps subconsciously he may have harboured feelings against his old fantastical rival, ‘sassage’ Albert, Victoria’s husband, to whom the triumph of the Exhibition largely belonged. The endpaper depicts the extent of the building; the catalogue is jammed full of choice exhibits.
[Crystal Palace. Endpapers from Eric de Maré's London 1851: The Year of the Great Exhibition.]
Punch, Or the London Charivari was a magazine established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells, and jointly edited by Mayhew and Mark Lemon. Joining the Punch Brotherhood of artists who included John Leech, Richard Doyle, John Tenniel and Charles Keene, was one Charles Dickens, who in 1843, joined publishers Bradbury and Evans after leaving Chapman and Hall. Although the humour and satire in this very British weekly is now dated, it was read and enjoyed by many.
[Punch's Pencillings.- No. LIV. Illustrations of Humbug. No. 1. Illustration by John Leech from Punch, Or the London Charivari, page 213.
François Courvoisier cut the throat of his master, Lord William Russell, and was sentenced to hang outside Newgate Prison on 6 July 1840. Dickens attended the execution along with 40,000 others, including Thackeray. Although Dickens attended four public executions during his lifetime, he disliked them as spectacles. On capital punishment, he was ambivalent, as expressed in a letter written in 1864: ‘I should be glad to abolish both [public executions and capital punishment] if I knew what to do with the Savages of civilization. As I do not, I would rid Society of them, when they shed blood, in a very solemn manner but would bar out the present audience.’ A full account of the Courvoisier case is in volume II of Chronicles of Crime (1887), which is superbly illustrated by ‘Phiz’.
[Page 582 from Camden Pelham's The Chronicles of Crime; Or, The New Newgate Calendar. Vol. II.]
While the change of heart is present in The Battle of Life, there are no ghosts. Dickens wanted to make this anticipated money-spinner ‘a simple domestic tale’. With a mix of the historical – featuring a battle-field scene harking back to his visit to Waterloo – and the personal moral and emotional skirmishes surrounding sisters Marion and Grace, the book became a tough write, indeed ‘desperate work’. At the time, he was also writing Dombey and Son, and travelling back and forth between Lausanne, Paris, and London. Publishers Bradbury and Evans employed Leech, Maclise, and Richard Doyle, uncle to Arthur Conan Doyle, to illustrate this fourth Christmas book.
[Title page and frontispiece, illustrations by Daniel Maclise, from Charles Dickens's The Battle of Life: A Love Story.]
Did Dickens invent Christmas? No, but he certainly deserves credit for rejuvenating celebrations surrounding the day. Indeed, he is the one writer strongly identified with Christmas – and its spirit. Within a six year period he wrote five Christmas books: A Christmas Carol (1843); The Chimes (1844); The Cricket on the Hearth (1845); The Battle of Life (1846); and The Haunted Man (1848). Issued ten days before Christmas 1843, A Christmas Carol sold 6000 copies in one day. Nevertheless, and at least initially, it was a commercial failure. It was also the first and last time that Dickens used a colour title-page. The story of selfishness and transformation has become a modern classic of Christmas literature, and is quintessentially Victorian Dickens.
[Title page and frontispiece, illustrations by John Leech, from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.]
On his 18th birthday, Dickens acquired a ticket for the British Museum reading room. In that same year (1830), he fell head over heels in love with Maria Beadnell, a banker’s daughter. Although she ‘pervaded every chink and crevice’ of his being, the courtship ended in 1833. In 1855, Dickens met Maria again. Disillusionment sunk in; meeting Mrs Henry Winter was a far cry from those nostalgic ‘Copperfield days’. Not one to miss an opportunity, Dickens had portrayed the young Maria as Dora in David Copperfield; she now became the matronly Flora Finching in Little Dorrit.
[Photograph of Maria Beadnell from Edwin Pugh's The Charles Dickens Originals.]
‘Night is generally my time for walking.’ So begins Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop, which features innocent Nell Trent pitted against the corrupt Quilp. Written to revive flagging sales of his own weekly serial Master Humphrey’s Clock, The Old Curiosity Shop began in the fourth number (25 April 1840). This overly sentimental novel has always provoked reaction. Irish politician Daniel O’Connell threw the book out of the train when he realized that Nell was going to die. Illustrators ‘Phiz’, George Cattermole, Maclise, and Samuel Williams were engaged to enhance the text.
[Page 109 from Charles Dickens's ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, in Master Humphrey’s Clock. 1st edition, Vol. I. Illustration by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz).]
‘Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell’ dies in Dickens’s tale The Old Curiosity Shop, which caused much consternation and many tears to be shed by readers. This plate was executed by George Cattermole (1800-1868).
[At Rest (The Death of Little Nell). Illustration by George Cattermole from Charles Dickens's Master Humphrey’s Clock. Volume II.]
Even before finishing Pickwick Papers, Dickens had contracted himself to edit Bentley’s Miscellany and provide a serial story – all for the sum of £20 a month. In the second number began Oliver Twist, Dickens’s second novel. It was serialized in 24 monthly instalments between February 1837 and April 1839, with production faulting for a month due to the death of Mary Hogarth. In the Miscellany (as displayed), the story was set in ‘Mudfog’, later altered to ‘a certain town which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning.’ George Cruikshank provided the illustrations, including this memorable one of Oliver asking for more gruel.
[Page 105 from Charles Dickens's 'Oliver Twist’ Chapter 1 in Bentley’s Miscellany. Vol. I.]
Even before finishing Pickwick Papers, Dickens had contracted himself to edit Bentley’s Miscellany and provide a serial story – all for the sum of £20 a month. In the second number began Oliver Twist, Dickens’s second novel. It was serialized in 24 monthly instalments between February 1837 and April 1839, with production faulting for a month due to the death of Mary Hogarth. In the Miscellany (as displayed), the story was set in ‘Mudfog’, later altered to ‘a certain town which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning.’ George Cruikshank provided the illustrations, including this memorable one of Oliver asking for more gruel.
[Oliver asking for more. Illustration by George Cruikshank, opposite page 105 in Charles Dickens's ‘Oliver Twist’, in Bentley’s Miscellany. Vol. I.]
The writing of Nicholas Nickleby overlapped the serialization of Oliver Twist, and the editing of Memoirs of Grimaldi. Nicholas Nickleby, this ‘hero as a young man’ novel, was also serialized, starting in April 1838 and ending October 1839. Again some real-life people became part of the novel’s theatrics: Squeers, based on William Shaw, a bung-eyed school proprietor who had been sued in court for mistreating his charges; and garrulous Mrs Nickleby, based on Dickens’s own mother. Dickens must have been pleased with sales; the first number sold 48,000. This Dickens-like Nickleby (beside Miss Squeers) was executed by illustrator Frederick Barnard for the ‘Household Edition’, the first edition to be published after Dickens’s death in 1870.
[Oh! As soft as possible, if you please. Illustration by Frederick Barnard from page 53 of Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Household Edition.]
The heavy writing schedule that Dickens faced during the creation of Oliver Twist necessitated textual alterations to later printings. The most noticeable was the toning down of anti-Semitic references, especially to the character Fagin, based on the real-life criminal Ikey Solomon. Dickens had referred to Fagin as the ‘merry old gentleman’ or simply the ‘Jew’; in later editions, the mention of ‘Jew’ is much reduced. Oliver Twist is famous for revealing Dickens’s traumatic experience in the Blacking Factory. It not only contains unforgettable characters such as Mr Bumble, the Artful Dodger, Sikes and Nancy, but also his satirical swipes at the workhouse system, and the legal system that administered it. Here Cruikshank’s Fagin awaits his fate.
[Fagin in the condemned Cell. Illustration by George Cruikshank facing page 216 in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. 1st edition, 3rd issue.]
Taken by John Thomson, a Scottish photographer, in 1877, the image on the left is titled ‘The Crawler’. ‘Crawlers’ were typically people so poverty-stricken that they didn’t even have the energy to beg. The destitute woman depicted is minding the baby of a friend with the hope of receiving a cup of tea and a piece of bread as payment, possibly the only nourishment she would have had all day. Although Thomson’s photograph is staged, the image is heart-breaking and there is no denying the desperation of the woman’s situation. The bedraggled group of boys on the right are awaiting admission to Dr Barnardo’s Home in about 1880. The lucky ones? Maybe.
[Photographs from Victorian Life in Photographs. The Crawler (left) and Barnado's Boys (right).]
Henry Mayhew’s (1812-1887) London Labour and the London Poor (1851), chronicles every aspect of the lives of the poor working classes of London. Especially poignant are Mayhew’s descriptions of the lives of the street children. He writes of the reasons for their being on the streets ‘through neglect… viciousness…from utter destitution’; their money-making ventures as crossing sweepers, errand runners and street sellers; their clothing and appearance; their diet, religion, education and morals. He describes how the children often drank a penny’s worth of gin ‘to keep the cold out’ and how they learned the ‘grossest immorality’ and ‘obscene expressions’ from adults.
[The Boy Crossing-Sweepers. Plate no. 47, facing page 178, from Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. Volume II.]
Angela Burdett Coutts (1814-1906), a philanthropic millionairess, became friends with Dickens about 1840. He undertook research for Coutts and began advising her on various charities in which she was interested. In the letter displayed, Dickens recounts his visit to a Ragged School in Saffron Hill, a notorious slum area of London and home to the fictional Fagin. Ragged Schools were set up in an attempt to bring education to the street children of London while also providing them with some food and clothing. Dickens praised the efforts of the teachers but was shocked by the parlous state of the children and advised Coutts that the school was ‘an experiment most worthy of [her] charitable hand’. Dickens and Coutts went on to other charity projects and set up Urania Cottage, a ‘Home for Fallen Women’, in May 1847.
[Page 50 and 51 from Letters from Charles Dickens to Angela Burdett-Coutts 1841-1865. Selected by Edgar Johnson.]
In 1812, London’s population was over a million, and by 1880 it had reached 4.5 million. Dickens knew the City well and as he walked it, he observed the sights and sounds and smells of this bustling metropolis: rich and poor, Cockney hawkers and vagabonds, the railway, immigrants (Chinese, Irish, Russians), the over-crowded docks, the fog-bound Thames, sooty, stinking pathways, the new and innovative, and so much more. And importantly, he wrote about it. In truth, ‘London created Dickens, just as Dickens created London’ (Ackroyd). The Fagin-like clothes-seller is from Andrew White Tuer’s Old London Street Cries and the Cries of To-day (1885).
[II. Holborn, Fleet Street, Strand, fold-out map from Karl Baedeker's London and Its Environs: Handbook for Travellers. 7th rev. edition.]
In 1812, London’s population was over a million, and by 1880 it had reached 4.5 million. Dickens knew the City well and as he walked it, he observed the sights and sounds and smells of this bustling metropolis: rich and poor, Cockney hawkers and vagabonds, the railway, immigrants (Chinese, Irish, Russians), the over-crowded docks, the fog-bound Thames, sooty, stinking pathways, the new and innovative, and so much more. And importantly, he wrote about it. In truth, ‘London created Dickens, just as Dickens created London’ (Ackroyd). The Fagin-like clothes-seller is from Andrew White Tuer’s Old London Street Cries and the Cries of To-day (1885).
[O' Clo! Illustration from page 61 of Andrew White Tuer's Old London Street Cries and the Cries of To-day.]
While submitting contributions to the Monthly Magazine, Dickens formed his pen-name – ‘Boz’. He juggled parliamentary reporting (he was adept at shorthand) with creative writing, submitting additional ‘sketches’ to the Evening Chronicle, edited by his future father-in-law George Hogarth. Dickens was an excellent observer, and his Sketches by Boz include memorable descriptions of people and places, especially of London. ‘Thoughts about People’ is but one, ably illustrated by George Cruikshank, the ‘modern Hogarth’, who was equally secretive about his personal life (unbeknown to all, he had a mistress by whom he fathered 11 illegitimate children).
[Thoughts about People. Illustration by George Cruikshank, opposite page 90 from Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People.]
In early March 1836, Dickens signed a contract with the fledging firm of Chapman and Hall, who gambled on serial publication of Pickwick Papers, Dickens’s first novel. He was to receive £14 for each 12,000-word instalment. Only 1,000 of the first number were printed; by late November 1837, 40,000 copies were being sold. The appearance of Sam Weller clinched Dickens’s reputation, and Pickwick Papers was a runaway bestseller. This first book edition of the twenty instalments contains illustrations by Robert Seymour, who completed them up to the second number; R. W. Buss, who was an interim illustrator; and then 20 year old Hablot Browne, who would become Dickens’s most consistent artistic collaborator.
[Title page of Charles Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. 1st bound edition.]