On London E-Book

Charles Dickens.

• Herausgeber: Hesperus Press Ltd.
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Dickens' London is a thing of legend. The sense of place was of the utmost importance for Dickens, and nowhere is more synonymous with his name than London. The most splendid of all his characters, the city was the subject of scrupulous research: Dickens spent several hours a day exploring its streets and inhabitants. The pieces collected here reveal London to be the primary inspiration for one of the geniuses of English literature.

Leseprobe

On London

Charles Dickens

Introduction byPeter Orford

‘on’

Published by Hesperus Press Limited

‘Gin Shops’ first published in The Evening Chronicle, 1835

‘Scotland Yard’ first published in The Morning Chronicle, 1836

‘Seven Dials’ first published in Bell’s Life in London, 1837

‘Heart of London’ and ‘The Giant Chronicles’ first published in Master Humphrey’s Clock, 1843

‘Gone Astray’ first published in Household Words, 1853

‘Night Walks’ and ‘City of the Absent’ first published in ‘The Uncommercial Traveller series’ in All the Year Round, 1860 and 1863

This collection first published by Hesperus Press Limited, 2010

Introduction © Pete Orford, 2010

Selection © Hesperus Press Limited, 2010

Designed and typeset by Fraser Muggeridge studio Printed in Jordan by Al-Khayyam Printing Press

Reprint published by Hesperus Press in 2023

isbn: 978-1-84391-615-4

E-book isbn: 978-1-84391-993-3

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

Contents

Introduction

The Heart of London

Gone Astray

Scotland Yard

Seven Dials

Gin-Shops

City of the Absent

The Giant Chronicles

Night Walks

Biographical note

Introduction

Charles Dickens without London simply would not have been Charles Dickens. The city provided the writer with a constant source of material, bursting with vitality, vice, people of all types and, most importantly, stories. London was his muse, providing real locations in which to ground his fictional adventures, but moreover inspiring and challenging him as an author; the vast metropolis provided both opportunity for stories and adventure, which appealed to Dickens, whilst also confronting his idealistic view of the world with regular scenes of crime, poverty and deprivation – London forced Dickens to grow up.

It was a major part not only of his writing, but of his day-today life. He first moved to the city when he was three years old, and aside from five years in Chatham he then stayed in London until he was forty-four. The city thus provided him with life experience, from his infamous and shame-ridden childhood work at Warren’s blacking factory through his early career as a solicitor’s clerk and parliamentary reporter, before he found his vocation as an author and editor. Much has been said, perhaps too much, on the importance of the blacking factory and its influence on the young Dickens, but one thing that it certainly demonstrates is the capacity for life in the city to forcefully intrude on the ideals of the child. Consequently, in the writings collected here we can see the contrast between moments of wide-eyed wonder and cynical observation; just as London could offer both architectural wonders and slums, big businessmen and beggars, monarchy and murderers, so too we can see in Dickens the schism of optimist and pessimist. He sees both the best in people and the worst in people. He writes about the horrors and wrong-doings of society, whilst also retreating into his own fantastic view of the world around him.

This sense of the fantastic in Dickens can be seen in the way he anthropomorphises London. For Dickens, the city was much more than bricks and mortar; it was a living organism with its own personality and opinions; a sentient being taking a careful watch over its brood of inhabitants. In the extract from Master Humphrey’s Clock, ‘The Heart of London’ (1841), Dickens shows the city as a mother caring for its inhabitants, the author pleading in addition that those inhabitants care for each other as a family. In many ways this sets out the divide in the city as Dickens saw it – the glory of London marred by the negligence of its poorer citizens.

It is interesting therefore to see the views of the younger Dickens explored in ‘Gone Astray’ (1853); the older writer’s recounting of his childhood view of London reveals that he was fascinated with the city from an early age, observing the people around him and responding to inanimate objects as living counterparts who watch him, talk to him and have their own stories to tell. He acknowledges his own love of fantasy and imagination, suggesting that the trip to London is initially made ‘to quench [his] romantic fire, and bring [him] to a practical state’ by showing him the reality behind the city of his childhood stories. The child confuses fact with fiction and thus explores London as a place of high adventure, with Sinbad the sailor and giants lurking round the corner; the adult Dickens wonders at the naivety of his younger self whilst mourning that loss of innocence.

As he matured, Dickens balanced his imaginative view of the world around him with his growing awareness of injustice and depravity in the city. His early writings under the pseudonym of Boz are a combination of sombre reflection and comic invention. In ‘Gin Shops’ (1835) and ‘Scotland Yard’ (1836), he sneers at the shallowness of revamping traditional areas into trendy metropolitan sites, while both here and in ‘Seven Dials’ (1837) he alternates between championing the vitality of the people, and pitying their deplorable lives or criticising the vicious aspects of their characters as formed by their upbringing and environment. He often finds himself torn between laughing at and pitying his fellow Londoners; the wide-eyed childhood view he carried with him both detached him from his peers and encouraged him to embrace them. He admired the mass, but often criticised the individual.

But it’s also important to remember that for all his good intentions, Dickens was nonetheless using all of these observations to make his own fame and fortune. The articles for Sketches by Boz were just the first of many he would write about London and its people, using them as a ready source of material for comedy, both factual and fictionalised. For all his discourses on the wrongs of man, the storywriter in Dickens was always prevalent and continuously we can see how he imbues the everyday with the fantastic; in ‘City of the Absent’ (1863) he takes the humdrum environment of the abandoned churchyards in London, and shows the potential they have as areas of life, love and despair. His triumph is in showing each reader the wonders of the urban world that they had previously taken for granted.

Dickens’ colourful account of the everyday paves the way for his fiction work, and in ‘The Giant Chronicles’ (1840) we can see how his knowledge of and love for London combine with his storytelling ability. The Chronicles were originally planned to be a series, occurring sporadically in Master Humphrey’s Clock, but dwindling figures led Dickens to change his approach to the journal and focus on longer narratives instead. Accordingly, we only have the introduction to the Chronicles and the first tale, which offers an idea of what Dickens might have done had he been free to pursue his original plan of telling stories from the city’s past. The giants telling the Chronicles are those who he saw and wondered at in ‘Gone Astray’; the idea of city genii or guardian spirits watching over London’s citizens resonates with ‘The Heart of London’; his character types and crowd scenes are built upon his sketches written under the pseudonym of Boz. In this tale, Dickens literally uses the city as inspiration, making it the focal point of the Chronicles. Joe Toddyhigh, the chronicler, is initially disillusioned with the city, thinking ‘that London was a dreary, desolate place’; yet his encounters with the giants (had they continued) promise to enlighten him to the wonders held within the metropolis. It embodies the city’s hold on Dickens’ writing as a well of inspiration, prompting stories, ideas and characters.

As a child and young man Dickens wondered at the metropolis, revelling in its eccentricities; but with age, inevitably, he became more jaded, and this attitude spills over into his writing. In ‘Night Walks’ (1860), in which he describes a number of nocturnal excursions he pursued following the death of his father, Dickens broods on the dark soul of the city. Where the child stood agog and looked for Sinbad and giants, the adult Dickens shuns society, peering into theatres after the audience has left, encountering drunks and wandering the streets with thoughts of crime and sin. Even here, though, while he focuses on the grittier side of the city, Dickens’ fantasising shines through, romanticising the desolate scenes with suggestions of magic and wonder. He ‘knew well enough where to find vice and misfortune of all kinds, if [he] had chosen; but they were put out of sight’; he both acknowledges and shuns the dark heart of London. His love of the city was not born of naivety; he was fully aware of the horrors in London, and accepted the city despite them, not in ignorance of them. Ultimately what we can take from Dickens’ relationship with London is a number of works responding to the writer’s immediate environment, a man’s attempt to reconcile the everyday with his own imaginative pursuits, to counter his observations of depravity with his faith in humanity.

– Pete Orford, 2010

The Heart of London

There came towards us upon the wind the voice of the deep and distant bell of St Paul’s as it struck the hour of midnight. I had seen it but a few days before, and could not help telling of the fancy I had had about it.