Before Charles Dickens became a novelist; before he had had much more than “Sketches” and few short tales published, and certainly before his public kBefore Charles Dickens became a novelist; before he had had much more than “Sketches” and few short tales published, and certainly before his public knew him by anything other than “Boz”, Charles Dickens was involved with the theatre. He loved everything about it, from acting roles himself, to directing others, and voicing his opinions about the staging, set designs and music. We will sadly never have the opportunity to see what were reported to be his dynamic performances on stage—sometimes even described by the press at the time as “hypnotic”. They were to continue all his life, latterly in solo performances of his own works. But there is one aspect we can still access, and that is the short plays he wrote, very early in his writing career.
Indeed we are very lucky to still have access to the text of Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular. For many years only one copy was ever known to exist, in the possession of James Ripley Osgood, one of Dickens’s American publishers, and like “The Village Coquettes” it was lost in a fire in Boston in 1879. Luckily a couple of reprints from c. 1872 and 1877 were later found to have survived.
Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular is one of the three comic burlettas Charles Dickens wrote between 1834 and 1836, while he still was known as “Boz”. Audiences had already enjoyed the comedy of errors “The Strange Gentleman” and the musical farce “The Village Coquettes” the previous year. With Is She His Wife? they were to watch the final one in the trio. He was rapidly becoming one of the most popular writers in London.
To backtrack a little, in 1835, John Braham a popular singer opened the new St. James’s Theatre in Drury Lane. He had conceived the idea, and built it, but he lost money by it and retired after 3 seasons. However, it was a working theatre right up until 1957, when it was demolished. John Braham’s company included a well-known actor called John Pritt Harley, and three of Dicken’s plays were performed here. Then in 1837 J.P. Harley was to play the part of Mr. Samuel Pickwick in “Mr. Pickwick”.
On 2nd April 1836, Charles Dickens married Catherine Hogarth. For their honeymoon they spent a week at the cottage of a Mrs. Nash, in Chalk, near Gravesend, Kent. It could not be any longer, because Dickens was still working as a Parliamentary reporter, and the only time he could only take away from work was during the Easter recess. Ten months later, in February 1837, the couple were to return to the same cottage, this time for an entire month. By now things had changed considerably.
Two days before the wedding, the first installment of “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” had appeared, and Dickens had taken the plunge and left his job as a reporter, to devote himself to writing. Still as “Boz”, he was now one of the most popular writers in London. In fact he was so busy, that he had to carry on with his writing whilst in Chalk. What he produced, and sent off to London by priority mail on Sat 4th February, was Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular. It was to premiere on 6th March 1837.
The trigger for the comic burletta was that the celebrated actor John Pritt Harley wanted another vehicle to show off his talents. He was well established, having started acting in 1802 and well-known in provincial theatres in England. He had enormous success in “The Strange Gentleman”, followed by his popular portrayal as Martin Stokes in Dickens’s comic burletta “The Village Coquettes”. (LINK HERE for my review.) Dickens thought he had just the thing, and wrote back to J.P. Harley:
“I have by me a little piece in one act called ‘Cross Purposes’, which I wrote long before I was Boz. It would admit of the introduction of any Music; and if you think there is anything in it, it is at your service.” The play was therefore over two years old.
Is She His Wife? is the only time we can be sure that Dickens used work from the days before his success, to meet this sudden demand for his writing. In February 1837 he had begun to publish some more sketches called “A Parish Boy’s Progress” (which would become the novel “Oliver Twist”) at the same time as writing “The Pickwick Papers, and he would follow straight on with “Nicholas Nickleby”. As a newly married man, Dickens also had not inconsiderable personal commitments. Two months before the play opened at St. James’s Theatre on 6th March 1837, his first child Charley was born, and one month later the family moved to Doughty Street (which now houses the Charles Dickens Museum). It is understandable then, if from time to time he revised earlier material.
The part which Dickens had in mind for J.P Harley was the most cheerful and comedic character Felix Tapkins, one of Dickens’s eternal optimists. Is She His Wife? provided a marvellous opportunity for Mr. Harley to deliberately overact, and the audience loved it. They expected such things in their farces and melodramas.
The story of Is She His Wife? revolves around two married couples. Each of them is uncertain of their relationship. Alfred Lovetown (played by Mr. Forester) is bored, and his wife (played by Miss Allison) thinks he does not love her. We also have another couple, Peter Limbury (played by Mr. Gardner) who is a jealous husband, and his wife (played by a celebrated actress of the day, who had also acted in “The Strange Gentleman”, Madame Sala) is flirtatious. Felix Tapkins is a happy-go-lucky bachelor, who accidentally becomes involved in both couples’ devious scheming, and makes one key mistake which sets them all against each other.
Everyone makes assumptions which are not the case. The whole thing is loud, absurd and hilarious. It follows the conventions of many theatre farces of the time, and strings together a series of contrived coincidences and implausible misunderstandings. Here is the plot in a nutshell: (view spoiler)[Mrs. Lovetown is married to Alfred, but pretends to like Tapkins, to make Alfred jealous. Alfred pretends to like Mrs. Limbury to make Mrs. Lovetown jealous. Tapkins believes that Mrs. Lovetown is married to someone else (i.e. not Alfred) and that Alfred has formed an attachment with a married woman. Peter Limbury is told this, so as a consequence believes that Alfred wants to have affairs with everyone else’s wives. (hide spoiler)]
There are many asides and confidences made directly to the audience, who at the time would relish this sort of technique. They liked and expected such things. But it is not only the audiences of the time who could relate to the behaviour of these married couples. It is instantly recognisable, and timeless.
The joy of this good-natured and frivolous farce was somewhat soured for Dickens though. Charles and Catherine Dickens were attending a performance of Is She His Wife? at the St James’s Theatre on 6th May 1837, two months into its run. They had taken along Catherine’s 17 year old sister Mary Hogarth, who lived with them. But after she had returned home to Doughty Street Mary collapsed unexpectedly, and actually died in her brother-in-law’s arms the following afternoon. Charles Dickens was devastated, and was to grieve for Mary all his life. Mary Hogarth had a heart-shaped locket, containing a lock of Charles Dickens’s hair. After her death he had a lock of her hair set in a signet ring which he always wore. Mary was the first person to read episodes of “The Pickwick Papers” and “Oliver Twist”, as Dickens valued her input and feedback more than his wife's. When she died he missed his writing deadline for the next installment; one of only two occasions this happened in his life.
Seven months later on 12th December 1837, Dickens returned to the St. James Theatre, but requested different seating:
“let us have either a pit or proscenium box on the same side as that in which we used to sit; but not a box on the same tier, or opposite. Old recollections make us shun our old haunts, or the sight of them.”
Significantly, Dickens repeatedly included 17 year old heroines in his novels and stories, who sometimes recovered from mysterious life threatening ailments, which seems like pure wish fulfilment.
Ever since he died, people have wondered about Dickens’s infatuation with Mary Hogarth. Some critics have looked to his works for signals, and one (Robert Douglas-Fairhurst) suggested that Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular is a “cynical debunking of married life” with the blame squarely laid at the feet of the presumed infatuation. Others too have suggested that it is essentially pessimistic and indicates early difficulties in his marriage to Catherine. However, this is a fanciful interpretation and extremely unlikely. It cannot be autobiographical since, as mentioned, most of the play dates from two years earlier. Thus most of it had been written long before Charles and Catherine married, and the final touches made in the honeymoon cottage were done with John Pritt Harley in mind. Felix Tapkins is one of Dickens’s eternal optimists, and Dickens well knew how J.P Harley could bring off such a role. His revisions were to do with this character. Such retrospective musings do not accord with the facts; marital discord was to set in many years later than their honeymoon.
However, we do know that Charles Dickens had another motive for writing these farces, as well as wanting to entertain everyone and become even more high profile. He was trying to promote the moral suitability of works in the minor theatres, and that fact allied with establishing his own reputation with the middle classes was in the front of his mind.
There was a difference between what was “legitimate” theatre, and accepted by the Lord Chamberlain, and what was not. So-called “minor” theatre was frowned on and not considered acceptable entertainment for middle class audiences. We may think of these farces as just a bit of fun, but Charles Dickens had his campaigning hat on even with these slight pieces, which were often put on as a second feature for a main work, as here:
[image]
Playbill now in the Dickens Museum in Doughty Street
In Is She his Wife? Dickens had chosen a deliberately provocative title for his most risqué work, and we wonder how on earth these females’ reputations can stay intact. Yet in the end it is all gentle banter, and any “singular” or scandalous elements are down to misunderstanding. There is nothing to worry the lower middle class and middle class audiences Charles Dickens sought. It may have that saucy title, but there is nothing outrageous or vulgar to rock the dearly cherished family values of respectable middle classes here.
Felix Tapkins ends the play with this speech:
“The key to the whole matter is that I’ve been mistaken, which is something singular. If I have made another mistake in calculating on your kind and lenient reception of our last half-hour’s misunderstanding (to the audience), I shall have done something more singular still. Do you forbid me committing any more mistakes, or may I announce my intention of doing something singular again?”
In both “The Strange Gentleman” and “The Village Coquettes” Dickens had written a similar apologia at the end. Mere suggestions of intrigues and extramarital affairs, flippant jokes about adultery—and even a woman displaying her shapely ankle—were all good wholesome fun in a family entertainment, he insisted, providing it all came to nothing.
This final speech is a direct challenge to the Lord Chamberlain. Charles Dickens, via his character of Felix Tapkins, is asking the audience to show their approval, by enthusiastic applause. If there was any booing, then a theatre manager would be likely to terminate a play’s run. Such an appeal from the mouth of one of the characters in itself was intended to vindicate the play’s worth, as a piece above low, vulgar comedy. It was quite a clever manoeuvre, to ensure that anyone harbouring secret doubts that the Lord Chamberlain might be right about the quality of play in minor theatres would feel reassured that this was highly moral and respectable.
All plays at this time had to be registered with the Lord Chamberlain for licensing, as required by law. “The Village Coquettes” had been subject to “choppings and changings” according to Dickens, in its passages about seduction, gambling, and subversion. On the other hand, nothing in Is She His Wife? had to be censored.
Sadly Charles Dickens was never to write another play for the St. James Theatre. “The Pickwick Papers” was already a runaway success, and was destined to be one of the most popular novels of the century. But his plays never reached those heights, and even their limited success was due in part to the fame of the celebrated actor John Pritt Harley, who had made so much of the broad comic scenes.
Naturally enough Dickens pursued writing the serial novels which were so enormously popular. In fact he did just once offer to write a two act play for the St. James Theatre, but requested the huge amount of £150, which was five times what he had received for “The Strange Gentleman” Dickens was now too popular and expensive for theatre managers to commission new plays by him.
Is Is She his Wife? Or, Something Singular, a Comic Burletta worth reading now? Yes, indeed it is! As we read, we can well imagine it in the theatre, although only a couple of companies have dared to try to revive it. Charles Dickens makes sure that the audience are in the know, with all his characters’ asides and little soliloquies, which are a delight. It is a short, tightly constructed one act play, with just two scenes; both witty and absurd. In fact we need to be alert to keep up with everything. The farcical elements would be a gift to any good comic actor; “hamming it up” and exaggerating would only enhance this sort of comedy. What an experience it must have been to be in the audience in 1837.
However the next year was to see an event which was to change everything. On William IV's death, on 20th June 1837, during the run of Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular, a young woman just 18 years of acceded to the English throne. Once Victoria was crowned Queen, on 28th June 1838, the world would never be the same again. And she championed the young Charles Dickens....more
I am often asked, by those who know how much I admire the writing of Charles Dickens, which biography of him I recommend. It’s not an easy question toI am often asked, by those who know how much I admire the writing of Charles Dickens, which biography of him I recommend. It’s not an easy question to answer. There has been a critically acclaimed biography written every single decade since Charles Dickens died in 1870, as well as many excellent books about him. Currently half a dozen pop into my mind which are still easy to get, and well worth reading.
The trouble with biographies of writers, is that they invariably include some spoilers about their plots. If an author mainly writes nonfiction, then it is not always an issue, but Charles Dickens is famous for his wonderful stories, (although some of his nonfiction journalism certainly deserves to be better known). People have different ways of dealing with this. Some suspect that by the time they come to read a specific story, they will have forgotten the details. Others will skip the parts about books they do not know. If an author writes chronologically rather than thematically, or titles each section usefully, this is relatively easy to manage.
John Forster’s huge biography of his friend Charles Dickens is the original and the best. This huge tome, along with the Pilgrim letters, is what all the other biographies have been based on. It is the only one endorsed by Charles Dickens himself; the only one he trusted anyone to write. Dickens left his friend all the unfinished and unpublished pieces he had written, as well as writing to him almost daily for as long as they knew each other. It was a fateful Christmas Day in 1836, when they met through a mutual acquaintance, the novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. They became firm friends, and the comradeship, love and respect these two friends developed for each other shines through on every page of these three volumes, as well as Dickens’s own love of his family, friends and his public. And most of all, Charles Dickens’s exuberant love of life itself, which is particularly poignant in the final pages of this third volume.
I’ve dipped into Forster’s biography for years, as many of his admirers do, but over the last three years or so I have read it through slowly from start to finish. John Forster’s skill at organisation and scrupulous attention to detail coupled with his excellent memory are such that I feel as if I have accompanied Charles Dickens almost every day, for all the years that the two knew each other.
So what sort of man could put together this marvellous blend of Dickens’s letters, literary criticism and a daily journal? Surely only a close confidante, who knew Dickens inside out.
John Forster was to become acclaimed as a critic of drama and literature, as well as an historian. His name was well-known in London’s literary circles, and he was befriended by intellectuals of the time including Robert Browning and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, but he was most intimate with Charles Dickens. For any work written after they met—for the next thirty-three years until Dickens died—John Forster was his chief advisor, mentor and friend. Although the two were the same age, Forster was the wiser man, and Charles Dickens sought his advice before publishing anything. All three volumes of the biography abound in detail of this type, including many letters and extracts where Dickens told Forster his vague intentions and ideas, from various titles, to overall plot plans, to newly written passages of prose Dickens was excited about, or asked for advice on. All were submitted to Forster first.
It was Forster he trusted, when Dickens finally plucked up the courage to tell his secret shame, about being taken away from school to earn his living at the blacking factory. In the early 1840s he had begun work on an autobiography and sent the manuscript to John Forster, but changed his mind about the book and destroyed what he had done, not wanting to publish it for fear of hurting his mother’s feelings.
At the end of volume 2 and the beginning of this third one, Dickens was writing “David Copperfield”, and Forster quotes passages from the partial autobiography, which Dickens transposed verbatim into parts of David Copperfield. Dickens never did go on to write his autobiography, but in 1848 he decided that he wanted Forster to become his biographer. He gave his old friend several long interviews about his life; keen for Forster to write it rather than him, and do it justice.
The result was a huge, comprehensive work, which must have necessitated some self-sacrifice on the part of Forster, who would have his own projects to write. But then Forster was well used to sacrificing his own interests and work to his mentorship of what he considered the genius of Dickens over the years.
John Forster’s biography is an almost day-by-day account; a journal of Dickens’ activities and travels, and the personal minutiae of his life. But it adds an extra level not often found in biographies, and which is unique. We read the difficulties and struggles Dickens had with his writing from the first hand experience of the person who was there during its genesis; for every single work after “The Pickwick Papers”.
Yet again in volume 3, we learn how Dickens based many of his characters on people he knew. Depending on how much he caricatured them, some were flattered, and some were quite hurt. For instance he wondered whether his father would recognise himself as Mr Micawber in “David Copperfield”, but felt it brought them emotionally closer:
“The longer I live, the better man I think him.”
However, with Miss Mowcher, the dwarf hairdresser and manicurist in the same book, he went too far. She was based on a real person: his wife Catherine’s chiropodist Mrs. Jane Seymour Hill. She was enraged by how she was initially depicted, and how Charles Dickens poked fun at the character, and she threatened to sue him for defamation of character. Without naming names, Forster quotes the letter Dickens had sent him. Dickens was genuinely distraught at having given her so much pain. When he heard how upset she was, he was contrite and changed his plans for the rest of the novel completely, making her a positive character and giving her a crucial part in how the plot unfolds. This is just one example of how unexpected events in real life influenced one of his most familiar and well-loved stories. We also discover from Forster the real-life legal cases which inspired “Bleak House”.
For his personal life, we read of the strong affection Dickens had for France, not only routinely spending his summers there, but also living there for many months. And we read of the fulfilment of a childhood dream. Walking with his father in the Kent countryside as a boy, the young Charles had fallen in love with a grand house in the distance. He had vowed to own it, if he ever could.
Now he was able to buy his dream house, and we learn of all the alterations and work he planned and arranged for Gad’s Hill, which was ongoing as he died. His obsession with this became a family joke, so that he would say “now you see POSITIVELY the last improvement at Gadshill” and everyone would laugh at the joke against himself. At first he had no thought of living there and had only bought it as an investment, but this changed.
There is a fascinating account of the reconstruction of a chalet from Switzerland, given to him by one of his actor friends, Charles Fechter. It arrived on Christmas Eve 1864, packed in 58 boxes.
Charles Dickens called part of the Gads Hill estate “the wilderness”. It was woodland, across a muddy road from the house. He had a tunnel dug under this, to get from the house to his chalet, and this is where he completed his final works, and also rehearsed for his readings. To enable this he placed mirrors at the windows. We see Dickens’s love of nature, as light, the trees and birds all reflected throughout the chalet. This chalet still exists, but is sadly no longer at Gads Hill. It was initially moved to Cobham, and is now in the grounds of Eastgate House in Rochester High Street, as a memorial to the great writer.
Dickens spent thousands of pounds on all the restoration and alterations. His main worry was how to pay for it all, and we hear his sadness at how little time he had been able to spend there. He was constantly aware of the financial obligations to his family, and was completely focused on his determination that none of his children should feel the hardship and lack of opportunity that he had felt as a child of impecunious and feckless parents.
But this is lightened by the various accounts of his pets, which his daughter Mamie was also to write about in her memoir.
A criticism which is sometimes made by 21st century readers, is that John Forster does not go into the marriage break-up with Catherine, and misses out details of the relationship between Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan. But would you write these sort of details about your best friend? John Forster is a careful and loyal friend, who must have been troubled as to how much to say, since he was the only person whom Charles Dickens trusted to write his life story.
For me, the abundance of “new” letters by Charles Dickens and notes about his works in all 3 volumes more than makes up for any veiling over the affair.
If you read between the lines, you can tell that Forster does refer to all this in a oblique way. Chapter 7 is titled “What Happened at This Time (1857-58)” and begins:
“An unsettled feeling greatly in excess of what was usual with Dickens, more or less observable since his first residence at Boulogne, became at this time almost habitual, and the satisfactions which home should have supplied, and which indeed were essential requirements of his nature, he had failed to find in his home.”
John Forster’s handling of the break-up between Charles Dickens and Catherine is respectful and assiduous. In this chapter he describes Charles Dickens’s unhappy state of mind: his restlessness and the way he drove himself harder and harder with public good works and the burgeoning readings. We get the sense that he had to be all things to all men, and worked continuously at fever pitch. We also see quite clearly that John Forster made his disapproval known to his friend:
“To say he was not a gentleman would be as true as to say he was not a writer; but if any one should assert his occasional preference for what was even beneath his level over that which was above it, this would be difficult of disproof. It was among those defects of temperament for which his early trials and his early successes were accountable in perhaps equal measure.”
We read Charles Dickens’s contrite but insistent replies to his friend’s criticism, and also read between the lines. John Forster tells us categorically that “this is all the public need to know” and I respect his position on this. The chapter is itself a remarkable achievement.
We get to know Dickens’s innermost thoughts and feelings from the sections Forster includes. We know that his behaviour towards Catherine was shameful, but it is clear that Dickens himself was very unhappy at this time:
“[I] am altogether in a dishevelled state of mind—motes of new books in the dirty air, miseries of older growth threatening to close upon me. Why is it, that as with poor David, a sense comes always crushing on me now, when I fall into low spirits, as of one happiness I have missed in life, and one friend and companion I have never made?”
This revelation as to his state of mind could only come from John Forster, to whom he confided it. We cannot get this from modern biographers who necessarily rehash what had been recorded before. This is from one unhappy man to his friend, and shared with us most sensitively.
How did Dickens cope with this emotional turmoil in his life? He found solace in his art:
“It was the world he could bend to his will, and make subserve to all his desires …
the world he had called into being had thus far borne him safely through these perils. He had his own creations always by his side. They were living, speaking companions. With them only he was everywhere thoroughly identified. He laughed and wept with them; was as much elated by their fun as cast down by their grief; and brought to the consideration of them a belief in their reality as well as in the influences they were meant to exercise, which in every circumstance sustained him.”
But Dickens was plagued by ill health, which he refused to take seriously. His answer was to work even harder; he always thought he could drive himself through it by sheer will power. From 1858 he worked himself to death with the public readings. This is no exaggeration: his doctors, John Forster and his manager George Dolby could all see it, but the double temptation of his demanding, adoring public and the regular source of money overwhelmed him. It became an addiction he could not throw off. And the fact that he kept the prices low, but scalpers bought up his tickets and sold them at a higher price infuriated him. It was like his fight for copyright all over again. He tried to be so fair to his readers and everything was a sell-out. Even the tiniest space was used … such as the occasion where a young woman squeezed herself on to the stage and lay down holding on to a table leg the entire time, so she would not fall off!
The irony of the readings across Britain, and the second tour of America, is that in the third series of readings he accepted having a doctor on hand, Mr. Carr Beard, who would measure his heart rate before and after a reading. Even a lay person can see from these figures that he should have stopped long before, but since it was all recorded, that seemed to suffice. His letters from this time are all about the demands of the schedule; the exhaustion, the ecstatic audiences, and the money, with occasional diversions such as when his hotel caught fire, or the activities of the Fenians (precursors of the IRA). What made his heart rate soar was a new inclusion to his repertoire, a reading of the (view spoiler)[murder of Nancy (hide spoiler)] in “Oliver Twist”. Dickens’s way was to be taken over by the power of Bill Sikes, and his performances were so terrifying that people fainted in the aisles.
I cannot attempt to highlight these last few years, as the whole account is so moving. As in the previous volumes the account of his reading tours is comprehensive and remarkably detailed. There is also a very long list of his ideas, which he called his “mems”. Just as any admirer of Dickens would, I found these almost unbearably poignant to read, thinking of all the potential works the world has lost, by his premature death.
John Forster says:
“The story of his books … at all stages of their progress, and of the hopes or designs connected with them, was my first care. With that view, and to give also to the memoir what was attainable of the value of autobiography, letters to myself, such as were never addressed to any other of his correspondents, and covering all the important incidents in the life to be retraced, were used with few exceptions exclusively; and … this general plan has guided me to the end. Such were my limits indeed, that half even of those letters had to be put aside; and to have added all such others as were open to me would have doubled the size of my book … It would have been so much lively illustration added to the subject, but out of place here. The purpose here was to make Dickens the sole central figure in the scenes revived, narrator as well as principal actor; and only by the means employed could consistency or unity be given to the self-revelation, and the picture made definite and clear … I studied nothing so hard as to suppress my own personality, and have to regret my ill success where I supposed I had even too perfectly succeeded.”
So now that I have just finished reading the final third of this masterpiece, I am feeling bereft. It is rare that reading a biography makes me feel this way, but reading such a detailed account of the final years of his life, is like losing Dickens himself.
I marvel at John Forster’s biography—and also marvel at the sacrifice he made in order to write it—as indeed he had been doing for thirty-three years, ever since they met. John Forster was himself an historian of some repute, but he always seemed to put his friend’s writing before his own. Charles Dickens was a genius, but if he had not had such a wise friend and mentor to guide him, with a restraining hand to quell his excesses, we probably would not have anything like the works we admire so much today.
Bravo John Forster!
***
Here is a brief overview of the events covered in this final volume:
VOL. III. 1852-1870.
Chapter 1 — David Copperfield and Bleak House (1850-53) Chapter 2 — Home Incidents and Hard Times (1853-55) Chapter 3 — Switzerland and Italy Revisited (1853) Chapter 4 — Three Summers at Boulogne (1853, 1854, and 1856) Chapter 5 — Residence in Paris (1855-56) Chapter 6 — Little Dorrit and A Lazy Tour (of two idle apprentices) (1855-57) Chapter 7 — What Happened at This Time (1857-58) Chapter 8 — Gadshill Place (1856-70) Chapter 9 — First Paid Readings (1858-59) Chapter 10 — All the Year Round and The Uncommercial Traveller (1859-61) Chapter 11 — Second Series of Readings (1861-63) Chapter 12 — Hints for Books Written and Unwritten (1855-65) including spoilers for Little Dorrit Chapter 13 — Third Series of Readings (1864-1867)67) Chapter 14 — Dickens as a Novelist (1836-70) including spoilers for many works: see subheadings Chapter 15 — America Revisited. November and December 1867 (1867) Chapter 16 — America Revisited. January to April 1868 (1868) Chapter 17 — Last Readings (1868-70) including spoilers for Oliver Twist Chapter 18 — Last Book (1869-70) including spoilers and an extra scene for The Mystery of Edwin Drood Chapter 19 — Personal Characteristics (1836-70) Chapter 20 — The End (1869-70)...more
If you have never read The Frozen Deep, the catalogue entries may seem confusing. It is variously entered in libraries as a play, or a novella, by WilIf you have never read The Frozen Deep, the catalogue entries may seem confusing. It is variously entered in libraries as a play, or a novella, by Wilkie Collins, or Charles Dickens, or both. Is this a mistake?
In fact all of these are largely correct. The Frozen Deep was initially written as a play: a collaboration between Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins in 1856, with Charles Dickens taking the lead and making the major decisions. It has been said that the changes were so numerous that the drama could almost be ascribed to Dickens himself. The other end of this work’s genesis came with a final version, 4 years after Charles Dickens’s death. This had been considerably rewritten as a novella, by Wilkie Collins, although he kept the divisions into “Scenes” as if it were still a play. In between at different times there were also more edits made to the play, but not all the editions are extant. There was a revised version staged in 1866, but it was nowhere near as successful as it had been earlier, so Wilkie Collins was convinced that it should no longer be staged. The only play version we have in print is this one; it remained unpublished until a private printing appeared in 1866. This review is attached to the novella from 1874, although the details cover a little more.
A topic uppermost in the public’s mind in 1856 was the fate of the “Franklin expedition”, which had left England in May 1845 in search of the Northwest Passage. Last seen just two months after it had set out, it had apparently been lost without trace. Nine years later, when hope was dwindling, a report was published by the Admiralty Office. John Rae’s account was that he had met with some Inuit (“Eskimo”) people who had told him they had seen 40 “white men”, and later 35 mutilated corpses. The state of these was such that according to John Rae:
“our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last resource—cannibalism—as a means of prolonging survival”.
The public’s shocked reaction to this news can well be imagined, and the Arctic explorer’s wife, Lady Franklin, wrote emphatically that an Englishman was able to “survive anywhere … and triumph over any adversity through faith, scientific objectivity, and superior spirit.” Charles Dickens would not believe the report either, and attacked the veracity of it in print in a long drawn out battle with John Rae.
The Frozen Deep was his creative contribution to upholding the image of the courageous English sailors, thereby lifting the spirits of the public with an emotionally charged, thrilling and highly melodramatic tale. Such a tale must necessarily have a glorious, happy ending. We can imagine the passion with which both Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins embarked on their own mission to keep hope alive, (although with hindsight we know that there would be no such relief.) Their play was an allegory, where the main characters were identifiable as the main members of the expedition and their families, but carefully given fictitious names. It was set in Devon, where four young women each had a relation or lover in the Polar Expedition.
The first performance of The Frozen Deep was at Dickens’s home at the time, Tavistock House, on 5th January 1857. He was already keen on giving “private theatricals”, and wanted to impress everyone with this one, saying: “I want to make it something that shall never be seen again.” His friend and biographer John Forster recorded how Dickens converted the rear of his house into a theatre, and had a 30-foot stage built that could hold 90 people. New gas lines were installed to facilitate footlights and superior lighting effects, there was elaborate scenery and curtains, Clarkson Stanfield, R.A. painted the backdrop—and this was all in order to pursue Dickens’s love of amateur drama. The first performance was a dress rehearsal for an informal audience of servants and tradespeople, with Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and friends and members of the family acting the main parts, and John Forster reading the Prologue.
When I was at the Dickens Museum in Doughty Street (his first house when married) recently, I examined a photograph of the cast of the first professional production. Everyone was facing front as you would expect, except for Dickens, who was sprawling on the grass in front, with his side to the camera. Another bearded man sat a couple of rows back pensively looking down, also apparently oblivious to the camera. Suddenly it struck me. That full beard and spectacles were unmistakable; this was Wilkie Collins! It is as if we were sharing an intimate moment of creation with them; the cast being in a different dimension entirely.
[image]
focusing on Charles Dickens side view, and Wilkie Collins, lost in thought - my detail from the original photograph in 1857
The two authors had first met because of their joint interest in the theatre, 5 years earlier in March 1851, at Forster’s house. The painter Augustus Egg, a mutual friend, had suggested that Wilkie Collins might be a good actor to take over the role of valet to Dickens’s character (Lord Wilmot) in Bulwer-Lytton’s play “Not so Bad as We Seem”. Dickens was pleased with Collins’s performance and the three men went on a 3 month tour of Italy afterwards, sealing their friendship. They were to act in other plays together over the next few years.
For a good while Wilkie Collins was happy to be Dickens’s “ampersand” (they were known as “Dickens & Collins”) and for this, their first collaborative play, he was content to produce the first draft and for Dickens to extensively revise it. Dickens added a preface, altered lines, and—as we have seen—he organised most of the props and sets. The main edition of the play included the words: “Under the Management of Charles Dickens”. Dickens had tried to counteract any diverging goals, and as he saw it, guide Wilkie Collins in constructing the play, and make sure that Collins’s contributions were as he said “less offensive to the middle class”. At this stage Wilkie Collins was happy to comply. He had already acted in a couple of Dickens’s own farces, and was happy to collaborate in writing a play. This was at a time when plays were just beginning to be considered respectable. Alongside the “minor” working class illicit and suggestive farces, plays aimed at a middle class audience were being staged, with family and home uppermost. These were championed by Queen Victoria.
Writers were keen to become known in Victorian theatre, which could establish their reputation. Although we tend to think of novels and stories coming first before their adaptations for stage, The Frozen Deep shows that this was not always the case. Ironically, given Dickens’s role as mentor, he was not to make much of a success as a playwright, with only a handful to his name, whereas Wilkie Collins went on to write 18 substantial plays. Both men wrote novels, but Collins became a playwright, whereas Dickens remained an actor.
And what an actor he was! Dickens always found it impossible to delegate, and was stage-manager during The Frozen Deep’s original staging in Tavistock House. He also gave himself the most high profile and challenging part of Richard Wardour, the dastardly villain who everyone would love to boo and hiss. (view spoiler)[The psychologically unbalanced and obsessive suitor was consumed by jealousy and vengeance for most of the play, but redeemed himself by making a supreme act of self-sacrifice in the end. (hide spoiler)] Wilkie Collins, in contrast played the popular young hero, Frank Aldersley. Thus the lead roles were taken by the authors, with Dickens’s elder daughter Mamie (then 19 years old) as Clara Burnham, and his sister-in-law Georgina Hogarth as the older female Lucy Crayford, kindly wife of the Lieutenant, who seeks to advise the distraught, highly sensitive young woman. Other roles such as the down-to-earth, disbelieving doctor (who is keen to dismiss Clara as an hysterical lonely young woman), and various naval officers were taken by Mark Lemon, (who had co-written a play with Dickens), Augustus Egg and Edward Hogarth.
Both Dickens and Collins made a lot of use of melodrama, which was enormously popular with the sentimental Victorians. They had similar tastes in other ways too, with mystery very much at the heart of their works. Both authors were concerned with the unmasking of hidden crimes and dark motivations in middle class households. When Wilkie Collins’s rewrote The Frozen Deep as a novella in 1874, aspects such as class conflict were more fully developed. He also toned down the racial stereotyping, completely cutting out the character of a barbarous Scotch nurse whom Dickens had described as a “savage”. She had been intended to symbolise the Inuit, and provide a contrast to the courageous English sailors, but time had moved on and the motives for producing this work were not the same. In her place, Clara, one of the young women became the female visionary: an intuitive aspect of fiction which we associate very much with Wilkie Collins.
Wilkie Collins became known for his novels of sensation from “The Woman in White” onwards, and The Frozen Deep develops surprisingly from what seems to be a drawing room drama, to quickly involving the supernatural. However, the young female character having inexplicable psychic abilities involving premonition is typical of Wilkie Collins’s style of creating suspense. Right from the start though, when the play was being rehearsed, one particular scene was omitted. When many weeks later Collins was allowed to view it along with everyone else, it was a scene in which Dickens as Richard Wardour had the stage all to himself. The composer Francesco Berger, a friend of one of Dickens’s sons who had also written the music for another of his plays,“The Lighthouse”, said that it was “a most wonderful piece of Acting. Anything more powerful, more pathetic, more enthralling, I have never seen.”
He was not alone in this reaction. It is on record that night after night, everyone—including according to John Forster the carpenters and the stage-hands—was moved to tears by the play. By now the production had moved from the first few performances staged in Dickens’s home Tavistock House. The playbills advertising it were increasingly noticed, and there were a series of outside performances, including one before Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their family at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. Other guests were King Leopold I of Belgium, Prince Frederick William of Prussia, and his fiancée Princess Victoria, along William Thackeray and Hans Christian Andersen. Queen Victoria wrote in her diary how much she had enjoyed the play, especially Dickens’s acting. After this John Forster tells us, Dickens was keen to hold an extra three performances at the Manchester Free Trade Hall for the benefit of the Douglas Jerrold Fund to benefit the widow of his old friend, Douglas Jerrold.
Thousands came to see these larger professional performances in Manchester, so professional actors were employed, although Dickens and Collins still stayed in their roles. Three of the cast members are still of interest to us today. The professional actors Mrs. Francis Ternan and her daughters Maria and Ellen were engaged for the August performances in Manchester. And as we know, Dickens soon became enamoured of the younger daughter “Nelly”. He was 45, and Nelly was just 18, only 6 months older than his youngest daughter Katey.
Their romance blossomed as the marriage of Charles and Catherine declined, despite their 10 children, but this is not the place to examine that. As well as his connection with the Dickens family, The Frozen Deep’s composer Francesco Berger was also a friend of the Ternan family. He recalled Charles Dickens providing extravagant rehearsal dinners for the cast, full of joints of meat, pies and jellies. Over the coming years Francesco Berger recalled spending Sunday evenings playing the piano, while Charles and Nelly sang duets. We do still have this music; I saw a copy on the piano at Doughty Street, and an excerpt can be heard here https://w3.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/te...
It seems a shame that The Frozen Deep is never performed now. In recent years there has been just one performance in the UK, in 2005 at the Edinburgh Festival. Reviewers wrote that it was “dark and moody”, but it was not really a success. However, it did lead to Wilkie Collins’s novella being reprinted.
Would I go to see it now, if it were staged? You bet I would! It’s a wonderfully exciting tale, mysterious and thrilling by turn, with the odd bit of comic bombast thrown in to lighten the mood (this is Dickens after all). But the central issue, whether Clara was a true mystic with powers of premonition or merely deluded, is riveting. By all accounts the original production was mesmerising, with dramatically lit tableaux on the iceberg in the middle scene. We can no longer see Dickens’s terrifying portrayal of Richard Wardour, but the play lends itself to gripping performances by talented actors, and stage designers would have a field day with the potential here.
The novella too is well worth reading. Wilkie Collins has kept the melodrama, but developed it to include sensationalist elements whilst also highlighting their social significance. If you enjoy the novels by Wilkie Collins, then give this novella a try....more
This is a review of the Norton Critical Edition. For my review of the text of “Oliver Twist: A Parish Boy’s Progress” please LINK HERE***PLEASE NOTE:—
This is a review of the Norton Critical Edition. For my review of the text of “Oliver Twist: A Parish Boy’s Progress” please LINK HERE.
The Norton Critical Editions are excellent, and I was curious as to which edition of the text the editor Fred Kaplan would choose for Oliver Twist. Nowadays Oliver Twist is a favourite classic story, but when Dickens started to write it, he had no idea that it would be a novel. The story began as episodes of “The Parish Boys Progress by Boz”, a continuation of his serial “The Mudfog Papers” published in monthly installments from February 1837, in the popular magazine “Bentley’s Miscellany”. “Mudfog” was based on Chatham in Kent, his childhood home, and it was named in the first sentence of Oliver Twist. (However, Dickens was later to edit this to say: “a certain town … to which I will assign no fictitious name”, to fit in with later events in the story.)
At first, Dickens used to edit “Bentley’s Miscellany” as well as write some features for it. But relations between its owner Richard Bentley and Charles Dickens grew very strained, and the arguments between them increased as the summer went on. Tempers rose and reached fever pitch, until on 30th August 1837 Charles Dickens decided to write no more installments of Oliver Twist unless he was paid more money. For a while it looked as if this was as much of Oliver Twist as anyone would ever read! Charles Dickens was adamant, and there was a gap of two whole months while his readers waited with bated breath.
There seemed to be a stalemate, as Charles Dickens was by now in a serious dispute with his publisher, Richard Bentley. His friend John Forster had done his best to help resolve the situation, and now his illustrator George Cruikshank was trying to mediate too. On 16th September Charles Dickens additionally threatened to resign the editorship of “Bentley’s Miscellany”. But on 28th September Richard Bentley backed down, and signed a revised contract, agreeing to give Charles Dickens £500 extra for each of the two novels he was under contract to write.
So it is only down to John Forster’s diplomatic skills that we can read the rest of Oliver Twist at all. Otherwise we would just have had the first 7 installments (16 chapters). In fact Charles Dickens had to ask Bentley for spare copies of the magazines, so that he could reread the first few chapters of Oliver Twist and remind himself of what had happened. Chapter 17 begins very strangely with a defence of his writing, and what seems like almost two pages of apologia for the “sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time and place”. (Critics refer to this as the "streaky bacon" account). At this point Dickens virtually restarts the story, back at the workhouse, where it had begun. Only now did Dickens know that these episodes must be turned into a novel, and that he would develop the story for 35 more chapters.
There were yet more difficulties as time went on too, as Dickens was desperate to “burst the Bentleian bonds” as he put it. He decided to complete Oliver Twist quickly, and issue it in book form before the serial was finished in the magazine. So he raced to finish the story, providing incredibly convoluted explanations in the closing chapters for the various events. Then he published it as three volumes in November 1838—under his own name for the first time, rather than “Boz”—very probably as another snub to Bentley.
It is not surprising therefore, with all the hiccups, false starts and a rush at the end, that over the next few years Dickens would be dissatisfied. He tweaked his novel half a dozen times in the first couple of years, republishing each time, (although much of this has been lost) and trying to resolve the structural difficulties that had been forced on him by circumstances. Writers of serial fiction always had the problem that what they had written could not be changed, but this was an extreme case.
Charles Dickens’s final edits were in 1867, just 3 years before he died. However, the Norton Critical edition has gone with the 1846 text, the last edition of the novel which was substantially revised by Dickens, and the one that is said to most clearly reflect his authorial intentions. A selection of just three out of George Cruikshank’s original 24 steel etchings accompany the text.
The best editions of Dickens novels contain his Preface(s) plus perhaps a critical introduction and a few footnotes. This has all that, but the text still only takes about half the book. There is then over 250 pages of extra material. This begins with a map of Oliver’s London—not one purporting to show his locations—but a straightforward double spread of central London in 1837.
The section titled “Backgrounds and Sources” focuses on The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which was central both to Dickens and to the characters in Oliver Twist. The act’s far-reaching implications are discussed in articles that include parlimentary debates on The Poor Laws, a harrowing account of an 1835 Bedfordshire riot, and “An Appeal to Fallen Women”, Dickens’s 1847 open letter to London’s prostitutes which urged them to turn their backs on “debauchery and neglect”.
It is possible to trace how Oliver Twist evolved, by means of a chart tabling Dickens’s differing installments and chapter divisions in various editions over the years. Using this one can compare texts, to see the extra paragraphs and titles he wrote. Burton M. Wheeler goes into this in more detail in his essay, later in the book.
There are ten letters on Oliver Twist, all of which were written between 1837 and 1864. They include those to the novel’s publisher (Bentley), the novel’s illustrator (Cruikshank), and the writer John Forster, (Dickens’s close friend and future biographer). Also included is “Sikes and Nancy”, Dickens’s rewritten reading copy which he composed in order to perform to large audiences at public readings in the last few year of his life, sometimes several times a week.
The “Early Reviews” section provides eight witty, insightful, and at times very strongly expressed responses to both the novel and Oliver’s plight, by William Makepeace Thackeray and others, including John Forster (anonymously).
We then have a section titled “Criticism” which lifts this edition of Oliver Twist head and shoulders above any other. Included here are the cream of the Dickensian scholars who have written specifically about Oliver Twist; twenty of the most significant interpretations which have been published over the years. There are essays by Henry James, George Gissing, Graham Greene, J. Hillis Miller, Harry Stone, Philip Collins, John Bayley, Keith Hollingsworth, Steven Marcus, Monroe Engel, James R. Kincaid, Michael Slater, Dennis Walder, Burton M. Wheeler, Janet Larson, Fred Kaplan, Robert Tracy, David Miller, John O. Jordan, and Gary Wills. These are a rare treat. It is difficult to pick any out for special mention. All of these authors are Dickensian scholars, and some have written full biographies about him. Michael Slater’s, from 2009, is still considered by many to be the best since that of Peter Ackroyd’s whopping 2000 one of well over a thousand pages, with Claire Tomalin’s shorter and slightly later one from in 2011 in its shadow.
However these essays concentrate on specific aspects of Oliver Twist. One interesting focus is shed by John Bayley, in “Things as They Really Are”. Building on the novel’s allegorical aspect, he explores the idea of daydreams as being part of our essential double nature. The goodness of Mr. Brownlow’s world and the evil of Fagin’s, he maintains: “coexist in consciousness, they are two sides of the same coin of fantasy, not two real places that exist separately in life”. He says that they appeal to our fantasies; our ideals of how they should be. We therefore want Oliver to be confronted by terrible situations, because we want him to fight and overcome them. “"Dickens villains have the unexpungable nature of our own nightmares and our own consciousness ... We shrink from the fate, and desire it”.
In “Oliver Twist and Christian Scripture” Janet Larson analyses Oliver Twist’s many biblical references, both overt and hidden, whereas David Miller writes a detailed factual piece about the police and how the law affect the events in the book. John O. Jordan's fascinating essay is titled “The Purloined Hankerchief”. It is about the cultural early Victorian mores, and the symbolism of handkerchiefs throughout the novel, from Bill Sikes’s “dirty belcher handkerchief” (named after a famous boxer, James Belcher)—through Mr. Bumble’s two handkerchiefs: one workmanlike one he keeps under his hat, and a dainty one for show, to spread on his knees when he is taking tea with Mrs. Corney—and on to Rose Maylie’s lace-edged one (view spoiler)[ given on request to Nancy, who holds it aloft to heaven at the time of her brutal murder (hide spoiler)]. All the essays are excellent, and I was so impressed with Fred Kaplan’s, that I tracked down a rare book he had written on Dickens and Mesmerism, and have been engrossed in it ever since!
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included in the final pages.
It feels extraordinary to me to recommend an American edition of a work by one of our greatest English authors, but there is no question that leaving the small print size aside, this is the one I prefer. (For personal reasons, I use a Large Print one for the text itself, and use magnifiers for this.) Yes, England has more than one Oxford Edition, Penguin, Collins, Clarendon and many others, but none can compare with the scholarly bounty of the Norton Critical Edition....more
The title of this book may have many readers scratching their heads. Dickens and … what? Dickens and Mesmerism? Surely this is not about the down-to-eThe title of this book may have many readers scratching their heads. Dickens and … what? Dickens and Mesmerism? Surely this is not about the down-to-earth author who wrote such great stories, and created so many memorable characters? Not the one who tirelessly campaigned for a fairer deal for so many who were suffering, and who was determined to make social conditions better? The popular author Charles Dickens was a writer whose stories were rooted in realism, wasn’t he?
Well yes he was, in a sense, but Charles Dickens also wrote ghost stories, and was fascinated by the supernatural. Plus he was profoundly interested in exploring the unknown, and keenly followed all the scientific discoveries exploding around him at that time. In fact his interest in mesmerism, far from our 21st century tendency to scoff, was more to do with the latter scientific discoveries than the former fanciful imaginings he indulged in.
In Dickens and Mesmerism: The Hidden Springs of Fiction, the academic Fred Kaplan explores the significance of mesmerism both in Dickens’s own life, and in his works. He demonstrates that there is hardly a work of fiction Dickens wrote, which is not underpinned by these convictions.
From the earliest “Sketches by Boz”, before Charles Dickens had even announced his real name to the reading public, he was aware of the research into mesmerism, and had written about “magnetism”. Instances of dreams and visions continued all through his writing life, climaxing in ”The Mystery of Edwin Drood” which may well have a more intriguing solution than any yet postulated. Dickens was fascinated by the will, and the mind’s powers, both known and unknown. When we learn that during the late 1830s and 1840s the mesmeric movement in England had intensified dramatically, these mentions all fall into place.
After many early publication troubles, Oliver Twist was the first fully blown novel to describe major mesmeric episodes in detail. It was written between 1837 and 1839, at the height of “The Mesmeric Mania” in London, and Dickens was a close friend of Dr. John Elliotson, who experimented with “animal magnetism” and was at the movement's forefront. The two were to remain staunch friends all their lives, with Dickens dying just two years later than his friend. Afterwards, it was discovered that his huge library contained 14 well-thumbed volumes on mesmerism, including one personally inscribed to him by John Elliotson.
Dr. John Elliotson was an outspoken senior physician, and Professor of the Principles and Practice of Medicine at the University of London. He worked out of the new University College Hospital, which is still a leading London Hospital. His demonstrations of the “mighty curative powers of animal magnetism” (or therapeutic effects of mesmerism) on patients with nervous conditions, and those we now know to be suffering from epilepsy, were astonishing. By 1849, John Elliotson was also performing surgical operations without chloroform; neither did he use ether, which had been introduced in 1847. Instead he used mesmerism to relax the patient and keep them free from pain, well before modern anaesthesia.
The first demonstration by John Elliotson on record which Dickens attended, was in January 1838. Charles Dickens’s letters show that he was regularly to view such demonstrations, despite the enormous pressure of his writing and editing work. He and his illustrator George Cruikshank were also personally invited to attend private treatments, with a small group of up to half a dozen viewers; other leading figures of the day from both the medical, scientific and the literary world. They included the writers Robert Browning, the historian John Forster, the great actor and Charles Dickens’s friend William Macready and many others, who all attended the lectures or demonstrations. William Makepeace Thackeray and Alfred, Lord Tennyson were also greatly interested in mesmerism.
The demonstrations were reported in the medical professional magazine “The Lancet”; a weekly magazine which had been created by Thomas Wakley in 1823 to deter charlatans, and to disseminate the best original medical research. “The Lancet” remains the world’s leading general medical journal. This was cutting edge research for sure, but it was in its early stages, and as with so many other theories, some aspects now seem bizarre.
John Elliotson’s basic two principles in 1838 were that:
1. Mechanical laws working in an alternate ebb and flow: “control a mutual influence between the Heavenly bodies, the Earth and animate bodies which exists as a universally distributed and continuous fluid … of a rarified nature.”
2. Since all the properties of matter depended on this operation, its influence or force could be communicated to both animate and inanimate bodies. It was therefore possible he believed, to create a new theory about the nature of influence and power relationships between people, and also between people and the objects in their environment. If such were proved to be true, then he said “the art of healing will reach its final stage of perfection”.
Magnets were thought to be especially good conductors of the force or influence, so to distinguish it from mineral magnetism, he called it “animal magnetism”. It became known as Mesmerism after the doctor who conceptualised this first, in the 18th century: the Viennese doctor Franz Mesmer. Interestingly, it was a small circle of wealthy Jewish merchants who first paid for the private publication of an 1822 text by the German M. Loewe, which originally sparked interest in London.
Dickens read widely, including the works of Franz Mesmer. His belief in a mesmeric fluid was already established, and he had already written 2 key passages in “Oliver Twist”. In July of the previous year (1837) he wrote a long passage in chapter 9 about Oliver (view spoiler)[’s strange awareness of Fagin and his treasures (hide spoiler)]:
“There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half conscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in five nights with your eyes fast closed …”
It carries on at some length, and is clearly a description of what mesmerists called “sleepwaking” (waking dreams). Dickens was to write another very similar passage almost a year later, for chapter 34 in June 1838, beginning:
“There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure … ”
This is at the point where (view spoiler)[ Oliver is reading and drowsing in a back room at the Maylie’s holiday cottage, and Fagin and Monks appear at the window. It is followed by a description of how Oliver knew exactly where he was, but also felt he was back in Fagin’s lair. The conversation was thus heard by Oliver visiting them, in a mesmeric trance, involving clairvoyance.
“It was but an instant, a glance, a flash, before his eyes; and they were gone. But they had recognised him, and he them …”
(hide spoiler)] Eyes, or staring, or a strong irresistible gaze are mentioned numerous times both in “Oliver Twist” and Dickens’s other novels. Also, (view spoiler)[Monks (hide spoiler)] suffers from fits, as did most of John Elliotson’s patients. The practitioners of mesmerism themselves too were also said to sometimes writhe and foam at the mouth.
These are clearly descriptions of mesmeric trances, although retellings and dramatisation of the story simplify and distort such episodes into mere daydreaming. In an earlier chapter 28, Oliver seems to be half dreaming. Dickens mentions Oliver’s “rapid visions”: memories or partial hallucinations (view spoiler)[ on his journey to the house at Chertsey, primed for burglary (hide spoiler)], in this long paragraph:
“He seemed to be still walking between Sikes and Crackit … when he caught his own attention, as it were, by making some violent effort to save himself from falling, he found that he was talking to them. Then, he was alone with Sikes, plodding on as on the previous day; and as shadowy people passed them, he felt the robber’s grasp upon his wrist” and so on.
There are numerous instances in all the novels: Amy Dorrit, Lady Dedlock, Sydney Carton, Jenny Wren or Affery’s dreaming for instance. Fred Kaplan references literally dozens of instances, but to share them would mean using far too many spoiler tags! Once you recognise the scenarios and type of language, it is possible to find examples quite easily.
As well as his interest in animal magnetism John Elliotson also funded and became the first president of the London Phrenological society in 1824, and this is where some of the managers of the hospital began to have reservations about his theories. Earlier Charles Dickens himself had poked fun at phrenology in one of his Sketches by Boz “Our Parish”. From around 1842 the supporters of “Phreno-magnetism” or “Phrenomesmerism” were divided from the more scientific investigations; the transcendentalists versus the mesmeric scientists, and various factions began to be set up, some with a more spiritual view of reality. Dr. John Elliotson’s reputation as a scientist was solidly secure in 1837, but mesmerism was about to become deeply suspect.
Dickens now developed an abiding belief in phrenology. Ten years later, in 1847 he refused to admit one woman as an inmate to his reformatory at Urania Cottage, on the grounds of her phrenology, stating that: “she had a singularly bad head, and looked discouragingly secret and moody”. And in 1868, nearing the end of his own life and receiving news of his friend John Elliotson’s death, he still said: ”I hold phrenology, within certain limits to be true.”
Charles Dickens remained a staunch friend and believer. When “The Lancet” began to turn against mesmerism, Dickens wrote with great anger:
“When I think that every rotten-hearted pander who has been beaten, kicked and rolled in the kennel yet struts it in the Editorial We once a week - every vagabond that a man’s gorge must rise at—every live emetic in that nauseous drugshop the Press—can have his fling at such men [Elliotson] and call them knaves and fools and thieves, I grow so vicious that with bearing hard upon my pen, I break the nib down and with keeping my teeth set, make my jaw ache.”
At 25 Charles Dickens was a very angry young man indeed!
However the terminology was changing, along with the discoveries. Gradually the concept of a mesmeric “fluid” began to be set aside, as was the clairvoyance aspect, and the power called “animal magnetism” was seen to be within the person, thus paving the way for the definition “hypnotism”.
Seventy years after the concept had first been suggested, it was established that there was no invisible all-pervasive fluid or force. Any metaphorical language was abandoned, but mesmeric effects were agreed to be effective. The observed results were seen to be due to powerful imaginations working in congruence; mental forces not separate from the mind. What the mesmeric operator did to their subject had a new name. It was called “hypnosis”, a term invented by the Scottish surgeon James Braid, and it was seen that such “hypnosis” could indeed play an important role as a curative agent. Modern science now accepts part, but not the whole idea of animal magnetism. Most of the aspects have been debunked by the establishment, but we are left with hypnotism, which is established as a genuine therapeutic tool, as John Elliotson maintained—but without the strange “fluid”—and addition of magnets or mirrors to strengthen the bond (although possibly some hypnotists choose to use these).
Charles Dickens himself practised mesmerism both as entertainment and therapeutically. His first subject was his wife Catherine, and also his friend John Forster. Dickens became adept as a mesmeriser, most notably in 1844 with a Madame Augusta de la Rue. She suffered from extreme anxiety, spasms, hallucinations and strange thoughts in which she spoke of being pursued by a “phantom”. She improved greatly after a month, although Dickens was to treat her on a daily basis for a long time. Chapter 4 records in great detail the interdependence between the de la Rues and Dickens, and also how jealous Catherine became of the time her husband would spend with Mme. de la Rue. He would rush to be with his patient, and over time their bond became so close that Dickens sometimes mesmerised her remotely.
Once, Dickens records, he was travelling inside a coach, fully absorbed in mesmerising Mme. de la Rue remotely by prior arrangement, as she was in a different country. But he found that he had mesmerised Catherine, who was seated outside, on top of the coach, and dropped her muff. When he investigated, she was in a trance. (I cannot explain this, but then neither can I explain why if I stare at the back of someone’s head they turn around and look at me!)
Charles Dickens firmly believed that this procedure would help relieve pain, and relax the patient. He helped his friend and illustrator John Leech (the illustrator of “A Christmas Carol” six years before) in 1849, after a bad fall. The accident had left the artist with concussion-like symptoms which would not disappear, despite all the best efforts of his doctors. He was in a great deal of pain and unable to rest. Dickens rushed to help his friend, and within a few days John Leech’s condition had improved. Others of his “patients” were also notable figures, and he gained quite a reputation, half-joking once that he could make a reasonable living from this practice alone.
There are two more key words in the terminology of mesmerism, “will” and “willpower”. It was thought that operators fed into the mesmeric fluid in the universe, and that their own strength of will was the conduit. Dickens himself was possessed of a strong will, and reports of his public readings frequently referred to his ”hypnotic gaze”. In his fiction, we often find his villains have an inordinately strong will, and a commanding or mesmeric gaze. Fagin has this, as does Quilp, and strong characters such as Rosa Dartle, Miss Wade, Mr. Tulkinghorn, John Jasper and others, all have this penetrating gaze.
Dickens’s heroes and heroines also use their mesmeric powers. They start neutrally, but succeed when they discover their will to be energetic, and use that energy for beneficial purposes. Sometimes they will be overcome by a sudden surge of energy, and not know where it has come from. Their choice is whether to use this new found power for good or evil. His villains on the other hand, use their will for self-interest. There are frequent instances in the text detailed by Fred Kaplan, in the chapters “The Discovery of Self”, “The Past Illuminated” and “The Sources of Evil”. Another chapter, “The Sexuality of Power” goes into the reasons why mesmerism fell into disrepute in the scientific community. By and large the practitioners were middle-aged men, and the patients were often young girls. There were some scandalous cases of sexual misdemeanours by fraudulant doctors, and thus the press also dismissed all those who practised with genuine intentions of healing, as depraved charlatans.
Prior to this, Dr. John Elliotson had made many ongoing investigations on two sisters called Elizabeth and Jane O’key, who were long-term patients at the University College Hospital in London. The experiments were often reported in “The Lancet”, while his reputation held good. They led Dickens to believe that the mesmeric fluid flowed very strongly between blood relatives. In most of Dickens’s novels we have examples of this: many brothers and sisters, twins, lookalikes, or disguises, or doppelgängers, and it is noticeable that often their actions seem uncanny or inexplicable in some places.
Dickens believed the current scientific theory at the time: that in mesmeric trance the order of human experience is distinctly different from that of ordinary consciousness. But there were believed to be varied possibilities of reaction from instance to instance, and from subject to subject. Dickens thought that this served his needs as a novelist perfectly; the possibilities seemed endless! He need not feel his credibility questionable if he changed the details from instance to instance, as the particular fictional situation demanded. This is what he is describing with the kind of sleep which “frees the mind and enables it to ramble at its pleasure” and the “mighty powers bounding from the earth, and a consciousness of all that is going on about us”. In this mesmeric state, he thought, one is in a receptive state of consciousness in which communication can be effected through means other than physical organs. Sometimes, such as in Oliver Twist(view spoiler)[ with Oliver’s sleepwaking state, aware of Fagin and his treasures (hide spoiler)]), it is an instance of double consciousness, but sometimes the physical location is immaterial, such as when Monks says (view spoiler)[he would know Oliver in any circumstances, “even if you buried him fifty feet deep”. (hide spoiler)] Fred Kaplan argues that this is not mere hyperbole, but another aspect of mesmerism.
Charles Dickens’s novels are all peppered with his mesmeric beliefs, interpreted variously as esoteric, spiritual, gothic or allegorical. Also characters demonstrate the mesmeric power of their will in every story. Often we see characters overcome by the strength of another character, such as in “Our Mutual Friend”(view spoiler)[ Bradley Headstone is driven mad by Lizzie Hexam’s hypnotic quality, whereas the dilettante Eugene Wrayburn is energised and given a sense of purpose by her mesmeric power (hide spoiler)]. This is his final completed novel and the mesmeric beliefs are still there, waiting to reach their climax in the extraordinary “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”. He had refined the use of them in fiction to an exceptional degree. Clairvoyance is part of many strange experiences which readers sometimes categorise (or even dismiss) as gothic, but almost certainly have Dickens’s belief in mesmerism at their root. Clairvoyance and “the ability to project one’s mind to another time and place” was at this time believed by some to be another aspect of mesmerism.
A broad view of mesmerism at the time is intrinsic to a full understanding of some of the most baffling passages in Charles Dickens’s writing, and Fred Kaplan’s book, although quite hard to obtain, presents a compelling case....more
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