Dickens and the Unreal City: Searching for Spiritual Significance in Nineteenth-Century London

258 Pages·2008·1.198 MB·English

by  Karl Ashley Smith (auth.)

Dickens and the Unreal City
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Dickens and the Unreal City
Searching for Spiritual Significance in
Nineteenth-Century London
Karl Ashley Smith
© Karl Ashley Smith 2008
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-54523-6
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work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2008 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
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ISBN 978-1-349-36074-1 ISBN 978-0-230-58325-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230583252
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith,Karl Ashley,1975–
Dickens and the unreal city:searching for spiritual significance in
nineteenth-century London / Karl Ashley Smith.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Dickens,Charles,1812–1870—Knowledge—London (England)
2. London (England)—In literature.3. Dickens,Charles,1812–1870—
Religion.4. Dickens,Charles,1812–1870—Symbolism. I. Title.
PR4592.L58S65 2008
823’.8—dc22 2008011811
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements vii
List of Abbreviations ix
Introduction: ‘A heap of broken images’ 1
1 ‘A revelation by which men are to guide themselves’:
Dickens and Christian Theology 8
2 ‘The debilitated old house in the city’:
London as Haunted House 34
3 ‘A great (and dirty) city’: London’s Dirt and the Terrors of
Obscurity 63
4 ‘Angel and devil by turns’: The Detective
Figure in Bleak House 91
5 ‘A road of ashes’: London’s Railway and
the Providential Timetable 118
6 ‘The secrets of the river’: The Thames within London 148
7 ‘A dream of demon heads and savage eyes’:
Dickens’s Metropolitan Crowd 178
Conclusion: ‘What is the city over the mountains’ 211
Notes 223
Bibliography 236
Index 241
v
Illustrations
Colour Plates
1 Augustus Egg, Past and Present III
2 William Frith, The Railway Station
Black and White Illustrations
1 ‘Taking the Census in the Arches of the Adelphi’,
Illustrated Times, xii, 1861 (British Library)
2 Portrait of Inspector Field, Illustrated Times, 2nd Feb 1856
3 John Cooke Bourne (British Library), ‘Construction
of the Euston Arch, London, October 1837’
vi
Acknowledgements
This is a long book that has gestated over a long period of time, and nec-
essarily there is a long list of people who have to be thanked.
It has been adapted from a Ph.D. thesis undertaken at the University of
St Andrews between 1997 and 2002. This in itself was a thoroughly
enjoyable and rewarding experience. I would like to thank the
University, and the School of English in particular, for the scholarship
funding, without which the research that went into this book would
quite simply not have been possible. My supervisor, Phillip Mallett,
merits special thanks for the unstinting energy, enthusiasm and intel-
lectual rigour that he invested in that task and for the continued inter-
est he has taken in my work since submission. Whatever else he has on
his plate (and the helpings are always generous), he has always been
prepared to give the work his full attention. I benefitted strongly from
the advice of Dr Michael Herbert and numerous other members of the
department at this stage, and must also mention the helpful comments
made by my external advisors, Dr Paul Schlicke and D Gill Plain, both
during the viva and afterwards. A special Dickens and the Unreal City
badge must be awarded to Jill Gamble, whose name features in the
acknowledgements of better books than this one! Her help as postgrad-
uate secretary and the help of other secretarial staff was crucial at this
stage of the process.
I would like to thank all my colleagues at the University of Dundee’s
English Department for the various pieces of advice that have fed into
the process of turning this from a thesis into a book and for providing
an enjoyable and supportive working environment in which to do so.
I have particularly benefitted from working with my head of depart-
ment, Rob Watt, on an article on Dickens’s involvement in the railway-
sponsored Daily News, which has helped me to develop some of the
ideas on Providence and technology in Chapters 1 and 5.
A great deal of material from Chapter 4 was adapted into an article,
focusing largely on the Victorian heroine’s relationship to London’s
dirt, that appeared in Dickens Studies Annual in 2003 entitled ‘Little
Dorrit’s “Speck” and Florence’s “Daily Blight”: Urban Contamination
vii
viii Acknowledgements
and the Victorian Heroine’. My thanks is due to AMS Press for permis-
sion to reproduce it here.
I must also thank the Carnegie Trust for the Scottish Universities for
their generous illustrations grant, which paid for the pictures in colour
in the centre pages of the book.
Many thanks to Steven Hall and Christabel Scaife of Palgrave – particularly
for their help in sorting out illustrations while I have been in Malawi.
I must thank my mother and father, who have given me unfailing love
and support at no small cost to themselves during my years when I was
producing the thesis, to say nothing of before and afterwards. Finally,
Imust record my debt of gratitude to my wife Joy Rafferty for her con-
stant encouragement, understanding and love – as well as the many acts
of thoughtfulness she shows me each day.
Abbreviations
AN American Notes
BH Bleak House
BR Barnaby Rudge
COO The Castle of Otranto
DC David Copperfield
DS Dombey and Son
GE Great Expectations
LD Little Dorrit
MC Martin Chuzzlewit
MOU The Mysteries of Udolpho
NN Nicholas Nickleby
OCS The Old Curiosity Shop
OMF Our Mutual Friend
OT Oliver Twist
PP The Pickwick Papers
SBB Sketches by Boz
TTC A Tale of Two Cities
TWL The Waste Land
UT Re-printed Pieces and The Uncommercial Traveller
ix