Lecture Nine Dickens—Early Works Scope: In this lecture, we will focus on the early works of Charles Dickens, covering the period from 1833 to 1846. Dickens’s initial publications were urban sketches, and they offered early signs of his obsession with London. As he tried his hand at longer works of fiction, Dickens experimented with many styles and forms. Each of his early works took him in a new direction, and at times, he seemed unsure of what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go. By the time he finished Martin Chuzzlewit in the summer of 1844, he had reached a turning point in his career and was poised on the verge of his greatest achievements in fiction. After lectures on Thackeray and the Brontes, who presented him with the first serious competition of his career, we will return to Dickens, surveying those achievements and concluding the first part of our course. Outline I. Charles Dickens is the most important single figure in the history of English fiction, and because his achievement is so enormous, we will need to divide his career in two. A. In this lecture, we will consider his earliest works, following his progress from 1833 to 1846. B. In a later lecture, we will consider the great achievements of his later years—a period that includes Dombey and Son (1847–1848), David Copperfield (1849–1850), Bleak House (1852–1853), and Great Expectations (1860–1861). II. Dickens’s life story is at least as remarkable as the stories contained in his novels. A. He was born in 1812 and died in 1870. His origins were middle-class, but he also experienced poverty firsthand, when his father was arrested and imprisoned for debt. B. Before his father’s arrest, Dickens had begun to dream of achieving some sort of distinction in life. Those dreams were shattered as he was sent off to work in a factory. C. Scholars and biographers agree that Dickens’s experience of neglect and poverty was formative, serving as the basis for much of his later fiction. III. Dickens began his career as an urban journalist, producing sketches and stories for several London publications. A. He was one of the first major writers for whom urbanization was an established fact. By the mid-1830s, when he published his first book, the population of London was already well over 1.5 million people. B. In a passage from a sketch called “Gin-Shops” (1835), we can see the beginnings of his later view of the city. 1. He begins by telling us that his aim is to “sketch the bar of a large gin-shop”—but then explains that we cannot get to our destination without passing through a “filthy and miserable” neighborhood called the “Rookery.” 2. At first, we may be surprised by Dickens’s juxtaposition of the “wretched” Rookery with the “splendid” interior of the gin-shop; later, we realize that the two places are closely connected, with the slums providing customers for the gin-shop—and alcoholism keeping those customers in poverty. 3. For Dickens, it’s the business of the writer to expose such connections, to represent the city as a whole, instead of focusing on particular neighborhoods or classes. C. Dickens learned a great deal from writing the sketches, but he did not master the arts of extending a narrative or developing a character. IV. In the first decade of his career, as he tried his hand at longer works of fiction, Dickens experimented with many different styles. A. Each of his early works took him in a new direction, and at times, he seemed unsure of what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go: Should he be a journalist? An editor? A playwright? B. Through much of this period, he was not usually regarded as a novelist. 1. Contemporary reviewers still associated the form of the novel with Sir Walter Scott, whose stories had always spanned three separate volumes. 2. Publication in three volumes was encouraged by the owners of circulating libraries—institutions a bit like modern video stores—and it would remain dominant for much of the 19th century. 3. Dickens’s use of serial publication allowed him to operate outside this system, yet it also made his works somewhat difficult to classify. Because his early works didn’t look much like novels, they were often identified as miscellanies or magazines. V. To flesh out our understanding of this situation, let’s consider Dickens’s first attempt at a longer, more substantial work of fiction: The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837). A. After a shaky beginning, Pickwick enjoyed enormous success, forging a lasting bond between Dickens and the English reading public. B. At no point in the course of Pickwick’s run was Dickens expected to produce anything like a novel. Pickwick was always supposed to be a series of episodes, not an extended narrative. VI. As Dickens worked on his next two books, he often seemed eager to establish himself as a novelist. A. Though he first conceived of Oliver Twist (1837–1838) as a political satire, he later tried to turn the work into a novel, adding a love story and deepening the mystery surrounding Oliver’s birth. B. In Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839), which follows the adventures of a young man and culminates in his marriage to his sweetheart, Dickens seemed to take another step in the direction of the novel. C. Nevertheless, these works lacked the coherent plots of such works as Tom Jones and Waverley; thus, they, too, were viewed as serials or miscellanies. D. Dickens’s early works were largely improvised. He would begin with ideas for a few characters or situations and, perhaps, with some sense of the ending, but he made up the rest on the fly. VII. Over the next few years, Dickens would continue to experiment, producing some of the most varied and unusual works of his career. A. In The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841), he drew much of his inspiration from fairy tales. The result was enormously popular but also difficult to classify; critical responses were deeply divided. B. In Barnaby Rudge (1841), his fifth major work, Dickens finally came up with something unmistakably novelistic. 1. Barnaby Rudge, a historical novel modeled on the works of Scott, dramatized the Gordon Riots of 1780. 2. Though Dickens hoped that Barnaby Rudge would secure his reputation as a serious writer, it actually had a different effect, alienating both readers and critics. C. In Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844), Dickens returned to contemporary subjects, once again focusing on the life and adventures of a young hero. 1. Dickens tried to give Chuzzlewit the coherence lacking in his earlier work, paying greater attention to character development and centering the story on the larger theme of selfishness. 2. Though not a failure on the order of Barnaby Rudge, Chuzzlewit was not successful. Sales of the opening installments were low, and reviews were mixed. VIII. By the time Martin Chuzzlewit completed its run in the summer of 1844, Dickens had reached a turning point. A. His initial attempts at novel-writing had been unsuccessful, and as one London paper reported, it was becoming “the rage to decry [him].” 1. Dickens’s disappointment was deepened by the fact that he felt and knew himself to be making progress, to be growing and developing as an artist. 2. As he worked on Chuzzlewit, Dickens had begun to develop his understanding of the novel form, in which a narrative could be both disciplined and expansive, coherent and freewheeling. B. In our next two lectures, we will consider the work of writers often viewed as rivals to Dickens. After those lectures, we will return to Dickens himself, surveying his later works and assessing his most impressive achievements in the novel form. Essential Reading: Charles Dickens, “Gin-Shops,” in Sketches by Boz; Oliver Twist; The Pickwick Papers. Supplementary Reading: Kathryn Chittick, Dickens and the 1830s. Grahame Smith, Charles Dickens: A Literary Life. Questions to Consider: 1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of serial publication? Why do you suppose it isn’t used more often today? 2. How should we understand the relationship between popularity and artistic success? Many have assumed that a writer must choose one or the other. Is that choice really necessary? Are artists always compromised by their attempts to please the public?