DICKENS-LAND.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
"So wishing you well in the way you go, we now conclude with the observation, that perhaps you'll go it."—Our Mutual Friend.
Among the many interesting books that have been published relating to Charles Dickens since his death, more than twenty years ago (it seems but yesterday to some of his admirers), there are at least half a dozen that describe the "country" peopled by the deathless characters created by his genius.
Probably the pioneer in this class of literature was that comprehensive work, Dickens's London, or London in the Works of Charles Dickens, by my friend, that thorough Dickensian, Mr. T. Edgar Pemberton, 1876; this was followed by a very readable volume, In Kent with Charles Dickens, by Thomas Frost, 1880; then came a dainty tome from Boston, U.S.A., entitled, A Pickwickian Pilgrimage, by John R. G. Hassard, 1881. Afterwards appeared The Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens, by Robert Langton, 1883, beautifully illustrated by the late William Hull of Manchester, the author, and others—a work developed from the brochure by the same author, Charles Dickens and Rochester, 1880, which has passed through five editions. Next to Forster's Life of Dickens, Mr. Robert Langton's larger work undoubtedly ranks—especially from the richness of the illustrations—as a very valuable original contribution to the biography of the great novelist. Another handsome volume, containing the illustrations to a series of papers in Scribner's Monthly—written by B. E. Martin—entitled About England with Dickens, came from the pen of Mr. Alfred Rimmer, 1883, and included additional illustrations drawn by the author, C. A. Vanderhoof, and others. Yet another little brochure recently appeared, called London Rambles en zigzag with Charles Dickens, by Robert Allbut, 1886. Lastly, there was published in the Christmas Number of Scribner's Magazine, 1887, an article, "In Dickens-Land," by Edward Percy Whipple, in which this veteran and appreciative critic of the eminent English writer's works points out that, "In addition to the practical life that men and women lead, constantly vexed as it is by obstructive facts, there is an interior life which they imagine, in which facts smoothly give way to sentiments, ideas, and aspirations. Dickens has, in short, discovered and colonized one of the waste districts of 'Imagination,' which we may call 'Dickens-Land,' or 'Dickens-Ville,' . . . better known than such geographical countries as Canada and Australia, . . . and confirming us in the belief of the reality of a population which has no actual existence."
It must not be assumed that the above list exhausts the literature on the subject of "Dickens-Land," many references to which are made in such high-class works as Augustus J. C. Hare's Walks in London, and Lawrence Hutton's Literary Landmarks of London.
Since the above was written, a very interesting and prettily illustrated article has appeared in the English Illustrated Magazine for October, 1888, entitled "Charles Dickens and Southwark," by Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry, who is second to none as an enthusiastic admirer and loyal student of Dickens. There is also a paper in Longman's Magazine for the same month, by the delightful essayist A. K. H. B., called "That Longest Day," in which there are several allusions to Dickens and "Dickens-Land." It, however, lacks the freshness of his earlier writings. Surely he must have lost his old love for Dickens, or things must have gone wrong at the Ecclesiastical Conference which took place at Gravesend on "That Longest Day." Altogether it is pitched in a minor key.
None of these contributions (with the exception of Mr. Langton's book), interesting as they are, and indispensable to the collector, attempt in any way to give personal reminiscences of Charles Dickens from friends or others, nor do they in any way help to throw light on his everyday life at home, beyond what was known before.