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The Uncommercial Traveller and Reprinted Pieces
This volume not only combines the two famous collections of Dickens's contributions to the periodicals "All the Year Round" and "Household Words" but also includes 'The Lamplighter, ' 'To Be Read at Dusk, ' 'Sunday under Three Heads, ' 'Hunted Down, ' 'Holiday Romance, ' and 'George Silverman's Explanation.' As Leslie C. Staples writes in his Introduction, 'To know Dickens one must be familiar with a dozen major novels, but the knowledge is incomplete without some familiarity with his journalistic work, muc of the best of which is to be found in this volume.'
776 pages, Hardcover
Published October 22, 1987
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About the author
Charles Dickens
12.9k books31.5k followersCharles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 15, 2023
Delightful--and pertinent a century and a half later. Who knew the Victorians ate so well, even in an abandoned Inn (the Railroad had circumvented this old coach-house): "The stopperless cruets on the spindle-shanked sideboard were in a miserably dejected state: the anchovy sauce having turned blue some years ago, and the cayenne pepper (with a scoop in it like a small model of a wooden leg) having turned solid." Not politically correct, because of his use of the French "sauvage", still CD is hilarious on funeral customs in a chapter titled French Funerals: "The waste for which the funeral customs of many tribes of savages are conspicuous, has attended these civilised obsequies; and once, and twice, have I wished in my soul that if the waste must be, they would let the undertaker bury the money, and let me bury the friend."
The most telling piece this time through is "Medicine Men of Civilization," a fine cross-cultural analysis and satire which shines a spotlight on our recent American presidential election (Romney-Obama) and on the petrified Congress (in the stony wooden scale): "It is a widely diffused custom among savage tribes, when they meet to discuss any affair of public importance, to sit up all night making horrible noise, dancing, blowing shells, and (in cases where they are familiar with fire-arms) flying out into open spaces and letting off guns. Our legislative assembles might take a hint from this.... The uselessness of arguing with any supporter of a Government or an Opposition, is well known. TrY DANCING. It is better excercise, and has the unspeakable recommendation that it couldn't be reported....A council of six hundred savage gentlemen entirely independent of tailors, sitting on their hams in a ring, and occasionally grunting, seem to me, according to my travels, somehow to do what they come together for; whereas that is not at all the general experience of six hundred civilised gentlemen very dependent on tailors and sitting on mechanical contrivances"(287, Oxford reprint).
Dickens "Boiled Beef of New England" includes class amusement, "the other day, on a ace-course, I observed four people in a barouche [fancy carriage] deriving great amusemnt from contemplating four people on foot"(251). On sermons to working man, "What popguns of jokes have these ears tingled to hear, what assinine sentiments, what spelling-book moralities..to the assumed level of his understanding"(253). He talks of "the American cooking-stove," like my Maine grandfather's, a big wood stove took 16 cord of wood per winter. His and Lucy's house, backhouse, barn now on the same dirt road, now named for him, ralph richadson rd, Norway, ME. Absence of beer shows distrust of the working man.
The most telling piece this time through is "Medicine Men of Civilization," a fine cross-cultural analysis and satire which shines a spotlight on our recent American presidential election (Romney-Obama) and on the petrified Congress (in the stony wooden scale): "It is a widely diffused custom among savage tribes, when they meet to discuss any affair of public importance, to sit up all night making horrible noise, dancing, blowing shells, and (in cases where they are familiar with fire-arms) flying out into open spaces and letting off guns. Our legislative assembles might take a hint from this.... The uselessness of arguing with any supporter of a Government or an Opposition, is well known. TrY DANCING. It is better excercise, and has the unspeakable recommendation that it couldn't be reported....A council of six hundred savage gentlemen entirely independent of tailors, sitting on their hams in a ring, and occasionally grunting, seem to me, according to my travels, somehow to do what they come together for; whereas that is not at all the general experience of six hundred civilised gentlemen very dependent on tailors and sitting on mechanical contrivances"(287, Oxford reprint).
Dickens "Boiled Beef of New England" includes class amusement, "the other day, on a ace-course, I observed four people in a barouche [fancy carriage] deriving great amusemnt from contemplating four people on foot"(251). On sermons to working man, "What popguns of jokes have these ears tingled to hear, what assinine sentiments, what spelling-book moralities..to the assumed level of his understanding"(253). He talks of "the American cooking-stove," like my Maine grandfather's, a big wood stove took 16 cord of wood per winter. His and Lucy's house, backhouse, barn now on the same dirt road, now named for him, ralph richadson rd, Norway, ME. Absence of beer shows distrust of the working man.
September 9, 2021
I thought once that Dickens’ plots are so corny with all that melodrama, sentimentality and coincidences and his descriptions so vivid that it might be worth reading his no-fictional work, of which two collections are in this book. However I was wrong. Being a journalist, Dickens misses out on the element of the fantastic that makes his fiction more vivid than mere realism could possible be. There are some nice vignettes of Victorian life, but none have the excitement and character of his fictional scenes.
Two pieces struck me. After getting through 700 pages the final piece, George Silverman’s Explanation, is a short story on familiar Dickens themes, the oppressed innocent child and the adult subject to what we would now call gaslighting. The chief gaslighter is the only character in the whole collection who comes anywhere near Dickens’ unforgettable grotesques, complete with a unique verbal tic.
The other piece is called The Noble Savage. This is a condemnation of English sentimentality regarding indigenous people. Dickens does not condemn the English as patronising. Rather he lumps all indigenous people together as “savages” and roundly states the only thing is if they become civilized. It is worth remembering this particularly unpleasant racism when Dickens gets on his moral high horse.
Two pieces struck me. After getting through 700 pages the final piece, George Silverman’s Explanation, is a short story on familiar Dickens themes, the oppressed innocent child and the adult subject to what we would now call gaslighting. The chief gaslighter is the only character in the whole collection who comes anywhere near Dickens’ unforgettable grotesques, complete with a unique verbal tic.
The other piece is called The Noble Savage. This is a condemnation of English sentimentality regarding indigenous people. Dickens does not condemn the English as patronising. Rather he lumps all indigenous people together as “savages” and roundly states the only thing is if they become civilized. It is worth remembering this particularly unpleasant racism when Dickens gets on his moral high horse.
August 10, 2020
Rather dull
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February 6, 2016For Dickens—the social engineer—perhaps no essay in this collection comes closer to illustrating his compassion for, and personal (because once lived) understanding of, the plight of the child-pauper than XXI “The Short Timers” (pp. 205-215). It’s a truth as timeless as any I know, and I heard a modern-day rendition of it just the other day from a woman who leads children’s tours in the Discovery Garden of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Those who start out with the least in life are generally the most grateful and reverential when a gift, however modest, falls into their hands.
For the joys of traveling, lodging and dining in the England of Dickens’s time, “Refreshments for Travellers” (pp. 52 – 60) is, itself, a joy to read.
To get a sense of the immense “rewards” reaped by British soldiers fighting colonialist battles abroad, read “The Great Tasmania’s Cargo” (pp. 74 – 82).
Thomas Wolfe once wrote a novel titled You Can’t Go Home Again. Although it’s just one chapter in The Uncommercial Traveller, “Dullborough Town” (pp. 116 – 125) comes closest to Wolfe’s opus—or at least to my memory of a book I read over forty years ago.
Rarely would I cite a footnote in a review such as this one. That said, this particular footnote (I feel) bears citation. In the essay titled “Chambers” in which Dickens sheds some “ghostly” light on one of his first jobs, we get an even keener sense of Dickens’s rather acerbic sense of humor in reading an end-of-text footnote (on p. 376) in explanation of the use of Dickens’s “Resurrection Man”: “a ‘resurrection man’ is a body snatcher, or a person who illegally exhumes bodies in order to sell them to anatomists (OED). Dickens once gave out a calling card with ‘Charles Dickens: Resurrectionist – in search of a subject’ on it, as if to suggest, in a grimly humorous way, a parallel with his vocation as a writer.”
For a typically Dickensian (i.e., exquisitely written; moving; humane) non-fiction story, I recommend Chapter XVII (“The Italian Prisoner”), pp. 168 – 177.
If you’re accustomed to thinking of London as a regal metropolis, Dickens takes another (and much dimmer) view of the city. In XXV (“The Boiled Beef of New England”), pp. 245-253, we read the following: “(t)he shabbiness of our English capital, as compared with Paris, Bordeaux, Frankfort, Milan, Geneva—almost any important town on the continent of Europe—I find very striking after an absence of any duration in foreign parts. London is shabby in contrast with New York, with Boston, with Philadelphia. In detail, I would say it can rarely fail to be a disappointing piece of shabbiness, to a stranger from any of those places. There is nothing shabbier than Drury-lane, in Rome itself. The meanness of Regent-street, set against the great line of Boulevarts (sic!) in Paris, is as striking as the abortive ugliness of Trafalgar-square, set against the gallant beauty of the Place de la Concorde. London is shabby by daylight, and shabbier by gaslight. No Englishman knows what gaslight is, until he sees the Rue de Rivoli and the Palais Royal after dark.”
Note: I suspect—much like English cuisine these days—that Dickens’s view of London in this passage is at least as dated as his use of the word “boulevart” for “boulevard.” Both the cuisine and the city itself have come a long way in the last 147 years. And as regards his comment about New York (I can’t speak with any kind of real authority about either Boston or Philadelphia, inasmuch as I don’t know the seedier parts of those two cities), I think he should’ve looked a bit more critically behind the curtain.
Additional note: the rest of this same essay is an excellent illustration of Dickens’s unquestioned respect for the English working class, even if his “respect” for the class of which he is unquestionably a part is rather less than enthusiastic. Dickens—we can readily see in this essay—was no high-handed moralist.
If Dickens shows genuine commiseration with the working class, he shows anything but with the criminal and parasitical elements of his day—the elements then referred to as “roughs,” but which have earned the more recent sobriquet of “hooligans.” For the evidence, see Chapter XXX (“The Ruffian”), pp. 295-301.
If I’ve awarded only four stars to this work, it is not because the work falls short of even the twinkle of a fifth star—but rather because Dickens’s fiction is so one-of-a-kind. The prose in this work of non-fiction shines just as brightly, but it doesn’t move or entertain in quite the same way.
Would I recommend The Uncommercial Traveller to anyone but a Dickens scholar? Quite honestly, no. Most of the material is dated—and Dickens’s syntax is, well, Dickensian. Even the most sedulous of readers has more of literary merit at his or her present command than one life will allow.
RRB
02/05/16
Brooklyn, NY
For the joys of traveling, lodging and dining in the England of Dickens’s time, “Refreshments for Travellers” (pp. 52 – 60) is, itself, a joy to read.
To get a sense of the immense “rewards” reaped by British soldiers fighting colonialist battles abroad, read “The Great Tasmania’s Cargo” (pp. 74 – 82).
Thomas Wolfe once wrote a novel titled You Can’t Go Home Again. Although it’s just one chapter in The Uncommercial Traveller, “Dullborough Town” (pp. 116 – 125) comes closest to Wolfe’s opus—or at least to my memory of a book I read over forty years ago.
Rarely would I cite a footnote in a review such as this one. That said, this particular footnote (I feel) bears citation. In the essay titled “Chambers” in which Dickens sheds some “ghostly” light on one of his first jobs, we get an even keener sense of Dickens’s rather acerbic sense of humor in reading an end-of-text footnote (on p. 376) in explanation of the use of Dickens’s “Resurrection Man”: “a ‘resurrection man’ is a body snatcher, or a person who illegally exhumes bodies in order to sell them to anatomists (OED). Dickens once gave out a calling card with ‘Charles Dickens: Resurrectionist – in search of a subject’ on it, as if to suggest, in a grimly humorous way, a parallel with his vocation as a writer.”
For a typically Dickensian (i.e., exquisitely written; moving; humane) non-fiction story, I recommend Chapter XVII (“The Italian Prisoner”), pp. 168 – 177.
If you’re accustomed to thinking of London as a regal metropolis, Dickens takes another (and much dimmer) view of the city. In XXV (“The Boiled Beef of New England”), pp. 245-253, we read the following: “(t)he shabbiness of our English capital, as compared with Paris, Bordeaux, Frankfort, Milan, Geneva—almost any important town on the continent of Europe—I find very striking after an absence of any duration in foreign parts. London is shabby in contrast with New York, with Boston, with Philadelphia. In detail, I would say it can rarely fail to be a disappointing piece of shabbiness, to a stranger from any of those places. There is nothing shabbier than Drury-lane, in Rome itself. The meanness of Regent-street, set against the great line of Boulevarts (sic!) in Paris, is as striking as the abortive ugliness of Trafalgar-square, set against the gallant beauty of the Place de la Concorde. London is shabby by daylight, and shabbier by gaslight. No Englishman knows what gaslight is, until he sees the Rue de Rivoli and the Palais Royal after dark.”
Note: I suspect—much like English cuisine these days—that Dickens’s view of London in this passage is at least as dated as his use of the word “boulevart” for “boulevard.” Both the cuisine and the city itself have come a long way in the last 147 years. And as regards his comment about New York (I can’t speak with any kind of real authority about either Boston or Philadelphia, inasmuch as I don’t know the seedier parts of those two cities), I think he should’ve looked a bit more critically behind the curtain.
Additional note: the rest of this same essay is an excellent illustration of Dickens’s unquestioned respect for the English working class, even if his “respect” for the class of which he is unquestionably a part is rather less than enthusiastic. Dickens—we can readily see in this essay—was no high-handed moralist.
If Dickens shows genuine commiseration with the working class, he shows anything but with the criminal and parasitical elements of his day—the elements then referred to as “roughs,” but which have earned the more recent sobriquet of “hooligans.” For the evidence, see Chapter XXX (“The Ruffian”), pp. 295-301.
If I’ve awarded only four stars to this work, it is not because the work falls short of even the twinkle of a fifth star—but rather because Dickens’s fiction is so one-of-a-kind. The prose in this work of non-fiction shines just as brightly, but it doesn’t move or entertain in quite the same way.
Would I recommend The Uncommercial Traveller to anyone but a Dickens scholar? Quite honestly, no. Most of the material is dated—and Dickens’s syntax is, well, Dickensian. Even the most sedulous of readers has more of literary merit at his or her present command than one life will allow.
RRB
02/05/16
Brooklyn, NY
April 28, 2015
Phew, what a slog: this is definitely some high-fiber prose.
This collection of Dickens' later magazine articles, as well as some reprinted earlier works which The Inimitable curated himself, tested my endurance. The pieces are all worthwhile, and many are brilliant: it's just that there are so damn many of them, and they are all so dense. In many of the riverside articles, and the stories set amongst the poor, one can discern the genesis of much of works such as Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Hard Times, and especially Our Mutual Friend. "Holiday Romance", a series of tales told in the voices of wildly imaginative children, felt a lot like the work of Spike Milligan. And "The Noble Savage" was rather toe-curlingly racist.
Throughout these articles, I couldn't help feel that "The New Journalism" had pretty much been an invention of Charles Dickens.
This collection of Dickens' later magazine articles, as well as some reprinted earlier works which The Inimitable curated himself, tested my endurance. The pieces are all worthwhile, and many are brilliant: it's just that there are so damn many of them, and they are all so dense. In many of the riverside articles, and the stories set amongst the poor, one can discern the genesis of much of works such as Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Hard Times, and especially Our Mutual Friend. "Holiday Romance", a series of tales told in the voices of wildly imaginative children, felt a lot like the work of Spike Milligan. And "The Noble Savage" was rather toe-curlingly racist.
Throughout these articles, I couldn't help feel that "The New Journalism" had pretty much been an invention of Charles Dickens.
February 5, 2017
At last at last! This was a bit of a slog, and I'm glad to be done. Warning to other readers - do not read Dickens' short stories and essays in compilation form. Choose one at a time, read and enjoy, maybe use them for study. But 700+ pages in a row....don't do it to yourself.
To be sure the stories and essays contained within the Uncommercial Traveller and Repriting Pieces are explorations of the Victorian World that can still be seen as relevant today, or provide insight into his novels. They should not be shoved lightly aside, but they should be taken in small doses for greater appreciation.
To be sure the stories and essays contained within the Uncommercial Traveller and Repriting Pieces are explorations of the Victorian World that can still be seen as relevant today, or provide insight into his novels. They should not be shoved lightly aside, but they should be taken in small doses for greater appreciation.
April 21, 2008
This book was a bit boring and I skipped around in reading it. He does mention observing the Mormons traveling to America on the boat "The Amazon," and is amaized at their good natures and pleasant additudes...once again, my neighbor (who grew up in England) wanted me to read it.
November 23, 2011
This collection of "literary sketches and reminiscences" is now in the public domain. A free electronic copy can be found here.
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June 27, 2007dickens nonfiction generally outshines his fiction. great for those who don't think they like Dickens.
March 17, 2017
Something of a slog. Journalism doesn't always age well, even when it's by one of the greats. Many of the stories in the Reprinted Pieces are a treat, though. If I really include the "date started" to "date finished" range I think it would be more than a decade.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews