"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" (1833) - Later "Mr. Minns and his Cousin" (Sketches by Boz 1)

"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" was the first published work of Charles Dickens. It appeared in the Monthly Magazine on December 1st, 1833. It was later included in Sketches by Boz, with the new title that Dickens later gave it: "Mr. Minns and His Cousin". The editors of the Delphi Classics edition of The Complete Works of Charles Dickens decided to open the collection with "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", even though it is included again in Sketches by Boz, with its new title because it marked the beginning of Dickens's career as a storyteller. They add a moving account by Dickens himself explaining his feelings when his story was published:

"... my first copy of the Magazine in which my first effusion - dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street - appeared in all the glory of print; on which memorable occasion - how well I recollect it! - I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half-an-hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there."


What a wonderful piece of comedy! What can you expect when Mr. Augustus Minns, "the most retiring man in the world" is invited to dinner by his boisterous cousin, Mr. Octavius Budden, with the hope that the former would make the latter's son his heir? Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Well, if you add that Mr. Minns hates dogs and children, that Mr Budden has, as already said, a son, and that he brings his own dog to Mr. Minns's house to formally invite him to dinner... comedy is served. Some quotes to open up your appetite:


"There were two classes of created objects which he [Mr. Minns] held in the deepest and most unmingled horror; these were dogs, and children. He was not unamiable, but he could, at any time, have viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with the liveliest satisfaction."


"And Mr. Octavius Budden departed, leaving his cousing looking forward to his visit on the following Sunday, with the feelings of a penniless poet to the weekly visit of his Scotch landlady."


"By the most extraordinary good fortune, however, a coach was waiting at the Flower-pot, into which Mr. Augustus Minns got, on the solemn assurance of the cad that the vehicle would start in three minutes - that being the very utmost extremity of time it was allowed to wait by Act of Parliament. A quarter of an hour elapsed, and there were no signs of moving. Minns looked at his watch for the sixth time." Thankfully, I should add, this sort of things seem not to be exclusive to Spain...

And the finale: SPOILER ALERT!!!

"It was somewhere about three o'clock in the morning, when Mr. Augustus Minns knocked feebly at the street-door of his lodgings in Tavistock-street, cold, wet, cross, and miserable. He made his will next morning, and his professional man informs us, in that strict confidence in which we inform the public, [isn't this great or what?] that neither the name of Mr. Octavius Budden, nor of Mrs. Amelia Budden, nor of Master Alexander Augustus Budden, appears therein."


"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" was just the beginning...

ZERO!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. DICKENS!!!

Dickens's Dream (1875),
by Robert William Buss (1804-1875)

The countdown has finally ended. Today we celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. Happy bicentenary, Mr. Dickens! You haven't aged a bit!!!

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7th February 1812, at Landport, in Portsea (Portsmouth) and he rose to become the most popular writer of his generation and certainly one of the greatest authors of English literature. One can argue whether his narrative has aged or not depending, of course, on personal tastes. Indeed, although Dickens is celebrated as one of the greatest English novelists he is also censured for his sometimes excessive sentimentalism, particularly in his portrayal of destitute children.

Dickens at the Blacking Warehouse (1904),
from a drawing by Fred Bernard

Having been removed from school at the age of 12 and sent to a blacking factory in order to support the family's poor economy, young Dickens was forced to become intimately acquainted with the harsh conditions of the working classes, particularly as they affected children. At Warren's Blacking Factory and Warehouse, Dickens had to type up and label pots of paste blacking, earning six shillings a week after working for 10-11 hours every day. He had come to know about child labour the hard way, who could then blame him for excessive sentimentality if, in exchange, he succeeded in raising awareness in the somewhat numbed Victorian reading public?

I have studied and taught some of Charles Dickens's works but am far from having read all of them. The year we celebrate his bicentenary, I have decided to fill that gap.  When I started the countdown to Dickens's birthday, I was contemplating the possibility of reading ALL of his works in this year and share my experiences with potential readers of this blog. But then, taking into account that I have a full-time job that requires a lot of reading and a lot of writing, I settled for a more realistic goal: I would spend at least one hour a day with Dickens and share whatever I thought of interest in this virtual space. I don't want to have a fixed idea of how this blog will take its shape, I'd rather allow its growth to be "organic", with no sense of obligation, just the joy of celebrating the life and work of one of England's greatest authors.  Some books will be read for the first time, others will be re-read for the second, third, or nth time (that is, for instance, the case of Hard Times, which I have taught on several occasions and have now lost track of how many times I have read it). Still, I'll try to approach all them with new eyes.

This will be the first time that I read Dickens electronically, since all the books I posses are Penguin editions. Although I must admit that I am somewhat stuck to the idea of reading Dickens while smelling the paper, I also decided to make a more practical decision and buy a Kindle edition which I can read on my iPad, so that I can take the complete works with me everywhere and save also an inordinate amount of space. The Delphi Classics edition of Dickens's complete works is fully illustrated and also includes essays on critical appreciation as well as some of his biographies.

I have more time to read just for pleasure during the holidays so it might be the case that I succeed in my earliest, more ambitious goal: that of reading all of Dickens's work in one year. If that is the case, this blog will come to its conclusion in a year's time, when Dickens becomes 201 years old. If not - which, let's face it, is the most likely outcome - I will keep on writing until I have read everything he ever wrote, until his heart stopped while writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood

So the adventure begins. Please, join me in celebrating Charles Dickens's bicentenary. The next post will be devoted to his first published story, A Dinner at Poplar Walk, issued in the Monthly Magazine in 1833. In the meantime, I leave you with Google's fantastic "doodle" to commemorate the occasion and with two different clips about Charles Dickens's life: a cartoon production by the BBC, and a very short documentary introducing Claire Tomalin's latest book: Charles Dickens: A Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2011). Enjoy the ride!