Results 221 - 240 of 3691 Article Index

Letter from reader: Ragged Schools and Dormitories; correction of statement in [H. W. Wills], 'The Power of Small Beginnings', Household Words, I (no. 17, July 20, 1850), 407-08.

Dickens wrote the following portion of 'Foreigners' Portraits of Englishmen': from 'In a pretty piece' (p. 601) to 'shadow of resemblance' (p. 602).
Dickens also made the following significant interpolations: from 'He must' to 'Isle of Wight' (p. 602); from 'We have some' to 'by sign-boards' (p. 602); from 'like a carriage-rug' to 'Field-Marshall' (p. 602); from 'an idiomatic place' to 'unable to report' (p. 602); from 'in which we think' to 'French vaudeville' (p. 603); from 'He was quite the Clown' to 'with his money' (p. 603); from 'Perhaps friendly' to 'absurdities' (p. 603); from 'Travelling Englishmen' to 'glad to improve' (p. 604); the concluding sentence.
Dickens' contributions to 'Foreigners' Portraits of Englishmen' have been determined from a proof in the Victoria and Albert Museum corrected in his hand. In addition to the contributions listed above, he made many less important emendations, additions, deletions, and corrections. These changes - the corrections he made on the original proof, the major passage he interpolated, and the further changes he seems to have made before the article was printed - may be studied in the two successive variorum versions given in Appendix A [of Harry Stone, ed., Uncollected Writings from Household Words 1850-1859, Vol 1, Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968].
Whether Dickens had a hand in the article before he corrected it is conjectural; but he almost certainly corrected a still later version of the article (probably a new proof incorporating the corrections he made in the Victoria and Albert galleys), for in the published article there are significant changes in some of his Victoria and Albert emendations, and he did not allow such tamperings with his own writings. The latter changes may be studied in the second of the variorum versions given in Appendix A.
The text [of the published article], when collated with those in Appendix A, demonstrates how Dickens' editing pervaded every aspect of his collaborators' work, and how, even in this article - one of those in which his contribution is a good deal smaller than usual - his care and his control are everywhere evident. The identifications and comparisons made possible by these versions also demonstrate how difficult it is, barring corrected proof or similar evidence, to determine the detailed changes he made in the work of his collaborators, though his own extended share in such joint articles is usually easily recognized.
For a similar study, though one based upon a different order of materials - the changes occurring between a manuscript in Dickens' hand and its final published version - see 'The Doom of English Wills' and Appendix B [of Stone, 1968].

Harry Stone; © Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968. DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.

Dickens probably wrote or rewrote portions of the following section of 'Two Chapters on Bank Note Forgeries: Chapter II': from 'Some years ago -' (p. 619) to the conclusion.
Dickens may also have rewritten portions of the following passages: the opening paragraph; from 'This then, O gentlemen' (p. 618) to 'Bank of England:' (p. 619).
For a discussion of the Dickens-Wills attributions, see note to 'Valentine's Day at the Post-Office.'
Some of the material in this article is based upon the two-volume third edition of The History of the Bank of England (1848) by John Francis (1811-1882). A presentation copy of this work was in Dickens' library. Dickens seems to have consulted the author as well as the book. On 2 August 1850, he had written to Francis: 'I beg to thank you for the book you have so kindly lent me.... I think I know the pamphlet about Patch to which you refer.'
'Two Chapters on Bank Note Forgeries: Chapter I' by W. H. Wills had appeared in Household Words on 7 September 1850.

Harry Stone; © Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968. DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.

Dickens wrote the following portion of 'The Doom of English Wills': from the opening to 'concedes some obstructed search' (p. 2).
Dickens may also have written most, or perhaps all, of the remainder of the article. His hand seems especially apparent in the following passages: from 'Up a narrow stair' to 'from the rubbish' (p. 3); from 'But, other treasures' (p. 3) to 'papier mache' (p. 4); from 'Thus, then' (p. 4) to the conclusion.
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, possesses a manuscript version in Dickens' hand of most of this article. The version which appeared in Household Words, with the exception of many minor changes and a few more substantial ones (see Appendix B [of Harry Stone, ed., Uncollected Writings from Household Words 1850-1859, Vol 1, Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968], is essentially the same as the manuscript up to the words 'concedes some obstructed search' (p. 2). After that, though the remainder contains some of the manuscript material, the two versions are quite different - the printed version being much longer. The details of Dickens' revisions and the strategy of the concluding elaboration may be studied in Appendix B.
Regarding this piece, Dickens wrote on 8 September 1850, to Wills:

I send you the beginning of our joint article on Cumming Bruce's theme. I have endeavoured to make it picturesque, and to leave the ground open for you ...
I don't like the name ['Ecclesiastical Registries'] I have given the subject. What do you think of The Fate of Wills, in England instead? Or something of that sort? If you will send the proof to me when you have done I will try to put a few lines at the end, so as to wind up with an effect. I think we shall make a great hit with the subject ...
Looking back to your letter, I observe that you speak of my letting you have 'the first article.' You understood, I suppose, that we agreed I should send you the opening of the first article for you to go on with?

It seems likely that Dickens wrote the entire 'first article' after all - though Wills may have supplied some of the facts and several of the paragraphs that went into the expanded last section: Dickens' massive share in this piece may have made Wills feel that it would be improper to include it in Old Leaves (see note to 'Valentine's Day at the Post-Office'). In any case, 'The Doom of English Wills' (parts I and II) were the only full-fledged articles putatively by Dickens and Wills (as recorded in the Contributors' Book) that Wills did not republish.
For the second article on this theme, see 'The Doom of English Wills: Cathedral Number Two.'

Harry Stone; © Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968. DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.