In this piece Dickens moves from fanciful reminiscences of his childhood and youth to memories of his residence at the Palazzo Peschiere in Genoa in 1844-1845 and in Paris during the winter of 1855-1856.

'Mrs Pipchin' appears in Dombey and Son; she is the unsympathetic old boarding-school keeper to whom the Dombey children are sent in Brighton and was based on an old lady (or possibly two old ladies) who had figured in Dickens's very early life (see Slater, Dickens and Women [1983], n. 41 on pp. 389-390). The Twelfth Cake mentioned in the passage about his Italian New Year's Day was sent as a birthday present protégé of hers; Dickens describes it in a letter to Forster as 'weighing ninety pounds' and 'magnificently decorated' (Pilgrim, Vol. IV, p. 242). Also mentioned as 'my good friend and servant' is Louis Roche, the splendidly resourceful courier Dickens employed for his family sojourns in Italy and Switzerland and whom he valued very highly. One of the main streets Genoa is the Strada di Carlo Felice. For details of the various Parisian theatres mentioned on pp. 499-501, see J. McCormick, Popular Theatres of Nineteenth Century France (1993). It was certainly true at this time, as Dickens jokingly notes, that a great many of the dramas produced in Paris were the product of colloboration between two writers.

Literary allusions

• 'lions ...  who fattened on boys who said they didn't care': alludes to the story about a naughty boy called Harry in Daniel Fenning's Universal Spelling Book (first published 1756), in which Harry always replies, 'I don't care for that', when reproved for his bad conduct—he is sent to prison and escapes only to be shipwrecked on a desolate shore, where he becomes 'a Prey to Wild Beasts';
• 'the Waters of Oblivion': from the story of Sadak and Kalasrade, Tale No. 9 in James Ridley's Tales of the Genii (1764);
• 'Because I am not virtuous, shall there be no cakes...?': adapted from Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 2, Sc. 3: 'Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?';
• 'the gardens of the Wonderful Lamp': from the story of Aladdin in The Arabian Nights;
• 'the brave William', lover of Black Eyed Susan (1829) the penultimate scene shows William being court-martialled for striking a superior officer in defence of his wife's honour, an act for which he has, under the articles of war, to be sentenced to death.

Author: Michael Slater; © J. M. Dent/Orion Publishing Group, Dickens' Journalism Volume III: 'Gone Astray' and Other Papers from Household Words, 1851-1859, 1998.

DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.

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