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A Twist in the Tale: Charles Dickens and Islington

A Twist in the Tale: Charles Dickens and Islington

INTRODUCTION A Twist in the Tale: and

HARLES DICKENS (1812-70), ’s most affluent , industrious Battle Bridge and St Luke’s popular Victorian novelist, knew Islington well. Hospital for Lunatics, , which he visited on the day Dickens recorded life in the area and its after Christmas 1851. surroundings in fiction and in fact throughout While never a resident of Islington, Charles Dickens was a hisC career as a writer. He was particularly attracted to frequent visitor to the home and studio of illustrator George . The writer regularly visited this densely populated Cruikshank in Amwell Street. The pair first met in 1835, with district, drawing influences for his work from the people that the artist going on to create images for the writer’s early he encountered, the buildings that he passed and the scenes works, including Sketches by Boz and, famously, . that he witnessed. Another of Dickens’s connections to the area was the Charles Dickens’s early descriptions of Islington and Savings Bank on Sekforde Street where, in October 1845, he Clerkenwell are recorded in his Sketches by Boz (1836), deposited trust funds. a collection of observational pieces. Further local settings A Twist in the Tale: Charles Dickens and Islington explores appear in many of his works of fiction: Oliver Twist (1837-9), his connections with the Borough. for example, features locations from Angel to Smithfield and The reader is invited to discover the streets upon which (1864-5) takes the reader to Holloway the great writer trod, observed and documented and where and to Belle Isle, an area of ‘noxious trades’ to the east of his celebrated characters could be found. In doing so, bear King’s Cross Station. witness to the invaluable social and historical record that Dickens also documented his observations of Islington Dickens created about this unique part of north during in journal articles and through letter writing. He wrote about the .

THE FORMER FINSBURY SAVINGS BANK, Sekforde Street, 2010. Dickens deposited funds here in 1845.

CHARLES DICKENS aged 46-years in 1858, by Charles Baugniet. CHAPTER I CHAPTER I

influenced the publishing industry in Great Charles Dickens: Britain into producing novels in the format a writer’s life of inexpensive monthly instalments. Doughty Street In 1837 Charles Dickens and his young family moved to 48 Doughty Street, , only a short distance from Clerkenwell. At the address Dickens HARLES DICKENS remains wrote Oliver Twist (1837-9), setting one of the most popular much of the book in this nearby Islington writers in the history of district. The story was a great triumph literature. He combined and Dickens subsequently maintained his masterly storytelling, humour, pathos, and C fame with a constant stream of novels irony with sharp social criticism and acute and journal articles, many again with observation of people and places, both Islington connections. real and imagined. Early years Charles John Huffam Dickens was CHARLES DICKENS, England’s most popular Victorian novelist. born on 7 February 1812 in Landport, Portsmouth, the second of eight children. Fame His father, John, was an assistant clerk A man of enormous energy and wide stationed in the town’s navy pay office. talents, Dickens also engaged in many However, young Charles spent most other activities. He edited the weekly of his childhood in London and , periodicals (1850-9) both of which appear frequently in his and (1859-1870), novels. Dickens and his family moved to administered charitable organisations, and , , in 1822. pressed for many social reforms. Dickens’s He started school at the age of nine but extra-literary activities also included his education was interrupted when his managing a theatrical company that father, mother and younger members played before Queen Victoria in 1851 and of the family were imprisoned for debt DICKENS HOUSE MUSEUM, 48 Doughty Street, 2011. The building is the only surviving Dickens giving public readings of his own works in in 1824; a job for Charles was found in residence in London. England and America. a blacking factory just off the Strand. In 1827 Dickens took a job as a legal Dickens as novelist FRONTISPIECE TO SKETCHES BY BOZ illustrated by Final chapter clerk. After learning shorthand, he began George Cruikshank. As Dickens matured artistically, his working as a court and parliamentary novels developed from tales based on In spite of international fame and reporter, developing the power of precise were collectively published as Sketches the adventures of a central character, success, Dickens’s career was shadowed description that was to make his creative by Boz in 1836. The same year he like , Nicholas by domestic unhappiness. Incompatibility writing so remarkable. married Catherine Hogarth, with whom Nickleby (1837-8) and Oliver Twist to and his relationship with a young actress, he was to have ten children. Dickens works of important social relevance, , led to his separation from his Career transformed another project from a set psychological insight and narrative wife in 1858. He suffered a fatal stroke on 9 June1870 and was buried five days In December 1833 Dickens wrote of loosely connected vignettes into a complexity. Among his later, great works later at Abbey. the first in a series of original descriptive ‘serialised’ comic narrative, The Pickwick are (1852-3), sketches of daily life in London, under the Papers (1836-7). Its success made (1855-7), (1860-1), pseudonym ‘Boz’; these and similar pieces Dickens famous and, at the same time, it and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5). CHAPTER II CHAPTER II

district of Holloway, he was less than The Lane was also the route from Battle In the footsteps of Dickens and his complimentary about its south-western Bridge to ‘Boffin’s Bower’, the home of neighbour, Belle Isle: the novel’s ‘golden dustman’, Nicodemus characters: Angel to Archway (Noddy) Boffin. “R. Wilfer locked up his desk one evening, and, putting his bunch of Archway keys in his pocket much as if it were While Dickens gave much of his his peg-top, made for home. His attention to Islington’s southern locations, the north of the Borough was not HERE are a number of home was in the Holloway region Islington High Street completely without mention. Dickens references to Islington and north of London, and then divided Another famous hostelry and just has characters travelling through the its northern reaches in from it by fields and trees. Between around the corner from the Angel was the Archway: Noah Claypole and the great fictional works Battle Bridge and that part of the Peacock Inn at 11 Islington High Street. It Charlotte from Oliver Twist pass through of Charles Dickens. It is still possible to Holloway district in which he dwelt, T is mentioned in Nicholas Nickelby (1838- when heading for London, The Holly Tree’s recognise some of these locations where was a tract of suburban Sahara, 9) as the first stopping place of the coach narrator comments on road conditions in the author’s characters lived, worked where tiles and bricks were burnt, that conveyed Nicholas and cruel school Islington having been on a “coach rattling or travelled. bones were boiled, carpets were master Wackford Squeers to Bothebys beat, rubbish was shot, dogs were for Highgate Archway over the hardest Angel Hall in Yorkshire. Dating back to 1564, fought, and dust was heaped by ground I have ever heard the ring of iron the Peacock is also mentioned in The Holly contractors. Skirting the border of shoes”, and it was “at the Archway Toll “Here London begins in earnest…,” Tree (1855). The story’s narrator found over at Highgate” that Inspector Bucket Noah Claypole remarks to his companion this desert, by the way he took, when “everybody drinking hot purl [an alcoholic the light of its kiln-fires made lurid first picked up the trail of Honoria, Lady Charlotte in Oliver Twist (1837-9) when winter drink], in self-preservation” at the Dedlock in Bleak House (1852-3). walking past the Angel Inn. There had smears on the fog, R. Wilfer sighed inn. The Peacock closed in 1962 and shop The Highgate Archway was replaced in been an inn on this site since the 16th and shook his head. ‘Ah me!’ said he, premises now occupy the site. 1900 by the present-day Archway Bridge Century and the Angel, so named around ‘what might have been is not what is!’ and it served much the same purpose – a 1638, was a popular stopping place for With which commentary on human gateway into and from London, linking the travellers to the City. Dickens would have life, indicating an experience of it not Great North Road with Holloway Road. been familiar with the Angel, by then exclusively his own, he made the best a well-known coaching inn; the site is of his way to the end of his journey.” now occupied by the Co-operative bank (Our Mutual Friend, Chapter IV) on the corner of and Islington High Street. Today, the ‘Isle’ is an area of small businesses and residential housing between Caledonian Road and York Way; the latter once known as Maiden Lane. THE PEACOCK INN, Islington High Street, 1821, by Islington-born artist James Pollard. Battle Bridge and Holloway For his last completed novel, Our THE HIGHGATE ARCHWAY, c.1820. Mutual Friend (1864-5), Dickens turns in part to Battle Bridge (King’s Cross) and Belle Isle, an area of noxious trades to the east of King’s Cross Station. While the writer places the story’s Reginald Wilfer, the kindly clerk and father of Bella, and THE ANGEL INN, c.1850. his family in the developing residential HOLLOWAY, early -19th Century. CHAPTER III CHAPTER III

Expectations (1860-1) despairingly In the footsteps of Dickens and his exclaimed, “...and the shameful place, being all a smear with filth and fat and characters: Pentonville to Smithfield blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So I rubbed it off with all possible speed.”

HERE are several The fictional tale of ‘The Bloomsbury GOSWELL STREET, early-19th Century. references to the southern Christening’ published in Sketches by first morning of his travels, he throws part of Islington in the Boz (1836) features the ill-natured open his chamber window and found, works of Charles Dickens. Nicodemus Dumps who “rented a “Goswell-street was at his feet, Goswell- ClerkenwellT was especially significant in ‘first-floor furnished’, at Pentonville, street was on his right hand – as far many of his stories’ narratives. Several which he originally took because it as the eye could reach, Goswell-street locations still remain recognisable in commanded a dismal prospect of an extended on his left; and the opposite side spite of damage sustained during the adjacent churchyard.” St James’s Chapel of Goswell-street was over the way. “ Second World War and later post-war Churchyard, now a public garden off redevelopment. Pentonville Road, was the story’s point of Clerkenwell: people and reference. Elsewhere in the vicinity, and Pentonville close to the Head reservoir, places In Bleak House (1852-3) Mount Dickens chose Pentonville in which were the temporary lodgings of devious Pleasant is described as a “rather ill- to place a number of his characters. “My Uriah Heep from favoured, ill-savoured neighbourhood.” own abode is lodgings in Penton Place, (1849-50), “The ouse that I am stopping Adelphus Tetterby, impoverished news Pentonville. It is lowly, but airy, open at – [is] a sort of a private hotel and vendor, kept shop in Passage, at the back, and considered one of the boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near Clerkenwell (The Haunted Man, 1848) ‘ealthiest outlet”, said William Guppy, the New River ed.” and Gabriel Vardens’ locksmith shop, the a clerk from Bleak House (1852-3), Golden Key in (1841), was about his home at 87 Penton Place (now In and around City Road said to be “in a venerable suburb – it was Rise). Another clerk, Mr Pancks in Little “‘My address,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘is a suburb once of Clerkenwell towards that Dorrit (1855-7), had a private address Windsor Terrace, City Road. I - in short,’ part of its confines which is nearest to the in Pentonville and brother and sister Tom said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel Charterhouse.” and Ruth Pinch, from air, and in another burst of confidence - ‘I (1843-4), also lodged in the area. live there.’” So declares Wilkins Micawber Dickens returns to Clerkenwell on in David Copperfield (1849-50) when many fictional occasions. A Tale of Two heading home with young David via Cities (1859) has Jarvis Lorry, clerk Finsbury Square. Today, Windsor Terrace at Tellson’s bank, walking along “sunny features Micawber Court, an apartment streets from Clerkenwell (where he lived)” block, and nearby Edward Street was and Mr Venus, a taxidermist featured in renamed Micawber Street in 1937, both Our Mutual Friend (1864-5), lived in “a commemorating Dickens’s celebrated narrow dirty street in Clerkenwell,” where character. The City Road is also briefly he was visited by sinister ballad-seller and referenced in (1846-8). social parasite Silas Wegg. TRADES IN CLERKENWELL GREEN as listed in Goswell Street (now Road) is where Smithfield was the location where Robson’s London Directory, 1843. Dickens would the benign Samuel Pickwick lodged young Barnaby Rudge helped his father have been familiar with businesses in and around with Mrs Bardell in The Pickwick Papers discard his irons after his release from the Green. THE NEW ROAD AT PENTONVILLE (later , and where Pip in Great Pentonville Road), early-19th Century. (1836-7). When Pickwick arises on the CHAPTER IV CHAPTER IV

Clerkenwell was 47,634, increasing Oliver Twist and Islington nearly 20% in the following ten years. (Part One) Angel to John Dawkins (the Artful Dodger) is Oliver’s guide south through the Islington Turnpike, which once stood at the junction of Liverpool Road (then Back Road) and Islington High Street, past the LIVER TWIST or The Angel Inn and on towards Sadler’s Wells Parish Boy’s Progress is and beyond: perhaps Charles Dickens’s most enduring work. OIt was originally published in Bentley’s “As John Dawkins objected to their CLERKENWELL from Vine Yard Walk, Miscellany in monthly instalments from entering London before nightfall, it early-19th Century. Oliver and the Dodger went February 1837 until April 1839. The down a little court by the workhouse on their way to was nearly eleven o’clock when they visit Fagin in Holborn. first novelisation of the tale appeared in reached the turnpike at Islington. 1838, six months before the serialisation They crossed from the Angel into The Dodger led Oliver past the was completed. Dickens was twenty- St. John’s Road; struck down the buildings and through streets of five-years old and living at 48 Doughty small street which terminates at Clerkenwell, their names still largely Street (now Dickens House Museum), Sadler’s Wells Theatre; through recognisable today: Angel, Sadler’s Bloomsbury, when he began writing Exmouth Street and Coppice Row; Wells, and St John Twist; the address is near to several down the little court by the side of Street. Coppice Row later made way for locations in Clerkenwell that the author the workhouse; across the classic and Hockley-in-the- weaved into the story’s narrative. ground which once bore the name Hole, renamed Ray Street, was once an of Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence 18th-century place of entertainment. into Little Saffron Hill; and so into Today, Oliver’s route passes a mix of Saffron Hill the Great: along which historical 19th-century housing and the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, 20th-century commercial buildings. directing Oliver to follow close at his heels.” Archway and Highgate (Oliver Twist, Chapter VIII) Even Islington’s most northern A LATER EDITION OF OLIVER TWIST with extremities make an appearance in illustrations by George Cruikshank. Oliver Twist. Noah Claypole and companion Charlotte pass through the A wretched place former Highgate Archway when travelling Oliver Twist’s initial encounter with to London. The Archway was built in Clerkenwell and adjacent neighbourhoods 1813 to the design of John Nash and was was less than pleasurable, “A dirtier or replaced with the present Archway Bridge more wretched place he had never seen… in 1900. And nearby, Bill Sikes strode up and the air was impregnated with filthy Highgate Hill in his flight from justice. odours. The sole places that seemed to prosper, amid the general blight of the place, were the public-houses.” Overcrowding was common-place, with the majority of residents living in poor SHOPS IN ST JOHN’S STREET ROAD (now St John CHARLES DICKENS aged 27-years in 1839, by Street), early-19th Century. Daniel Maclise. conditions. In 1831, the population of CHAPTER V CHAPTER V

and up Exmouth Street…and…when it livestock market and, three years later, Oliver Twist and Islington reached the Angel at Islington, stopping the Metropolitan Cattle Market opened at length before a neat house in the shady on Copenhagen Fields, Islington. (Part Two) street near Pentonville.” Pentonville Road has since been “The ground was covered, nearly altered by road widening and ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a development into a semi-commercial thick steam, perpetually rising from area, with local authority housing having the reeking bodies of the cattle, and replaced many of its original houses and late-Victorian Peabody Buildings in Pear mingling with the fog, which seemed Clerkenwell Green buildings. to rest upon the chimney-tops, Dickens describes this location as an Tree Court still hint at the claustrophobic atmosphere of the original setting. hung heavily above… Countrymen, “open square in Clerkenwell, which is yet butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, called, by some strange perversion of Clerkenwell Green is also the location of the Sessions House thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of terms, ‘The Green’.” However, in spite of every low grade, were mingled lacking any ‘greenery’, as is still the case where, later in the story, Mr Bumble the Beadle is involved in an ill-fated legal together in a mass; the whistling today, Clerkenwell Green was the setting of drovers, the barking dogs, the for one of the pivotal events in Oliver hearing before “the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell [sic].” Completed in 1782, this bellowing and plunging of the oxen, Twist – the titular character’s initiation the bleating of sheep, the grunting into the art of picking pockets. grand grade II-listed building is now home to the Masonic Centre. and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house…and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses.” (Oliver Twist, Chapter XXI) OLIVER IS APPREHENDED near Clerkenwell Green. Engraving by George Cruikshank. Smithfield Market Oliver Twist was not to enjoy his initial CLERKENWELL GREEN, with the Middlesex Sessions stay in Pentonville for very long. He was House centre background, 1826. soon whisked away, back to the crime and grime of the Clerkenwell and the City Pentonville fringes, including a visit to the livestock THE DODGER and Charley Bates ‘at work’ in The Clerkenwell of Oliver Twist Clerkenwell Green. Engraving by George Cruikshank. market at Smithfield. Here, with the wasn’t entirely devoid of refinement. brutal Bill Sikes, Oliver experiences The narrow court from which the Its northern district, Pentonville, was market day. occupied by the genteel middle classes. Artful Dodger, Charley Bates and their Dickens clearly felt no affection It is here, to his home, that the ‘apprentice’ Oliver emerge to rob Mr for the market. Smithfield was then benevolent Mr Brownlow takes Oliver SMITHFIELD MARKET, which quite “confounded” Brownlow is generally assumed to be a dangerous place but its days were Oliver’s senses, early-19th Century. following his court appearance, “The Pear Tree Court, which is to the north numbered. In 1852 an Act of Parliament coach rattled away down Mount Pleasant of Clerkenwell Green. Today, the was passed for the construction of a new CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VI

Crown in Pentonville before commencing Charles saw the clown perform there. Dickens to the Eagle, just off the City Road, where In 1837 Dickens was offered Grimaldi’s further refreshment was taken! unfinished Memoirs to edit. He reluctantly and Islington accepted the commission, finding the Pentonville task a great chore, and turned to George Dickens liked Pentonville. Early in his Cruikshank for illustrations. writing career, when engaged to Catherine Hogarth, he considered buying a house in St Luke’s Hospital for the area. At that time, it was occupied by ICKENS knew Islington “… ‘Don’t you be in a hurry, coachman,’ Lunatics the genteel middle classes but property well and used his replied the girl, ‘and recollect I want to Dickens attended a seasonal values were then beyond his means, personal experience of be set down in Cold Bath Fields – large celebration with patients at St Luke’s “strolled about Pentonville, thinking the air the area when writing house with a high garden-wall in front; on the day after Christmas 1851. He did my head good, and looked at one or about local people and places in his you can’t mistake it’…” describes this visit in an article, co-written D two houses in the new streets. They are factual writings. Here are some examples. Dickens’s own wanderings on 2 May with William Henry Wills, titled ‘A curious extremely dear, the cheapest being £55 a dance round a curious tree’, published in 1836 in ‘The first of May’ records him year with taxes.” ‘Boz’ in Islington heading along Maiden Lane (York Way) to Household Words on 17 January 1852. Pentonville was to feature in some of Sketches by Boz (1836) is a collection Copenhagen House and Fields (now the Dickens’s most famous works, including of short, non-fiction and fictional pieces area around Caledonian Park) and then The Pickwick Papers (1836-7), Oliver written by Charles Dickens under the returning towards Battle Bridge (King’s Twist (1837-9), Little Dorrit (1855-7) pseudonym ‘Boz’, a nickname that he Cross) where he encounters a ‘shed’ and Bleak House (1852-3). had given his younger brother Augustus. containing a wayward party of May Day Islington and its environs appear in a characters. He describes Battle Bridge number of ‘sketches’. as a district “inhabited by proprietors Sadler’s Wells Theatre, “Fast pouring into the city, or of donkey-carts, boilers of horse-flesh, Clerkenwell directing their steps towards Chancery- makers of tiles, and sifters of cinders.” Clerkenwell’s famous place of lane and the Inns of Court…” is how Dickens was to revisit Battle Bridge in entertainment was founded as a music ‘Boz’ describes Islington and Pentonville Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) thirty house and health spa in the 17th Century. ST LUKE’S HOSPITAL FOR LUNATICS, Old Street, clerks’ daily commute to work (‘The years later. Upon publication of Oliver Twist, a number early-19th Century. It mixed benevolence with of theatrical productions of the story “unconscious cruelty.” Dickens was a campaigner for Streets – Morning’). In ‘The Prisoners’ asylum reform. Van’ he describes Coldbath Fields Prison were performed at the Wells, including – now the site of the Royal Mail’s one with a buxom woman playing the The “gloomy” hospital on Old Street Mount Pleasant Sorting Office – as the young orphan, much to Dickens’s provided free care to the impoverished dropping off point for ‘Emily’, who has displeasure! mentally ill, mixing benevolence with been sentenced for six weeks plus labour, Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), “unconscious cruelty” in the treatments. the world famous clown, was a regular Dickens was critical of the care of the performer at Sadler’s Wells; as a boy, mentally ill in such institutions. Calling for asylum reform, he concludes ‘A curious dance’ with an appeal to readers, “if you MAIDEN LANE (now York Way) in 1835 by E H Dixon. can do a little in any good direction – Dickens walked this route in May 1836, past the tile do it.” kilns on the right and on to Copenhagen House. St Luke’s Hospital closed in 1916. The Local public houses did not escape building was later acquired by the Bank Boz’s attention. Two such hostelries of England to print bank notes until the appear in ‘Miss Evans and the Eagle’. The early-1950s and demolished in 1963. COLDBATH FIELDS PRISON, Clerkenwell, early- piece’s revellers sample shrub, an alcoholic 19th Century. Dickens was a frequent visitor to prisons, campaigning for reforms in the penal system. punch, with intoxicating effect, at the SADLER’S WELLS THEATRE, 1830. CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VII

Cruikshank’s overweight and dozy End of a friendship George Cruikshank: assistant, the appropriately named Joseph The friendship between author and Sleap, was to inspire Dickens’s somnolent artist did not last; biographers suggest Dickens’s illustrator Joe ‘the fat boy’ in The Pickwick Papers that Cruikshank’s inability to satisfy (1836-7). Dickens commenced the long falling-off. Their relationship soured further when Bentley’s Miscellany Cruikshank became a fanatical teetotaller In December 1836 the publisher in opposition to Dickens’s views of Richard Bentley, seizing an opportunity ONDON-BORN George moderation. to sign up the most popular writers and Cruikshank (1792-1878) urban artists of the day, hired Dickens to was a graphic artist and edit and Cruikshank to illustrate his new book illustrator, praised as journal, Bentley’s Miscellany. theL ‘modern Hogarth’ during his life. By the 1820s Cruikshank had become an From January 1837 to November acclaimed caricaturist, social campaigner 1843, Cruikshank provided Bentley and supporter of radical causes. In 1836 with some of his best work, including Dickens himself was described in The images for Dickens’s The Mudfog Papers Spectator as ‘the Cruikshank of writers’. (1837–8) and Oliver Twist (1837-9); his depictions of characters and scenes often Amwell Street, Pentonville influenced many dramatic renditions of this famous story. From 1823 until 1849, George SECTION TAKEN FROM CRUIKSHANK’S LETTER TO THE TIMES (30 December 1871) in which he Cruikshank lived and worked at three claims to be the ‘originator’ of Oliver Twist. addresses in Myddelton Terrace (later renamed and Amwell On 30 December 1871, eighteen- Street). A plaque between numbers 69 months after the death of Dickens, and 71 Amwell Street commemorates Cruikshank published a letter in The Times his last two residences and adjoining NOS 69 AND 71 AMWELL STREET, 2011. in which he claimed credit for much of the These addresses were two former residences and plot of Oliver Twist, ”I am the originator Cruikshank Street (formerly Bond Street) studios of George Cruikshank, illustrator of Dickens’s is named in his honour. early work. of Oliver Twist, and that all the principle characters are mine…” The letter launched Cruikshank and Dickens a fierce controversy around who created It was on 17 November 1835 at the work but, in his preface to the 1867 his Amwell Street home and studio that edition of Twist, Dickens strenuously George Cruikshank first met Charles denied any such claim. Dickens to discuss illustrations for George Cruikshank died on 1 Sketches by Boz, a collected work of February 1878 in his home at 263 Dickens’s accounts of London life to be Road, Mornington Crescent, published the following year. after a short illness. He was temporarily Sketches was a great success, buried in Cemetery and both on account of the writer’s rising later reinterred in the crypt of St Paul’s popularity and because Cruikshank’s Cathedral as befitting ‘the modern work introduced dynamic graphic Hogarth’. commentaries on the subject matter. Their partnership blossomed and the COMMEMORATIVE PLAQUE to George Cruikshank artist even acted in Dickens’s amateur situated between nos 69 and 71 Amwell Street, the artist’s former homes. theatrical company. In addition, GEORGE CRUIKSHANK aged 44-years in 1836. CHAPTER VIII

Dickens’s Legacy

A final farewell Selected bibliography Dickens gave his last public reading at 8pm on 15 March Further explore Charles Dickens and London with the 1870 at St James’s Hall, London. Dickens, in grave health, read following selection of publications. (1843) and the ‘Trial of Pickwick’ from The Pickwick Papers (1836-7). Dickens concluded his recital with Ackroyd, Peter Dickens’ London. Headline, 1987. the following words: Clark, Peter Dickens’s London. Haus Publishing, 2012. Dickens, Charles & Orford, Paul(ed.) On London. Hesperus “...from these garish lights I vanish now for evermore, Press, 2010. with one heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate Dickens, Monica et al The London of Charles Dickens. Proof farewell.” Books, 2006. Garner, Paul Kenneth A walk through Charles Dickens’ London. Louis London Walks, 2001. Charles John Huffam Dickens died on 9 June 1870 at Jackson, Lee A time-travellers’ guide to Dickens’ London. his home at Gad’s Hill, Kent, aged 58-years. Five days later Shire, 2012. he was buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb read: Paterson, Michael Inside Dickens’ London. David and Charles, 2011. Sanders, Andrew Charles Dickens’s London. Robert Hale, “He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering and the 2010. oppressed, and by his death, one of England’s greatest Schlicke, Paul (ed.) The Oxford companion to Charles Dickens. writers is lost to the world.” OUP, 2011. Tomalin, Claire Charles Dickens: a life. Viking, 2011. Tyler, Daniel(ed.) A pocket guide to Dickens’ London. Hesperus Islington legacy Press, 2012. Dickens chose to read from The Pickwick Papers, his Werner, Alex & Williams, Tony Dickens’s Victorian London. first novel, in his farewell public performance. This is a fitting Ebury Press, 2012. reminder of the influence Islington had on the great writer. Samuel Pickwick was amongst the first of a number of his characters to reside or work in the area. The author selected Goswell Street (now Road) in which to house Pickwick and, subsequently, chose to return to Islington for later novels and factual articles. Charles Dickens’s place in the Borough’s literary heritage is assured. Through his works, and with always a ‘Twist in the Tale’, this great Victorian writer continues to encourage the reader to follow his footsteps and discover the Islington that he once knew and appreciated.

ENGRAVING SHOWING DICKENS PERFORMING AT HIS FINAL PUBLIC READING in 1870, (Illustrated London News,19 March 1870).

CHARLES DICKENS AGED 56-YEARS. In the remaining years of his life the writer’s health declined. During one his readings in 1869 he collapsed, showing symptoms of a mild stroke.

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