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Dickens’s London Dickens’s Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture Series Editor: Julian Wolfreys Drawing on provocative research, volumes in the series provide timely revisions of the nineteenth- century’s literature and culture. Dickens’s London Perception, Subjectivity and Phenomenal Urban Multiplicity Julian Wolfreys Dickens’s London This phenomenological exploration of the streets of Dickens’s London opens up new perspectives on the city and the writer Perception, Subjectivity and ‘In this ground-breaking and stylish new work, Julian Wolfreys deploys philosophy and theory expertly Phenomenal Urban Multiplicity to present a rich account of Dickens’s London as a dynamic, lived world of issues, energy and marvels, capturing the vitality and intensity of Dickens’s encounter with the city. A benchmark of innovative literary criticism.’ Nick Mansfield, Professor of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University Julian Wolfreys Taking Benjamin’s Arcades Project as an inspiration, Dickens’s London opens a dialogue between phenomenology, philosophy and the Dickensian representation of the city in all its forms. Wolfreys suggests that in their representations of London Dickens’s novels and journalism can be seen as Julian Wolfreys Julian forerunners of urban and material phenomenology. While also addressing those aspects of the urban that are developed from Dickens’s interpretations of other literary forms, styles and genres, Dickens’s London presents in twenty-six episodes a radical reorientation to London in the nineteenth century, the development of Dickens as a writer, and the ways in which readers today receive and perceive both. Illustrated with 19 black and white maps and illustrations. Julian Wolfreys is Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at Loughborough University. Edinburgh Jacket design concept by Cathy Sprent Jacket images: from Megale chymia, vel magna alchymia, by Leonard Thurneisser, 1583 ISBN 978-0-7486-4040-9 9780748 640409 104 eup Wolfreys_JKT.indd 1 02/04/2012 18:40 Dickens’s London WWOLFREYSOLFREYS PPRINT.inddRINT.indd i 004/04/20124/04/2012 110:150:15 Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture Series Editor: Julian Wolfreys Volumes available in the series: In Lady Audley’s Shadow: Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Victorian Literary Genres Saverio Tomaiuolo 978 0 7486 4115 4 Hbk Blasted Literature: Victorian Political Fiction and the Shock of Modernism Deaglán Ó Donghaile 978 0 7486 4067 6 Hbk William Morris and the Idea of Community: Romance, History and Propaganda, 1880–1914 Anna Vaninskaya 978 0 7486 4149 9 Hbk 1895: Drama, Disaster and Disgrace in Late Victorian Britain Nicholas Freeman 978 0 7486 4056 0 Hbk Determined Spirits: Eugenics, Heredity and Racial Regeneration in Anglo-American Spiritualist Writing, 1848–1930 Christine Ferguson 978 0 7486 3965 6 Hbk Dickens’s London: Perception, Subjectivity and Phenomenal Urban Multiplicity Julian Wolfreys 978 0 7486 4040 9 Hbk Visit the Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture web page at www.euppublishing.com/series/ecve Also available: Victoriographies – A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Writing, 1790–1914, edited by Julian Wolfreys ISSN: 2044–2416 www.eupjournals.com/vic WWOLFREYSOLFREYS PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iiii 004/04/20124/04/2012 110:150:15 Dickens’s London Perception, Subjectivity and Phenomenal Urban Multiplicity Julian Wolfreys WWOLFREYSOLFREYS PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iiiiii 004/04/20124/04/2012 110:150:15 © Julian Wolfreys, 2012 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4040 9 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 5603 5 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 5605 9 (epub) ISBN 978 0 7486 5604 2 (Amazon ebook) The right of Julian Wolfreys to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. WWOLFREYSOLFREYS PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iivv 004/04/20124/04/2012 110:150:15 Contents List of Illustrations and Maps vii Series Editor’s Preface viii Abbreviations x Advertisement xii Acknowledgements xv Preface xvi Dickens’s London 1 Dickens, our Contemporary 201 Alternative Contents Enargia A Arrivals (and Returns): London, Whitechapel, Blackheath, Blackfriars, Windsor Terrace, City Road, The Strand, Drury Lane, Fleet Street, Buckingham Street, the Adelphi, Custom House [Lower Thames Street], the Monument, Fish-Street Hill, Saint Paul’s Cathedral 3 B Banking and Breakfast: Gray’s Inn Square, Temple Bar, Strand Lane 32 C Chambers: Holborn, Staple Inn, Furnival’s Inn 48 D Dismal: Little Britain, Smithfi elds, Saint Paul’s Cathedral 56 E Exteriors: Golden Square, Portland Place, Bryanston Square 60 WWOLFREYSOLFREYS PPRINT.inddRINT.indd v 004/04/20124/04/2012 110:150:15 vi Dickens’s London F Faded Gentility: Camden Town 63 G Gothic: Seven Dials, Walworth, Covent Garden, India House, Aldgate Pump, Whitechapel Church, Commercial Road, Wapping Old Stairs, St George’s in the East, Snow Hill, Newgate 67 H Heart: St Paul’s Cathedral 97 I Insolvent Court: Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn, Houndsditch, Tyburn, Whitechapel, St George’s Fields, Southwark 100 J Jaggers’s House: Gerrard Street, Soho 109 K Krook’s: by Lincoln’s Inn 114 L Life and Death: Snow Hill, the Saracen’s Head, Smithfi eld, Saint James’s Parish, Saint Sepulchre’s Church 120 M Melancholy: Leadenhall Street, Newgate, Lant Street, Borough, St George the Martyr 122 N Nocturnal: Millbank 129 O Obstructive: Tower Street Ward 131 P Poverty: Angel, Islington, St John’s Road, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Exmouth Street, Coppice Row, Hockley-in-the-Hole, Saffron Hill, Field Lane 132 Q Quiet: Soho Square, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Old Square 137 R Resignation: Todgers’s, somewhere adjacent to the Monument 147 S Spring Evenings: London 173 T Time: The City, Coram’s Fields 182 U Unfi nished: Stagg’s Gardens, Camden Town 187 V Voice: Brentford, the Borough 188 W Walking: St Martin’s Court, Covent Garden 192 X X marks the Spot: St Mary Axe 195 Notes 234 Bibliography 244 Index 250 WWOLFREYSOLFREYS PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vvii 004/04/20124/04/2012 110:150:15 List of Illustrations and Maps 1. The Adelphi (1780) 2 2. The Adelphi 2 3. Temple Bar 32 4. Temple Bar, Buckingham Street, the Adelphi 39 5. Staple Inn 48 6. Staple Inn, Coram’s Fields, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Gray’s Inn 54 7. Blackfriars, Fleet Street, Fleet Prison, St Paul’s Cathedral 59 8. Golden Square, Gerrard Street, Soho 62 9. Walworth 95 10. Custom House, Lower Thames Street, Houndsditch, Leadenhall Street, St Mary Axe, the Monument, Fish Street Hill, the Borough 99 11. St George’s Circus (previously Fields) 107 12. Whitechapel 107 13. Millbank, from the Surrey side of the Thames 130 14. Islington Turnpike Gate (1819) 134 15. Islington Toll Gate (1829) 134 16. Islington, with City Road and Windsor Terrace 135 17. Whitechapel 180 18. St Mary Axe 199 19. Early Nineteenth-Century London Street 233 WWOLFREYSOLFREYS PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vviiii 004/04/20124/04/2012 110:150:15 Series Editor’s Preface ‘Victorian’ is a term at once indicative of a strongly determined concept and an often notoriously vague notion, emptied of all meaningful content by the many journalistic misconceptions that persist about the inhabitants and cultures of the British Isles and Victoria’s Empire in the nineteenth century. As such, it has become a by-word for the assump- tion of various, often contradictory habits of thought, belief, behaviour and perceptions. Victorian studies and studies in nineteenth-century lit- erature and culture have, from their institutional inception, questioned narrowness of presumption, pushed at the limits of the nominal defi ni- tion, and have sought to question the very grounds on which the unre- fl ective perception of the so-called Victorian has been built; and so they continue to do. Victorian and nineteenth-century studies of literature and culture maintain a breadth and diversity of interest, of focus and inquiry, in an interrogative and intellectually open-minded and challeng- ing manner, which are equal to the exploration and inquisitiveness of its subjects. Many of the questions asked by scholars and researchers of the innumerable productions of nineteenth-century society actively put into suspension the clichés and stereotypes of ‘Victorianism’, whether the approach has been sustained by historical, scientifi c, philosophical, empirical, ideological or theoretical concerns; indeed, it would be incor- rect to assume that each of these approaches to the idea of the Victorian has been, or has remained, in the main exclusive, sealed off from the interests and engagements of other approaches. A vital interdisciplinar- ity has been pursued and embraced, for the most part, even as there has been contest and debate amongst Victorianists, pursued with as much fervour as the affi rmative exploration between different disciplines and differing epistemologies put to work in the service of reading the nineteenth century. Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture aims to take up both the debates and the inventive approaches and departures from WWOLFREYSOLFREYS PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vviiiiii 004/04/20124/04/2012 110:150:15 Series Editor’s Preface ix convention that studies in the nineteenth century have witnessed for the last half-century at least. Aiming to maintain a ‘Victorian’ (in the most positive sense of that motif) spirit of inquiry, the series’ purpose is to continue and augment the cross-fertilisation of interdisciplinary approaches, and to offer, in addition, a number of timely and untimely revisions of Victorian literature, culture, history and identity. At the same time, the series will ask questions concerning what has been missed or improperly received, misread or not read at all, in order to present a multi-faceted and heterogeneous kaleidoscope of representations.