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Showing posts with label Charles Dickens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles Dickens. Show all posts
Last autumn I attended a conference (as I do from time to time) on Dickens and Russia, parts of which were fascinating. Others, mostly profound academic analyses of Dostoyevsky's debt to Dickens considerably less so.
However, one astonishing account to emerge was the story of Dickens's supposed meeting with Dostoyevsky in 1862, first written about by Stephanie Harvey in the The Dickensian in 2002. The story was picked up by the two most recent biographers of Dickens, Michael Slater in 2009 and Claire Tomalin in 2011. However, when American reviews of the biographies started appearing and the meeting between two giants of nineteenth century literature was mentioned, the Dostoyevsky scholars bestirred themselves, asking the obvious question as to why nobody had ever heard of such a momentous event. They also asked what language the two spoke to each other and what on earth was the supposed Kazakh academic journal whence Stephanie Harvey culled her information. At least two of those questions should have been asked by the Dickens biographers but was not.
Anyway, the story became quite farcical with Stephanie Harvey's sister writing a letter to the editor of The Dickensian to tell him that the lady had suffered a near-fatal car crash and could no longer communicate with anyone and lots of egg on everybody's face.
Last week the Guardian published an interview with the perpetrator of the hoax, one A. D. Harvey, whom I actually know or knew in his short stint as the editor of the Salisbury Review. He would hover round the place and propound all sorts of historical facts that he had gleaned in various libraries and archives. I am ashamed to say that I did not appreciate his writings as they tended to be of the "look what I found in this archive" variety with no particular conclusions or analyses.
It now transpires that in all that time Arnold Harvey was engaged in the creation of a number of mythical personalities: writers, poets, historians who would produce articles promoting and and praising each other's work. The Dickens-Dostoyevsky meeting can be described as the most successful of these hoaxes and as Mr Harvey says, if it had not been for American Dostoyevsky students, he would have got away with it. In fact, for many years he did.
Here is the whole story of the uncovering of Arnold Harvey, the latter day James Macpherson who merely "translated" Ossian in some detail in the venerable pages of the TLS. I am afraid I found the story too exquisitely funny to be able to sympathize with Professor Naiman's apparent distaste for A. D. Harvey's behaviour or to accept his pity for the man. In my view Arnold Harvey definitely has the last laugh on all those editors and scholars who blithely published and quoted his spurious writers and historians. Who can be so heartless as not to laugh at the sight of egg on the face of pompous Dickens biographers?
Dickens's novel of the Industrial Revolution, Hard Times, has much to recommend it, but it does not give as true and real a picture as Mrs Gaskell's North and South, the best book on the subject in Tory Historian's opinion and published in exactly the same year as Dickens's novel. Incidentally, neither of those writers was over-impressed by the nascent trade union movement.
Let us move on to the subject of clerks. Who can forget Dickens's miserable, downtrodden clerks who never seem to think of getting another job? Sometimes they break out and become rather eccentric, at other times they become positively villainous. Either way, being a clerk is a terrible fate that ought not to befall anyone.
It is, of course, a fate that befell many and, curiously enough, few people considered it to be the lowest pit of misery. Indeed, it was seen as a good steady employment for many young men who wished to rise in business, earn enough money to marry and have a home. Before that, it was a good steady job for young men who simply wanted to earn money and have a good time. At least three of Jerome K. Jerome's men in a boat and, subsequently, on a bummel are clerks. Mr Pooter is a clerk and so is his son, Lupin, who will go far, having started as a clerk.
Another writer who admired clerks and, generally, people who worked for their living, even women who were acquiring jobs and careers in the 1880s and 1890s was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Tory Historian has been re-reading the Sherlock Holmes short stories, has finished The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and has gone on to The Memoirs, while attempting to keep some sort of track of the dates in which the various stories take place.
The Stockbroker's Clerk was published in the Strand Magazine in 1893 and takes place in 1889, about three months after Dr Watson's marriage. There seems to be some discrepancy as to whether the good doctor continued to visit Holmes regularly after his marriage or stayed away for months on end, working to build up his new practice and happy in his marriage. Some stories say that he was busy and happy but still found time for his old comrade, others imply that the two rarely saw each other. There are further discrepancies as to whether Holmes ever visited the young married couple. Sometimes Dr Watson asserts that nothing would drag Holmes out of his rooms except a case and certainly not the sight of a happy marriage; at other times the story begins with him arriving on the Watsons' doorstep. This is one of them.
TH is not linking to a Wiki account of the story because that is definitely not something that is done. One must not reveal such matters. Suffice it to say that the plot is one used before though with important differences in The Red-Headed League and was to be used again The Three Garridebs. Oh and there were seven illustrations by Sidney Paget, one of which can be seen above.
What struck TH, however, is Doyle's or rather Watson's favourable and very typical description of the young clerk who comes to Holmes for assistance.
The man whom I found myself facing was a well-built, fresh-complexioned young fellow with a frank, honest face and a slight, crisp, yellow moustache. He wore a very shiny top-hat and a neat suit of sober black, which made him look what he was - a smart young City man, of the class who have been labelled Cockneys, but who give us our crack Volunteer regiments, and who turn out more fine athletes and sportsmen than any body of men in these islands.Come to think of it, Dickens would not have liked the crack Volunteer regiments or the fine athletes either.
Tory Historian wrote some while ago about visiting Dickens Museum on a Boxing Day and about George Orwell's essay about the great writer. That led to a very interesting discussion. However, yesterday's London Evening Standard had an item about the museum, wondering why it will be shut for refurbishment for most of the year, which just happens to be one dedicated to Charles Dickens.
The counter-argument was worthy of consideration:
Dr Florian Schweitzer, director of the Charles Dickens Museum, apologised to those upset about the timing of the £3.2 million renovation. "In our opinion this is the best year to do it, because there will be many other Dickens exhibits available," he said. "When everything winds down we'll be back with more facilities and an even stronger offering." The refurbishment includes an expansion into the building next door to make the museum look more like it did when Dickens was alive.
Dr Schweitzer added that the museum would arrange pop-up collections around the country during the six months it is closed.Somehow pop-up collections do not seem entirely appropriate but the argument that this might be a good time to refurbish the museum has some merit.
Tory Historian could not forebear from laughing at the following, though:
A spokeswoman for the Dickens Fellowship said: "It seems ridiculous that so many people will be coming to London for the Olympics but that they won't be able to enjoy one of the world's most important centres for Dickens lovers."The idea that people who will be coming for the Olympics are likely to spend time searching for Charles Dickens's one remaining London home and the exhibitions in it is too funny for words.
