Archives for 2014

Madame de Treymes

July 1, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Madame de Treymes was published in 1907. It was Edith Wharton’s first major work after the success of The House of Mirth which had been published two years previously. The tale features American expatriates living in France, and contrasts new world simplicity and individual freedoms with old world family traditions and manipulation.

Paris: Rainy Street – Gustave Caillebotte 1848-1894

Madame de Treymes – critical commentary

This is a story straight out the mould of Henry James – with hints of Balzac. Democratically open but young and maybe naive American honesty is pitted again tradition-bound European guile with its money-centric and snobbish exclusivity hiding behind a hypocritical veil of religious values. The situation also has a slightly Gothic tinge: an unhappy young woman, trapped in a loveless marriage to a corrupt husband, with very little chance of escape, is hounded by ruthlessly devious relatives.

The central conundrum with which one is left at the end of the tale is Madame de Treymes’ possible motive(s) for deceiving Durham? She understands and explains the family’s traditional and tightly controlled attitudes (fuelled by religious belief) towards divorce. This would be entirely in keeping with social conventions at the time, when the Catholic church frowned upon divorce with a force which was a de facto prohibition.

But this apparently religious objection to divorce has a much more material basis in French society, which was governed by the Napoleonic Code that kept inherited wealth and property concentrated into family units rather than freely distributed amongst individuals. This explains the reason why the Malrive family wish to trade Fanny’s son in return for the divorce. She can exercise her rights to a divorce under civil law, but they keep the son, theoretically united with his father, and thereby prevent any wealth passing out of the family.

The other possible source of her ambiguous motivation is that she is attracted to Durham. After all, she is unhappily married herself (like Fanny) although she does have a lover. But she keeps Durham guessing in a rather flirtatious manner. There is also the fact that Durham certainly spends far more time in the story discussing matters with Madame de Treymes than he does with his purported love object, Fanny de Malrive. But there is no substantial evidence in the text to support this notion, and the potential romantic connection between the two of them is not developed in any way.

Novella?

This is a long story – which leads a number of commentators to consider it as a novella. Edith Wharton was certainly attracted to and proficient in the novella as a literary genre, as her early work The Touchstone (1900) and more famous Ethan Frome (1911) demonstrate.

And the clash between American individualism and French family tradition is certainly a unifying factor amongst the various elements of the story. But there are too many loose ends and unresolved issues in the narrative to qualify it as a novella.

Monsieur de Malrive’s misdeeds are left unexamined, as are those of Monsieur de Treymes. Durham’s attempts to help Madame de Malrive presumably come to nothing (because of the stranglehold the Malrive family has over the conflict) and the potential relationship between Durham and Madame de Treymes fizzles out with everyone going their own way. There is simply not a sufficiently powerful enough resolution to events. It is a reasonably successful story, but it lacks the compression of theme, structure, events, and place which is common to successful novellas.

Madame de Treymes – study resources

The Works of Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Works of Edith Wharton – Amazon US

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Descent of Man and Other Stories – Project Gutenberg

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

Madame de Treymes – plot summary

Part I. In Paris, American bachelor John Durham pays court to unhappily married Fanny de Malrive, his friend from childhood. She expresses a great enthusiasm for the simplicity and openness of her native America, as distinct from the constricted and rule-bound society into which she has married. But she lives in France for the sake of being near her son.

Part II. She argues that French society and her husband threaten to corrupt the boy. Durham offers to marry her after she has been divorced. She thinks her husband’s family will not agree to a divorce, but that her sister-in-law Madame de Treymes might help.

Part III. Durham has been a childhood friend of Fanny, but meeting her again in France he finds her much more sophisticated. Visiting her a few days later with his mother and sisters, he first meets Madame de Treymes, who he also finds fascinating.

Part IV. Durham applies to his cousin Mrs Boykin for information about the mysterious Madame de Treymes. But she and her husband are comically xenophobic, and very critical of Madame de Treymes, whose lover is a Prince with gambling debts.

Part V. By giving money at a charity event, Durham is invited to the Hotel de Malrive, the austere family home of Fanny’s in-laws. There he realises the stifling forces of cold and hostile tradition he will be up against. However, Madame de Treymes is sympathetic to his case and agrees to dine with him.

Part VI. At Durham’s suggestion, the Boykins are suddenly flattered to invite a French aristocrat to dinner. Madame de Treymes tells Durham that the family will not consent to a divorce, and reveals that she has borrowed family money which she cannot repay. Durham believes that this to repay her lover’s gambling debts, and she is offering to trade her influence in exchange for his money. He refuses her offer.

Part VII. Durham accepts the defeat of his hopes, but then suddenly Madame de Treymes arrives with the news that the Marquis de Malrive has decided not to oppose the divorce. She claims it was Durham’s honourable and sensitive approach which has changed things. Durham is slightly sceptical.

Part VIII. Durham goes to Italy, but returns to the news that a money scandal has engulfed Prince d’Armillac, the lover of Madame de Treymes. Durham tries to thank and repay Madame de Treymes for the good services she has rendered him, but she claims that she has already been repaid – without saying in what form.

Part IX. Durham goes to England with his mother and sisters whilst the legal process of divorce takes its course. However, on a business trip back to Paris he meets Madame de Treymes at the Hotel de Malrive. She explains her admiration for his having refused to gain Fanny by paying for influence with the family. She also reveals that it was not her influence which changed the family’s attitude to the divorce.

Part X. She confesses that the family want to claim Fanny’s son which they can do under French law, which puts the family first, before individuals. Her earlier offer of assistance was a deceit, because the decision had already been taken. Durham realises that even telling Fanny all this will destroy his chances of marrying her. But then Madame de Treymes takes pity on Durham and his plight and reveals that even her last argument about possession of the boy was a deceit as well. Durham leaves to tell Fanny the whole story, knowing his chances of marrying her are gone.

Madame de Treymes – Principal characters

John Durham	an American in France (40)
Marquise Fanny de Malrive	his childhood friend, neé Fanny Frisbee
Madame Christiane de Treymes	Fanny’s sister-in-law
Mrs Bessie Boykin	Durham’s cousin
Elmer Boykin	her husband
Prince d’Armillac	Madame de Treymes’ lover, a gambler

Edith Wharton’s 42-room house – The Mount

Other works by Edith Wharton

The Custom of the Country (1913) is Edith Wharton’s satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father’s money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. This is a study of modern ambition and materialism written a hundred years before its time.

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The House of Mirth (1905) is the story of Lily Bart, who is beautiful, poor, and still unmarried at twenty-nine. In her search for a husband with money and position she betrays her own heart and sows the seeds of the tragedy that finally overwhelms her. The book is a disturbing analysis of the stifling limitations imposed upon women of Wharton’s generation. In telling the story of Lily Bart, who must marry to survive, Wharton recasts the age-old themes of family, marriage, and money in ways that transform the traditional novel of manners into an arresting modern document of cultural anthropology.

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Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton at Fantastic Fiction
A compilation which purports to be a complete bibliography, arranged as novels, collections, non-fiction, anthologies, short stories, letters, and commentaries – but is largely links to book-selling sites, which however contain some hidden gems.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

More on Edith Wharton
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Marriage a la Mode

December 30, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Marriage a la Mode was one of a group of six stories commissioned from Katherine Mansfield by Clement Shorter, the editor of the Sphere, a fashionable illustrated newspaper targeted at British citizens living in the colonies. The story was written in August 1921 and published in December the same year. It was later reprinted in The Garden Party and Other Stories published in 1922.

Marriage a la Mode – William Hogarth

Marriage a la Mode – critical commentary

Anthony Alpers, Katherine Mansfield’s biographer, describes Marriage a la Mode as a ‘shallow … bill-paying’ story whose lack of depth and subtlety is a result of her badly needing money to pay doctors’ fees during her illness whilst living in Montana-sur-Sierre in Switzerland.

It is certainly true that the story requires very little close reading or interpretive skill to yield its single meaning. William is a crushed husband figure whose tender feelings for his family are completely trampled upon by his wife’s selfishness, her social climbing, and her self-indulgent bohemianism. He is more or less excluded socially from his own home by her empty-headed friends. When he is driven by necessity to communicate his love for her by letter, she responds by reading it out for the amusement and mockery of her house guests. When she realises what a heartless and vulgar thing she has done, there is a momentary impulse to reach out to her husband in response – but instead she chooses to rejoin her friends.

It is a sceptical, if not jaundiced view of marriage, but it is to Mansfield’s credit that as a writer who so often reveals masculine foibles and insensitivities in her work, she creates here a sympathetic account of a working man and a scathing portrayal of his selfish and empty-headed wife.

Plagiarism?

A number of commentators have pointed to the similarities between Marriage a la Mode and a story by Anton Checkhov called Not Wanted (1886). In fact the most severe of these critics have accused her of direct plagiarism.

In Checkhov’s story a Court official Pavel Zaikin is travelling out to his summer cottage by train in the summer heat. He complains to a fellow traveller in ‘ginger trousers’ about the cost and inconvenience, which he attributes to ‘women’s frivolity’.

He finds his son alone in the cottage: his wife is attending the rehearsal of a play and has not prepared any dinner. Zaikin feels anger gnawing at him and in bad temper he scolds his son without reason – then regrets having done so.

His wife Nadyezhda returns from the rehearsal with her friend Olga and two men. She sends the servant out for ‘sardines, vodka, and cheese’. The thespians then begin noisy rehearsals until late, after which she invites the two men to stay the night. She also moves Zaikin out of his own bed to accommodate Olga. In the early morning Zaikin gets dressed and goes out into the street, where he meets the man in ginger trousers again. He too has a houseful of unexpected visitors.

The similarities in the two stories are the working husband who is abused by a self-indulgent wife; the train journey; the houseful of disruptive bohemians; and the fact that the man is treated like an outsider in his own home.

But this was not the first time Katherine Mansfield had re-told a story by Checkhov. Her early piece The-Child-Who-Was-Tired is taken from Checkhov’s Sleepyhead (1888) and her plagiarism was the subject of a debate on her conscious or unconscious borrowings in the pages of theTimes Literary Supplement in the 1950s.

However, she composed so many original and outstanding stories of entirely her own invention, that it is unlikely these accusations will cause the damage to her reputation some people hope for and others fear. But there is one telling detail in Marriage a la Mode that nails the story inescapably to its Russian origins – and that is the choice of sardines for the improvised evening meal. Isabel’s arty friends consume sardines and whisky, whilst Checkhov’s amateur theatricals have their sardines and vodka. There is simply no escaping the fact that this detail is copied. Fish and vodka are entirely native to Russian culture, but would be exceptional in English social life.

Marriage a la Mode – study resources

Katherine Mansfield’s Collected Works
Three published collections of stories – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

The Collected Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Wordsworth Classics paperback edition – Amazon UK

The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Penguin Classics paperback edition – Amazon UK

Katherine Mansfield Megapack
The complete stories and poems in Kindle edition – Amazon UK

Katherine Mansfield’s Collected Works
Three published collections of stories – Kindle edition – Amazon US

The Collected Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Wordsworth Classics paperback edition – Amazon US

The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Penguin Classics paperback edition – Amazon US

Katherine Mansfield Megapack
The complete stories and poems in Kindle edition – Amazon US

Marriage a la Mode – plot summary

A London solicitor William is returning home on Saturday afternoon to his fashionable and demanding wife Isabel. He feels anxious about not having bought presents for his two sons, but buys them a melon and pineapple instead. He reads through legal papers, but is distracted by thoughts of his wife, who has cooled in her feelings towards him. They have moved from a modest to a much bigger house, and Isabel has made new friends, but William thinks back to their earlier days when he was happier.

Isabel is waiting for him at the station, but she is accompanied by some party-loving friends. She appropriates the fruit, and they buy sweets for the boys instead, meanwhile making asinine comments. When they arrive at the house, the party go off swimming, leaving William to reflect critically on the way the house is being run. Returning from the swim, they eat sardines and drink whisky, disattending to William.

The following day William is preparing to return to London. He has not seen his sons and has had no opportunity to talk to Isabel. When he gets to his train he decides to write to her instead.

The next day Isabel and her friends are lazing about in the sun when William’s letter arrives. It is a long love letter in which he reveals his feelings for her, and says he doesn’t want to stand between her and her happiness. She reads it out aloud to her friends, who scoff and make fun of the letter. Isabel suddenly feels ashamed of what she has done, and has the impulse to write a reply, but when the friends invite her to go swimming, she leaves with them instead.

Katherine Mansfield – web links

Katherine Mansfield at Mantex
Life and works, biography, a close reading, and critical essays

Katherine Mansfield at Wikipedia
Biography, legacy, works, biographies, films and adaptations

Katherine Mansfield at Online Books
Collections of her short stories available at a variety of online sources

Not Under Forty
A charming collection of literary essays by Willa Cather, which includes a discussion of Katherine Mansfield.

Katherine Mansfield at Gutenberg
Free downloadable versions of her stories in a variety of digital formats

Hogarth Press first editions
Annotated gallery of original first edition book jacket covers from the Hogarth Press, including Mansfield’s ‘Prelude’

Katherine Mansfield’s Modernist Aesthetic
An academic essay by Annie Pfeifer at Yale University’s Modernism Lab

The Katherine Mansfield Society
Newsletter, events, essay prize, resources, yearbook

Katherine Mansfield Birthplace
Biography, birthplace, links to essays, exhibitions

Katherine Mansfield Website
New biography, relationships, photographs, uncollected stories

More on Katherine Mansfield
Twentieth century literature
More on the Bloomsbury Group
More on short stories

MLA Style Guide

February 24, 2014 by Roy Johnson

What is the MLA Style Guide?

MLA stands for the Modern Language Association (of America). Its style manual has the full title MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. This presents a full set of protocols for the writing and presentation of documents and research in the humanities (literature, languages, media studies, and cultural studies). The guide and its standards are in general use throughout north America and Europe.

The guide does not cover the protocols used in disciplines such as history, sociology, philosophy, or sciences. These use either the Chicago Manual of Style or the Harvard System of referencing.

In the notes which follow, the terms citation (US usage) and referencing (UK usage) are used interchangeably.

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What does the MLA Style Guide do?

The MLA Style Guide offers a complete set of standards showing you how to present academic writing and research. These standards are not questions of correct or incorrect writing: they are merely a coherent system which ensure consistency and rigour in the presentation of academic writing. The standards show you how to –

embed quotations
cite secondary sources
give bibliographic references
present names and titles
avoid plagiarism
cite electronic sources

How does the MLA Style Guide work?

The MLA citation style uses a simple two-part system for citing sources. When you refer to or quote from a secondary source within your work, you provide a citation which points to an alphabetical list of Works Cited that appears at the end of the essay or term paper. The citation is an abbreviation given in brackets (Smith 128) and the full details of this source are listed at the end of your work. This example refers to page 128 in work written by someone called Smith.

This system of referencing identifies and credits the sources you have used in the essay. It allows someone reading the essay to identify and if necessary consult these secondary sources.

References within your text

In MLA style, you place references to secondary sources in the essay to briefly identify them and enable readers to find them in the list of Works Cited. These references should be kept as brief and as clear as possible.

Give only the minimum information needed to identify a source. The author’s last name and a page reference are usually sufficient. Example – (Barber 45).

Place the reference as close as possible to its source, preferably where a pause would naturally occur, which is often at the end of a sentence.

Information in the brackets should not repeat information given in the text. If you include an author’s name in a sentence, you don’t need to repeat it in your reference.

The reference should precede the punctuation mark that concludes the sentence, clause, or phrase that contains the cited material.

Electronic and online sources are cited just like print resources in references. If an online source lacks page numbers, omit numbers from the bracketed references.

Examples

Author’s name in text	Browning has expressed this concern (122-25).
Author’s name in reference	This concern has been expressed (Browning 122-25).
Multiple authors	This hypothesis has proved very persuasive (Bradley, Morgan, and Smith 46).
Two works cited	(Beetham 68; Covington 34)
Volumes and pages	Robinson 3: 14-19
Corporate authors	(United Nations, Economic Report 51-56)
Online sources	Fetting, pars. 5-8)

List of Works Cited

References cited in the text of an essay or a research paper must appear at the end of your work in a list of Works Cited. This is also known as a bibliography. This list provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each source that has been used in your work.

Arrange the entries in alphabetical order of the authors’ last names (surnames), or by the title for any sources without authors.

Capitalize the first word and all other principal words of the titles and subtitles of cited works listed. Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, or the “to” in infinitives. (The Angel at the Grave)

The titles of books and journals should be shown in italics. Choose a font in which the italic style contrasts clearly with the regular style.

Shorten the publisher’s name. For example, omit articles, business abbreviations (Co., Inc.), and descriptive words (Press, Publisher).

When multiple publishers are listed, include all of them, placing a semicolon between each.

When more than one city is listed for the same publisher, use only the first city.

Use the conjunction ‘and’, not an ampersand [&], when listing multiple authors of a single work.

Do not use the abbreviations p. or pp. to designate page numbers.

Indentation: Align the first line of the entry flush with the left margin, and indent all subsequent lines (5 to 7 spaces) to form a ‘hanging indent’.

Bibliographic description

References to an entire book should include the following elements:

author(s) or editor(s)
complete title
edition, if indicated
place of publication
shortened name of publisher
date of publication
medium of publication

The basic format

Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.

One author

Nabokov, Vladimir. Strong Opinions. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973. Print.

Another work, same author

—. Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. New York: Knopf, 1999. Print.

Two authors

Cresswell, Susan, and Charles Hoffman. Theaters of Experiment. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004. Print.

Three authors

Loewen, Thomas, Bentham Ginsberg, and Stuart Jacks. Analyzing Democratic Government. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1994. Print.

More than three authors

Sander, Jefferton et al. Beyond the Utility Principle. London: Heinemann, 1993. Print.

Editor (anthology or collection of essays)

Hillman, Charles, and Margery Hamilton, eds. Defining Milton’s Poetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

No author or editor

The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. 2014 ed. London: A and C Black. 2014. Print

Articles in books

Jones, Josephine Teresa. “Within These Walls.” Feminism and its Relation to Architecture. Ed. Maureen Harrington. New York: Lexington Books, 2010. 109-24. Print.

Reprinted article

Huntford, Thomas. “The Misreading of Ken Kesey.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 4.3 (1985): 30-43. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carleen Rilmont. Vol. 61. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 308-10. Print.

Articles or entries from reference books

If the article or entry is signed, put the author’s name first; if it is unsigned, give the title first. For well-known reference works, it is not necessary to include full publication information. Include only the title of the reference source, edition, and date of publication.

Dictionary entry

“Hostages.” Def. 1a. Shorter Oxford Dictionary. 1993. Print.

Encyclopedia entry

Merrington, Barbara. “Cooking with Gas.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Ed. Andrew F. Smith. Vol. 2. 2004. Print.

Articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers

References to periodical articles must include the following elements:

author(s)
article title
publication title
volume number
publication date
inclusive page numbers
medium of publication

Issue numbers should be stated as decimals to a given volume number. For instance, the number 25.4 refers to Volume 25, issue 4. When citing newspapers, it is important to specify the edition used (early ed. or late ed.) because different editions of a newspaper might contain different material.

Journal article, one author

Mentone-Cassidy, David. “Beyond Boundaries: Reaching Multi-Cultural Development.” Journal of Tourism Research 37.4 (2010): 141-63. Print.

Journal article, two authors

Langton, Jennifer, and Warren Furst. “Exploring Challenges and Opportunities Associated with Sharing Medical Resources.” International Journal of Hospital Management 29.2 (2010): 261-7. Print.

Magazine article

Keinster, Donald A. “Corporate Greed: The New Economics.” Vanity Fair 23 Nov. 2012: 84-91. Print.

Newspaper article, no author

“American Independence Day: The View from England.” The Guardian 31 May 2012, 16. Print.

Film, video, or audio recordings

Film

Manhattan. Dir. Woody Allen. 1979. Videocassette. MGM/UA Home Video, 1991.

Sound recording

Bob Dylan. Highway 61 Revisited. Columbia / Sony, 2004. CD.

Specific song

Bob Dylan. “Desolation Row.” Highway 61 Revisited. Columbia / Sony, 2004. CD.

CD-ROM

Citations should include the medium of the electronic publication (CD-ROM), the name of the vendor that made the material available on CD-ROM, and publications dates for the version used, if relevant.

“Matrimony.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. CD-ROM. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. Multimedia, 2014.

Citing online sources

References to online sources, like those for printed sources, should provide the information that both identifies a source and allows it to be located and retrieved again.

All references should include the medium of publication (Web) and the date the content was viewed.

If the source is difficult to locate, you should list the complete Web address (URL) within angle brackets after the date. In many cases, it is also necessary to identify the Web site or the database that has made the material available on line.

There are currently no fixed standards governing the organization and presentation of online publications. Consequently, the information that is available can vary widely from one resource to another. In general, references to online works require more information than references to print sources.

For instance, the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia is being edited and updated all the time – so in some instances it might be necessary to record not only the date of an entry being visited, but even the time of day.

See sections 5.6.1-4 in the MLA Handbook for more complete information on creating references to online sources.

Web page

This example includes the optional URL. All other examples below use the shorter citation format.

Cornell University Library. ‘Introduction to Research’. Cornell University Library. Cornell University, 2009. Web. 19 June 2009 <http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro>.

Personal web site

If a work is untitled, you may use a genre label such as Home page, Introduction, etc.

Remington, Gregory. Home page. Web. 16 Nov. 2008.

Entry in an online encyclopedia

‘Epstein, Jacob’. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1999. Web. 27 Apr. 2009.

Article from a less familiar online reference book

Norton, John S. ‘European History and Islam’. Encyclopedia the Muslim World. Ed. Richard C. Martin. New York: Macmillan Reference-Thomson/Gale, 2004. Web. 4 July 2009.

Article in an online periodical

If pagination is unavailable or is not continuous, use n. pag. in place of the page numbers.

Chatterton, Heather. ‘The Epidemic in Saratoga’. Salon 19 Feb. 1999: n. pag. Web. 12 July 1999.

Article in a full-text journal accessed from a database

Valentino, Jose Antonio. ‘The Other Side of Facebook’. New Yorker 86.28 (2010): 54-63. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Jan. 2011.

Online book with print information

Henderson, Robert. South of Boston. 2nd ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1915. Google Books. Web. 30 June 2009.

The examples of MLA style and format listed on this page include many of the most common types of sources used in academic research. For additional examples and more detailed information about MLA citation style, refer to the following resources:

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Print. [Amazon US]

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Print. [Amazon UK]

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Print. [Amazon US]

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Print. [Amazon UK]

The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers. 16th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. Print. [Amazon US]

The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers. 16th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. Print. [Amazon UK]

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Never Let Me Go

December 17, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and plot summary,

Never Let Me Go (2005) is the sixth novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, the Anglo-Japanese writer, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize which he had won previously in 1989 for The Remains of the Day. The novel was adapted for the cinema in 2010 by Mark Romanek for a film with the same title starring Keira Knightly.

Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go – critical comment

Biography

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in Japan in 1954. His father was an oceanographer who moved to live in Britain in 1960. Kazuo attended grammar school in Surrey, then studied English and Philosophy at the University of Kent in Canterbury. After a gap year touring America and Canada, he entered the creative writing programme at the University of East Anglia, where his tutors included Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter. He graduated with an MA in 1980 and became a British citizen in 1982. He has written novels, screenplays, stories, and the lyrics to songs for the Anglo-American jazz singer Stacey Kent. He has won several literary awards, including the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for his first novel A Pale View of Hills (1982), the Whitbread Prize for An Artist of the Floating World (1986), and the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day (1989). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2017.

Dystopia

A dystopia is the opposite of a utopian view of the world. Utopian narratives imagine successful, harmonious, and happy worlds, whereas a dystopian world emphasises all its worst elements and even exaggerates them as a form of warning about what we might become if these elements are not held in check.

Because these dysfunctional worlds do not exist but are creations of the imagination, there is a great deal of overlap with the imaginary worlds of science-fiction.

Utopias in literature include Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), Sir Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627), and H.G.Wells’ A Modern Utopia (1905). Examples of dystopias include Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1927), George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1947 – which was based on Zamyatin’s novel), and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932).

Some novels may even combine elements of both Utopia and Dystopia to create satires of society – such as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (1872).

Narrative voice

One of the main problems in a novel of this length is the quality of the narrative voice. Ishiguro takes the naturalistic rendering of his protagonist’s first person account to almost unbearable lengths of tedium. Her narrative is packed with repetition, cliché, dated teenage slang, and manufactured uncertainties.

She talks in what one reviewer called “a sort of social worker’s drone, all professional cant and washed-out idiom (‘When it came down to it … Anyway, I’m not making any big claims for myself.’)

“While we’re on the subject … Looking back now … And then there was the time that … But that’s not really what I want to talk about just now … When it came down to it … I don’t know how it was where you were … Anyway … Now to be fair … As it happened … What with one thing and another … “

There are too many events and incidents that have little structural significance, and that are inflated beyond any sense of their intrinsic interest. In the later part of the book for instance there is a protracted excursion to Cromer in Norfolk which promises to reveal something significant about the ‘possibles’ – people from whom the characters might have been cloned – but this comes to nothing when they decide they have made a mistake.

Much is made of a cassette tape containing Kathy’s favourite song which gives the novel its title – Never Let Me Go – then its unexplained disappearance, followed by a search for its replacement. But none of this, including the title, is linked in any significant way to the central issues of the novel.

Similarly, there is an outing to visit an abandoned boat on the marshes, the type of incident which in most stories would be at least metaphoric, if not symbolic of something important within the meaning of the novel as a whole. But the tediously extended episode adds nothing to what we already know.

Conversely, there is an attempt to give significance to what are no more than teenage arguments, changes in allegiance, and feelings of isolation. But these fail to be convincing, because they remain no more than adolescent trivia which contribute nothing to any narrative interest. But this issue does raise another point.

It’s possible that Never Let Me Go was produced quite deliberately as a genre novel for the teenage market, but Ishiguro has done himself no favours by presenting his story in such a banal and repetitive narrative voice, and packing the story with largely inconsequential behaviour – without exploring any of the ramifications of the scientific conceit on which the novel is based.

Science-fiction?

We now know that advances in microbiology and DNA manipulation now permit animal matter to be cloned. In this sense the novel is not very ‘futuristic’. But the idea of cloning human beings specifically (and at risk of their own death) to provide body parts to keep other people alive – is a sinister form of modern human sacrifice.

The problem is that Ishiguro simply does not examine the social or scientific rationale for this practice. Nor does he explain how individual humans can be clone-created to have normally functioning body parts (apart from reproductive organs) yet be so singularly lacking in will, imagination, and resistance.

The main problem is that whilst it is possible to suspend disbelief and accept the authoritarianism behind cloning and genetic engineering. there is no plausible reason offered why the characters should be so totally passive and accepting of their planned destinies.

These are characters who watch television, drive cars, have lots of sex, and read Daniel Deronda, yet who show no enterprise when they are free to walk away at any time from their planned organ donations. The organisation that has created them has even gone out of business by the end of the novel, but at no point do any of them think to regard themselves as autonomous beings.

Never Let Me Go – study resources

Never Let Me Go – Faber paperback – Amazon UK

Never Let Me Go – Faber paperback – Amazon US

The Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro – paperback – Amazon UK

Kazuo Ishiguro: A Routledge Guide – paperback – Amazon UK

Conversations with Kazuo Ishiguro – paperback – Amazon UK

GCSE Revision Notes – page by page analysis – Amazon UK

Never Let Me Go – plot summary

Chapter 1. Kathy H introduces herself as a ‘carer’, and recounts her early years at what seems to be an authoritarian boarding school called Hailsham and her concern for an outsider youth Tommy.

Chapter 2. She describes daily life at the school and further instances of teasing and bullying on Tommy, who retreats into a childlike state.

Chapter 3. Tommy tells Kathy about a conversation with sporty and butch ‘guardian’ Miss Lucy who sympathises with his lack of creative ability. Kathy recounts how the controller of the school, called Madame, is frightened of contact with the students, even though she appropriates their artworks for her private ‘gallery’.

Chapter 4. The students are given tokens in exchange for their work which they can exchange at occasional ‘Sales’. They all appear to have problems with missing memories. Kathy’s friend Ruth makes her into a ‘secret guard’ of Miss Geraldine, a favourite guardian.

Chapter 5. Surrounded by menacing woods at the school, the secret guards plot to kidnap Miss Geraldine. There is rivalry between Kathy and Ruth about favouritism.

Chapter 6. Rivalries and ‘secret knowledge’ continue to cause tensions. Norfolk is regarded as a ‘lost corner’ of Britain. Smoking is forbidden at the school because the students must preserve their ‘special’ natures. Kathy plays her tape of Never Let Me Go. She knows that she and all the other students are infertile. The tape goes missing, but Ruth presents her with an alternative.

Chapter 7. Miss Lucy reveals to them that they have been bred as DNA clones and organ donors. It appears that their body parts are detachable.

Chapter 8. Kathy reports on sexual activity amongst the students, including her friends Tommy and Ruth, and her own preparations to have sex with Harry.

Chapter 9. Miss Lucy retracts what she has previously told Tommy about creativity not being important – and then suddenly disappears when she is expelled from the school.

Part Two

Chapter 10. After leaving Hailsham, Kathy transfers to the Cottages with Tommy, Ruth and others. They imitate each other’s gestures, then Kathy and Ruth quarrel.

Chapter 11. Kathy looks back on and revises her memories of conversations with Ruth. She then starts having casual sex; Ruth gets rid of her collection of memorabilia; and Tommy catches Kathy looking at porn magazines.

Chapter 12. Veterans at the Cottages, Chrissie and Rodney report back from a trip to Cromer where they have seen a possible original for Ruth, who then begins to fantasise about her ‘dream future’ working in a modern office.

Chapter 13. A month later five of them go on an excursion to Cromer where the two veterans Chrissie and Rodney ask the rest about the rules for requesting a ‘deferral’ of two or three years before they become organ donors. Nobody knows the rules.

Chapter 14. They locate Ruth’s ‘possible’ in an office on the High Street, then see her again later. When they follow her to an art gallery they all realise she is not a possible, then argue about going to visit Martin, another ex-veteran.

Chapter 15. Tommy and Kathy go in search of her lost tape and find a copy. He tells her his theory that the Madame’s gallery is a repository of the students’ souls which will enable the guardians to make choices for deferrals. He also thinks Kathy might have been looking at the porn magazines in search of her ‘possible’ – which she thinks could explain her uncontrollable sexual urges.

Chapter 16. Tommy shows Kathy his miniature drawings of imaginary animals, then discusses his gallery theory with Ruth and Kathy. Ruth claims that they find his drawings laughable, which creates unpleasant tensions in relations between the three friends.

Chapter 17. Kathy tries to resolve these tensions by talking to Ruth. During the conversation Ruth suggests that Tommy disapproves of Kathy’s sexual promiscuity. Shortly afterwards Kathy decides to leave the Cottages and start her training.

Part Three

Chapter 18. Some time later Kathy is working independently as a carer. She bumps into Laura, an old friend from the Cottages. They discuss Ruth, and Laura suggests that Kathy become Ruth’s carer. It transpires that Hailsham has closed, which makes Kathy feel cut off from her former fellow students. She does become Ruth’s carer, but there are still tensions between them. Ruth persuades Kathy to take her to see a boat – which is an opportunity or an excuse to see Tommy.

Chapter 19. Ruth and Kathy visit Tommy at the Kingsfield centre and take him to see the boat. They discuss their donors, some of whom have ‘completed’ (died) during the operation. They see an advertising poster which recalls the trip to Norfolk, then Ruth reveals that she has had sex with others besides Tommy. She wants Kathy and Tommy to be a couple and apply for a deferral, and also suggests that Kathy become Tommy’s carer. She dies shortly afterwards during her second donation.

Chapter 20. Kathy becomes Tommy’s carer and starts having sex with him. He starts drawing his animal pictures again, but not so successfully. Kathy has located the Madame, whom they plan to visit to request a deferral.

Chapter 21. They visit the Madame where Tommy explains his theory of the gallery. The Madame understands but does not admit to its validity. However, she produces Miss Emily, the head guardian, in a wheelchair.

Chapter 22. Miss Emily reveals to them that the idea of deferrals is merely a false rumour she has been unable to extinguish. She claims that the art works were taken to prove to doubters that the students did have souls, and were being well educated. She explains the post-war history of the ‘movement’ which has now been brought to a halt because of a scandal which has resulted in a lack of sponsors. The Madame explains her sympathies for their plight as donors. On their way back, Tommy gets out of the car and goes into a rage in a field.

Chapter 23. Tommy is preparing for his fourth donation when he suggests to Kathy that she should no longer be his carer – and he dies shortly afterwards, leaving her to face an uncertain future.

Kazuo Ishiguro – other novels

A Pale View of Hills – Amazon UK

When We Were Orphans – Amazon UK

An Artist of the Floating World – Amazon UK

The Unconsoled – Amazon UK

The Buried Giant – Amazon UK

Nicholas Nickleby

August 26, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Nicholas Nickleby first appeared as a serial novel in nineteen monthly instalments between 1838 and 1839, published by Chapman and Hall. It was Charles Dickens’ third novel, but he wrote it at the same time as he was completing his second novel, Oliver Twist. He had struck a best-selling formula with his first novel – The Pickwick Papers – an episodic narrative issued in monthly parts, and he stuck to this publishing format, selling 50,000 copies a month of each instalment, which cost one shilling per issue and two shillings for the final double issue.

a monthly instalment

It is worth noting, in terms of the history of the novel and literature as a cultural medium, that Charles Dickens’ name does not appear on the cover – only his nom de plume, ‘Boz’. And he is not the author but the editor of these recorded adventures – almost as if their existence were due to some other person or source.

In addition, each instalment of the serial was illustrated – in this case by his favourite artist, Hablot Knight Browne, who was also given a pseudonym of ‘Phiz’. The convention of illustrating novels persisted until the end of the nineteenth century and then disappeared in the early twentieth.

Nicholas Nickleby – critical commentary

The picaresque novel

Dickens greatly admired the novelists of the eighteenth century – Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, and Tobias Smollett – all of whom had inherited the earlier tradition of the novel as a picaresque narrative. That is, the focus of attention in a novel was on an individual who engaged with society and embarked on a series of adventures. In its original form the picaro was usually a low-life character, and this is perhaps reflected in Fielding’s hero (in Tom Jones) being a foundling, or in Smollett’s heroes Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle being ‘groundlings’ or ordinary characters.

The traditional picaresque novel featured a one central character (Lazarillo de Tormes and Tom Jones for example), but Dickens gives this convention a creative twist by having essentially two central characters battling with the vicissitudes of society. Nicholas and his sister Kate are both young and vulnerable following their father’s death. They are saddled with a mother who is worse than useless as a moral and spiritual guide, and they are surrounded by villainous characters who wish to do them harm.

Nicholas first has to battle with the psychopathic schoolmaster Wackford Squeers and his equally brutal family. Then he is also thwarted by his uncle, Ralph Nickleby

Ralph Nickleby is also the spider at the centre of the corrupt web of upper-class rakes trying to ensnare Kate Nickleby. Even though it is Sir Willoughby Hawk who is her main assailant, he is a client of Ralph’s and operates under his roof. Kate quite rightly complains that the very person who should be protecting her honour (her uncle) is putting her at risk by exposing her to moral danger and actually using her as live bait to ensnare the rich but simple Lord Frederick Verisopht.

The elements of the picaresque novel are normally movement – the journey – encounters with unknown individuals who may be rogues desperadoes, or comic characters. This was the novel as sheer entertainment, and Dickens happily embraced the genre. As well as featuring the hero’s mixed fortunes in society, encounters with rogues and villains, there were also a lot of knockabout comic and farcical scenes, plus no shortage of real physical violence – much in evidence here in the scenes at Dotheboys Hall.

There is very little notion of a tightly plotted story. The essence of the picaresque is a loose, episodic tale where one event follows another. Nevertheless, Dickens inserts elements which typify his later command of the tightly plotted serial novel, with a structure unified by overarching metaphors and symbols.

He introduces mysterious and dramatically interesting details which act as a thread through the episodes of the story. For instance, the curious figure of Newman Noggs who works for but despises Ralph Nickleby. He passes a message to Nicholas as he embarks at the start of the novel on his journey to Yorkshire and Dotheboys Hall. This creates a link between them which enables Nicholas to survive the vicissitudes of his exile and even his return under an assumed name (Johnson).

The negative parent figure

We know that Dickens was very concerned about the ill-treatment of children – despite the fact that he neglected his own. His novels are full of neglected and poor youngsters, children forced into work and crime, and pathetic under-aged beings who suffer and die young.

The other side of this coin is the parent figure who neglects those under its supervision and care. Nicholas Nickleby has a wide range of characters who are what might be called the negative parent figure – people who are responsible for people younger than themselves who neglect their welfare and in some cases actively seek to undermine it.

First in order of appearance of these figures is Wackford Squeers, the sadistic headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, who acts in loco parentis to his pupils. Squeers is motivated entirely by greed and self-gratification. He actually robs the pupils under his care; he beats them; more or less starves them; and actively stands in the way of their securing any possible outside help. He is what we would now classify as a sociopath or even a psychopath

Mr Bray is one of the many miserly characters in the novel, but his outstanding characteristic is that of an emotionally tyrannical father figure. He has a daughter (Madeleine) who is slavishly devoted to him, but rather than appreciate her efforts, he abuses her unmercifully and turns her life into a living misery. Rather like Squeers, he is entirely self-regarding and even sneers at the very sources of income which keep him alive (the ‘purchases’ made by the Cheerybles).

Mrs Nickleby is a great comic figure in the novel – a social snob even when her family has become penniless, and a garrulous featherbrain who fails to understand anything that is going on. She doesn’t actually make her children suffer, but she is certainly derelict in his role as a parent, and it is interesting to note that she shares self-regard and a solipsistic view of the world with the other negative parent figures in the novel.

Ralph Nickleby turns out to be the worst parent figure of all. He is dominated by an almost pathological worship of money. He marries for financial advantage, and when his wife leaves him, he gives away his son – who becomes the abandoned Smike at Dotheboys Hall. The conditions there – in addition to his consumption – contribute to his early death.

Money, inheritance, and class

The origins of the entire narrative lie in a version of the Biblical parable of the talents. At his death old Nicholas Nickleby divides his money between two sons, Ralph and John. One (Ralph) becomes a money lender (a usurer) and makes more money: The other (John) invests his portion of the inheritance in the stock market and loses everything.

This accounts for the tensions within young Nicholas Nickleby’s family and his personal life. He has been raised and educated to be a ‘gentleman’, but he suddenly finds himself with no money and a mother and sister for whom he is responsible.

Nicholas is forced to work as an almost unpaid assistant schoolteacher, whilst his mother clings to comically misplaced snobbish standards as if she were still upper class. Kate too is forced into low-paid work, and can only hope for a suitable marriage to save her from her plight.

But any marriage should be on reasonably equal terms. This explains the dramatically stretched issue of conscience and scruples when Nicholas insists that Kate should not encourage Frank Cheeryble as a suitor – because Frank will inherit from his twin uncles, whereas Kate has nothing to inherit.

Nicholas puts an equally severe limit on himself when he asks for Madeleine to be taken away from his mother’s house. He is in love with her, but he realises that the Cheerybles will look after her financially, whereas he has no inheritance to offer her. He belongs (albeit temporarily) to a lower social class. However, these problems are resolved by the fairy-tale generosity of the Cheerybles.

Nicholas Nickleby – study resources

Nicholas Nickleby – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

Nicholas Nickleby – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

Nicholas Nickleby – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Nicholas Nickleby – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Charles Dickens – biographical notes

Nicholas Nickleby – eBook at Project Gutenberg

Nicholas Nickleby – audioBook at LibriVox

Nicholas Nickleby – Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz) illustrations

The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens – Amazon UK

Nicholas Nickleby – Audio book (unabridged) – Amazon UK

Charles Dickens’ London – interactive map

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Charles Dickens – Amazon UK

Nicholas Nickleby – plot summary

Chapter I. Old Mr Nickleby leaves money to his two sons, Ralph and Nicholas. Ralph invests his inheritance and becomes a successful money-lender. Nicholas speculates with his money on the stock exchange and loses everything.

Chapter II. Ralph and fellow entrepreneurs hold a public meeting to promote interest in a parliamentary bill to establish a muffin-making business, which will in fact be a monopoly.

Chapter III. Ralph receives news of the death of his brother. He visits his sister in law and her two young children and, completely lacking in generosity and compassion, arranges to ‘find a job’ for young Nicholas.

Chapter IV. Wackford Squeers enrolls pupils for his school at Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire, and Ralph persuades him to take on Nicholas as an assistant schoolmaster.

Chapter V. Nicholas sets off for Yorkshire. Before departure Newman Noggs slips him a mysterious letter. Squeers feeds himself liberally, but completely neglects his pupils. The coach overturns in bad weather.

Chapter VI. The travellers recover at a nearby inn, where they regale each other with tales of ‘The Five Sisters of York’ and ‘The Baron of Grogzwig’.

Chapter VII. Nicholas arrives at Dotheboys Hall, meets the abandoned boy Smike, and is given a frugal supper by Mrs Squeers. He reads the mysterious letter from Noggs, offering him sympathy and accommodation in London if ever he should need it.

Chapter VIII. Squeers runs the school in a brutal and exploitative manner. All the pupils are broken and miserable. Nicholas is ashamed of being there. Smike has no friends and no hope.

Chapter IX. The plain Fanny Squeers decides to fall in love with Nicholas, then announces to her friend Matilda that she is ‘almost’ engaged to him. The two young women entertain their beaux to tea, then fall out in rivalry with each other.

Chapter X. Miss Le Crevey paints a miniature portrait of Kate Nickleby. Ralph Nickleby finds Kate a questionable job as a dressmaker with Madam Mantalini and moves her mother into an empty house he owns.

Chapter XI. Kate and her mother leave Miss Le Crevey and are taken by Noggs to live in an old run down house in a poor party of the City.

Chapter XII. Fanny and Matilda repair their disagreement of the day before. Matilda is to be married in three weeks. They meet Nicholas and claim he is in love with Fanny. When he refutes this claim, Fanny vows vengeance on Nicholas, who comforts the persecuted Smike.

Nicholas starts for Yorkshire

Chapter XIII. Smike suddenly runs off from the school, but is hunted down and recaptured. When Squeers starts to administer a public flogging before the assembled boys, Nicholas intervenes and beats Squeers. Nicholas leaves the school to go back to London, and is followed by Smike.

Chapter XIV. A wedding anniversary party is under way in the rented rooms of the Keriwigs. nTheir neighbour Noggs is in attendance, despatching punch, when Nicholas and Smike arrive.

Chapter XV. The Squeers have sent a defamatory letter to Ralph Nickleby, denouncing Nicholas. Noggs urges patience. Meanwhile Lillyvick lords it over the party and its members. When the babysitter’s hair catches fire, Nicholas rescues the baby and is admired by everybody as a gentleman and an aristocrat

Chapter XVI. Next day Nicholas goes in search of a job, but turns down the position of secretary to an unscrupulous member of parliament. Instead, Noggs arranges for him to become private tutor to the Kenwig girls, under the name of Johnson.

Chapter XVII. Kate starts work at Mantalini’s where she feels demeaned by the nature of her position. The Mantalinis are semi-comic buffoons, somehow connected with Ralph Nickleby.

Chapter XVIII. Miss Knag has an almost Sapphic crush on Kate, who makes a good impression on visiting customers. But when Kate is chosen to display bonnets instead of Miss Knag, she turns hysterically against her.

Chapter XIX. Kate in invited to dinner at her uncle’s house. But the guests are all-male boors, and she has been used as bait to lure a rich young lord. One drunken guest tries to attack her. Ralph Nickleby feels the first twinges of conscience regarding his niece.

Chapter XX. Ralph confronts Kate and her mother with Nicholas’s ‘misdeeds’ (reported by Squeers). Nicholas stands up to Ralph and maintains his innocence – but he is powerless to do anything more. Everything is against him – but he sticks by Smike.

Chapter XXI. The Mantalinis are bankrupted (by Ralph) and Kate loses her job. She becomes a companion to Mrs Witterly, who suffers from ‘an excess of soul’.

Chapter XXII. Nicholas decides to leave London. He and Smike walk to Portsmouth, but before they get there Nicholas meets the theatrical manager Vincent Crummles, and in desperation is persuaded to join his troupe.

Chapter XXIII. When they reach Portsmouth Crummles introduces Nicholas to his band of itinerant ‘actors’, including the ‘infant phenomenon’. Crummles gives Nicholas a French text to translate and plagiarize for performance in a few day’s time.

Chapter XXIV. Nicholas writes the play for Miss Snevellicci’s benefit performance (one of many) – then has to go out touting for subscriptions.The play is put on, and despite its ridiculous and corny plot is a big success.

Mr and Mrs Mantalini in Ralph Nickleby’s Office

Chapter XXV. Mr Lillyvick the water tax collector arrives to tell Nicholas of his impending marriage to Henrietta Petowker, who is joining the troupe. A comic wedding scene ensues. Nicholas teaches Smike his simple part in Romeo and Juliet.

Chapter XXVI. Hawk and Verisopht conspire to pursue the pretty Kate. Hawk wishes to trap Verisopht financially. They visit Ralph Nickleby, who wants to entrap them both. Mrs Nickel by arrives and naively hopes that Kate will marry one of these corrupt rakes. Ralph’s conscience pricks him for a second time.

Chapter XXVII. Mrs Nickleby is fascinated with the idea of upper-class connections. She is visited by Pyke and Pluck who flatter her and invite her to the theatre on behalf of Hawk, who oppresses Kate again. They are also introduced to Mrs Witterly, who is also flattered by the attention of these rakes.

Chapter XXVIII. Hawk and his entourage become regular visitors chez Mrs Witterly – and continue to oppress Kate. She appeals to her uncle Ralph for help – but he refuses to do anything, and even though he has encouraged their behaviour, he disapproves of it. So does Noggs, who disapproves of his employer Ralph.

Chapter XXIX. Lenville is jealous of Nicolas’s success in the acting troupe. He offers a challenge, but Nicholas knocks him down. Nicholas communicates with Noggs via post, who replies that Kate might need his protection in the future.

Chapter XXX. Nicholas prepare to leave the acting company. He goes to dinner, where Mr Snevellicci gets drunks and kisses all the women. An urgent note from Noggs arrives, so Nicholas and Smike leave for London by the morning coach.

Chapter XXXI. Noggs negotiates with Miss La Crevey to delay telling Nicholas about Kate’s problems on his imminent arrival in ~London – to forestall rash actions.

Chapter XXXII. Nicholas reaches London and immediately goes in search of Noggs, who has deliberately gone out as part of his plan. Nicholas wanders into a hotel and overhears Hawk maligning Kate. He challenges him, but Hawk refuses to reveal his identity. They fight in the street, and Hawk sustains injuries when his cab overturns.

Chapter XXXIII. Nicholas removes Kate from Mrs Witterly’s , his mother from her lodgings, and writes to Ralph denouncing him as a villain.

Chapter XXXIV. Ralph is visited by Mr Mantalini who needs money. Mrs Mantalini argues with her husband., during which time Ralph learns about the coach accident. Mr Squeers arrives, and Ralph quizzes him about Smike’s identity and origins.

Chapter XXXV. Mrs Nickleby and Kate meet Smike, then Nicholas goes in search of a job, where he meets the improbably philanthropic Mr Cheeryble, who provides him with a well-paid job, a home, and gifts of furniture.

Chapter XXXVI. Mrs Kenwigs has a baby. The family all congratulate themselves on their future prospects, but when Nicholas arrives with the news that their ‘benefactor’ Lillyvick has married Henrietta Petowker in Portsmouth, they go to pieces ,thinking that their ‘expectations’ have been ruined.

Miss Nickleby Introduced to her Uncle’s Friends

Chapter XXXVII. Nicholas makes a success of his introduction to working at Cheeryble’s, and old Tim Linkinwater’s birthday is celebrated in the office with lots of toasting and good cheer. Mrs Nickleby confides in Nicholas that she is being courted by their next-door neighbour by throwing cucumbers over the wall.

Chapter XXXVIII. Miss La Crevey thinks that Smike is changing significantly. Ralph Nickleby visits Hawk who is still recovering from his injuries in the coach crash. Lord Verisopht is amongst the rakes but he thinks that Nicholas has acted honourably in defending his sister’s reputation. On his way back home, Smike is captured by Squeers and held prisoner.

Chapter XXXIX. John Browdie arrives in London with his new bride Matilda Price and her friend Fanny Squeers.. They meet Mr Squeers at the Saracen’s Head That night Browdie helps Smike to escape from Squeers’ clutches.

Chapter XXXX. Nicholas falls in love with a girl he saw very briefly in the Registry Office. He commissions Noggs to find out who she is and where she lives. He does this and actually arranges a meeting with her late at night.But when they get there it is the wrong girl.

Chapter XXXXI. The eccentric (mad) man next door continues to pay court to Mrs Nickleby – who is flattered by his attentions, even though she feigns to reject them.

Chapter XXXXII. Nicholas visits John Browdie at the Saracen’s Head. Whilst they are discussing Fanny Squeers’ lack of marriage prospects, she suddenly appears. There is a comic argument between Fanny and Matilda, then between Squeers and Browdie

Chapter XXXXIII. Following the altercation at the Saracen’s Head, Nicholas meets Frank Cheeryble, with whom he feels a close bond. Yet he immediately wonders if he is a rival for the mysterious and beautiful girl – to whom he has never spoken. Frank and one of his uncles visit the Nickleby home the following Sunday, and everybody has a good time.

Chapter XXXXIV. Ralph Nickleby is out collecting debts when he is tracked down by Mr Booker, a former business associate who has been in jail. Booker threatens to reveal compromising information, but Ralph calls his bluff and refuses to help him.There is a fake suicide by Mr Mantalini, then Ralph goes off withSqueers and a stranger, with Noggs in pursuit.

Chapter XXXXV. Whilst John and Matilda Browdie are at the Nickleby cottage they are interrupted by Ralph Nickleby, Squeers, and Mr Snawley, who claims to be Smike’s estranged father. THey wish to capture Smike and take him back to Yorkshire, but Smike does not want to go.. After they throw out Squeers, Ralph leaves, threatening legal action against Nicholas.

Chapter XXXXVI. Nicholas relates these incidents to the Cheerybles, who tell him a similar story about the beautiful girl who has devoted herself to an unloving father who is a wastrel. They want to use Nicholas as a means of supplying money to her. This enables him to meet Madeleine Bray and her thankless father.

Chapter XXXXVII. Ralph Nickleby arrives at his office with Arthur Gride, who relates his plan to marry Madeleine Bray so as to acquire a property she will inherit. Ralph forces him to sign an agreement between them – all overheard by Noggs. They visit Bray and Madeleine and put their plan into motion, hoping that the greedy and heartless Bray will persuade Madeleine to accept.

Chapter XXXXVIII. Nicholas is upset regarding his role in the supply of money to Madeleine Bray. He then meets up with the Crummles theatrical troupe giving their farewell performances before going to America. There is another lengthy dinner with speeches.

Mr Linkinwater Intimates his Approval of Nicholas

Chapter XLIX. In the Nickleby household Smike is suffering from consumption, but hides it from everyone. The mad old man from next door comes down the chimney in pursuit of Mrs Nickleby, but then changes to Miss La Crevey when he sees her.

Chapter L. Sir Mulberry Hawk appears at Hampton Races after recuperating abroad. He quarrels with Lord Verisopht, who has a guilty conscience regarding his part in the plot against Kate. That night, after gambling and drinking, they fight a duel, in which Lord Frederick is killed.

Chapter LI. Arthur Gride selects his clothes for the marriage to Madeleine Bray. Noggs has been approached by the mysteriousMr Brooker, and he tells Nicholas about Gride’s plan to marry Madeleine Bray.

Chapter LII. Noggs takes Moreleen Kenwig to the barber, where they meet Lillyvick. His wife Henrietta has eloped with a solider, so he is received at the Kenwigs where he reverses the terms of his will in their favour, following much sycophancy on both sides.

Chapter LIII. Nicholas appeals directly to Madeleine to call off or at least delay the marriage. He explains the plot between her father and Gride. But she refuses: she is sacrificing herself to gain the money promised to support her father. Nicholas then goes to Gride and offers to buy him off, but Gride refuses.

Chapter LIV. Ralph and Arthur Gride arrive at the Bray house on the morning of the wedding, but suddenly Nicholas and Kate arrive to confront them and take Madeleine away. There is a stand off, and then Bray drops dead upstairs. Nicholas takes Madeleine away telling Ralph that his business has collapsed.

Chapter LV. Mrs Nickleby is convinced that Frank Cheeryble is in love with Kate, who is looking after Madeleine as she recovers. Mrs Nickleby asks Nicholas to encourage the relationship, but he warns against it on the grounds that they are poor, whereas Frank has ‘expectations’ from his uncles. Nicholas is then commissioned to take the ailing Smike to Devon for convalescence.

Chapter LVI. Ralph has lost £10,000 in a bank crash. Returning to Gribe’s house, they discover that old Peg has stolen incriminating papers and absconded. Ralph devises an elaborate plan of revenge (on Nicholas and just about everybody else) which includes the Snawley and Smike relationship, Madeleine’s inheritance, and recovery of Gride’s stolen documents. He enlists the services of Squeers to do the dirty work and carefully excludes all mention of himself from the arrangements.

Chapter LVII. Ralph has located old Peg and Squeers visits her in a drunken state. He persuades her to show him the documents – but whilst they are inspecting them Frank Cheeryble and Noggs sneak into the room and knock Squeers out.

Chapter LVIII. Nicholas takes Smike to Devon where they share a bucolic and tranquil existence. Smike has a fleeting vision of the man who first took him to Dotheboys Hall, reveals that he has been in love with Kate , and dies.

Chapter LIX. An anxious Ralph is visited by Charles Cheeryble who wishes to warn him of something – but he dismisses him. Ralph goes off in search Noggs, Squeers, and Snawley, but none of them are to be found. So he goes to Cheerybles where he is confronted by Noggs who has unravelled the whole pilot. They offer him an honourable escape, but he scorns it.

Chapter LX. Ralph tracks down Squeers at the police station where he is being held on remand. There are signs that even Squeers is turning against him. Then he returns to Cheerybles, where they produce Ralph’s former employee Mr Brooker, who reveals that Smike was Ralph’s son. Ralph suddenly disappears.

Chapter LXI. Nicholas returns from Devon and learns that Kate has refused an offer of marriage from Frank Cheeryble on grounds of differences in their social positions. Nicholas vows to do the same regarding Madeleine, and asks the Cheerybles to remove her from his mother’s house.

Chapter LXII. Ralph retreats to his house, followed by a black cloud, and is oppressed by feelings of defeat and the fact that his enemy Nicholas was the person who looked after his own son, Smike. He goes into the attic and hangs himself.

Chapter LXIII. The Cheerybles summon everyone to a dinner at which the details of Madeleine’s inheritance are made known and the two couples – Frank and Kate, and Nicolas and Madeleine – are united.Then Tim Linkinwater proposes to Miss La Crevey, who accepts, much to Mrs Nickleby’s disgust.

Chapter LXIV. Nicholas travels to Yorkshire to see his friend John Browdie and brings him up to date with all the news. It is revealed that Squeers has been found guilty and transported for seven years. John Browdie rides over to Dotheboys Hall where the boys revolt against Mrs Squeers and her two offspring. They then all run away.

Conclusion. Nicholas marries Madeleine on the same day that Frank marries Kate. Nicholas becomes a partner in the firm. Ralph’s money is left un-touched and reverts to the State. Gride escapes punishment, but is then murdered. Hawk lives abroad, but on return is jailed for debt, where he dies.

Mont Blanc – Charles Dickens special edition

Nicholas Nickleby – principal characters

Old Mr Nickleby	Nicholas’s grandfather
Ralph Nickleby	his elder son, who becomes a speculator
Nicholas Nickleby	his younger son, who loses his money and dies
Mrs Nickleby	his widow, a naive and gullible woman
Nicholas Nickleby	his son, good-natured and personable (19)
Kate Nickleby	Nicholas’s pretty sister
Newman Noggs	one-eyed clerk to Ralph Nickleby, ‘a decayed gentleman’
Wackford Squeers	an unscrupulous, greedy, and brutal ‘schoolmaster’
Mrs Squeers	his equally vulgar and stupid wife
Fanny Squeers	their plain daughter (23) who falls for Nicholas
Smike	a desperate abandoned boy, unpaid skivvy to Squeers (19)
Miss Le Crevey	an artist in portrait miniatures
Matilda Price	a pretty friend (and rival) of Fanny Squeers
John Browdie	her fiancée, a tall Yorkshire corn-merchant with a Geordie accent
Mr Mantalini (actually Murtle)	a ridiculous fop
Mrs Mantalini	his (new) wife, a dressmaker
Mr Kenwig	a turner in ivory
Mr Lillyvick	a pompous collector of water taxes
Mr Crowl	a dubious associate of Noggs who wears a red wig
Miss Knag	garrulous and hysterical shop manager at Mantalinis
Mortimer Knag	her brother, a gloomy bookseller and novelist, former admirer of Mrs Mantalini
Mrs Julia Witterly	a social climbing hypochondriac who employs Kate as a companion
Henrietta Petowker	marries Lillyvick, then leaves him for another man
Sir Mulberry Hawk	a lecherous nobleman who pursues Kate
Lord Frederick Verisopht	a simple dupe of Hawk, who kills him in a duel
The Cheerybles	twin brothers and philanthropists
Frank Cheeryble	their nephew, who falls in love with Kate
Timothy Linkinwater	their chief clerk, who marries Miss La Crevey
Mr Walter Bray	a selfish and dying miser
Madeleine Bray	his beautiful and devoted daughter
Arthur Gride	an old, greedy, and corrupt miser who tries to marry Madeleine
Peg Sliderskew	his old and ugly housekeeper
Mr Brooker	an ex-convict and formerly Ralph’s clerk

Other works by Charles Dickens

Pickwick Papers (1836-37) was Dickens’ first big success. It was issued in twenty monthly parts and is not so much a novel as a series of loosely linked sketches and changing characters featured in reports to the Pickwick Club. These recount comic excursions to Rochester, Dingley Dell, and Bath; duels and elopements; Christmas festivities; Mr Pickwick inadvertently entering the bedroom of a middle-aged lady at night; and in the end a happy marriage. Much light-hearted fun, and a host of memorable characters.
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Oliver Twist (1837-38) expresses Dickens’ sense of the vulnerability of children. Oliver is a foundling, raised in a workhouse, who escapes suffering by running off to London. There he falls into the hands of a gang of thieves controlled by the infamous Fagin. He is pursued by the sinister figure of Monks who has secret information about him. The plot centres on the twin issues of personal identity and a secret inheritance (which surface again in Great Expectations). Emigration, prison, and violent death punctuate a cascade of dramatic events. This is the early Victorian novel in fine melodramatic form. Recommended for beginners to Dickens.
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Charles Dickens – web links

Charles Dickens at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, tutorials and study guides, free eTexts, videos, adaptations for cinema and television, further web links.

Charles Dickens at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary techniques, his influence and legacy, extensive bibliography, and further web links.

Charles Dickens at Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the major works in a variety of formats.

Dickens on the Web
Major jumpstation including plots and characters from the novels, illustrations, Dickens on film and in the theatre, maps, bibliographies, and links to other Dickens sites.

The Dickens Page
Chronology, eTexts available, maps, filmography, letters, speeches, biographies, criticism, and a hyper-concordance.

Charles Dickens at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of the major novels and stories for the cinema and television – in various languages

A Charles Dickens Journal
An old HTML website with detailed year-by-year (and sometimes day-by-day) chronology of events, plus pictures.

Hyper-Concordance to Dickens
Locate any word or phrase in the major works – find that quotation or saying, in its original context.

Dickens at the Victorian Web
Biography, political and social history, themes, settings, book reviews, articles, essays, bibliographies, and related study resources.

Charles Dickens – Gad’s Hill Place
Something of an amateur fan site with ‘fun’ items such as quotes, greetings cards, quizzes, and even a crossword puzzle.

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Nina Hamnett memoirs

January 21, 2014 by Roy Johnson

the autobiography of ‘the Queen of Bohemia’

Nina Hamnett memoirs is the record of a an artist, a Bohemian, a fringe member of the Bloomsbury Group, and towards the end of her life a woman who was more-or-less professional alcoholic. This is her interim life story, written around two thirds the way through her career when she was forty-two. Don’t expect chronological coherence or a disciplined narrative. She adopts a scatter gun approach, with famous names coming off the page in rapid succession. And she seems to have known (or met) just about everyone who was anyone in the birth of modernist art 1910-1930.

She was born in Wales in 1890 into an upper middle-class army family, and was educated at public – that is, private schools. She seems from the outset to have rebelled against the strictures of convention, and her account of her largely unhappy childhood emphasises the tomboy nature of her early years – in a way that reads like a girl’s version of Just William crossed with Adrian Mole. She only encountered the world of art when her father (who she disliked) was posted to Dublin. In her teens she attended a variety of art schools, and very rapidly began to establish contact with the people who were to form an entrée into the world of Bohemia where she felt free to breathe. Arthur Ransome, Hugh Walpole, and Aleister Crowley were early (and slightly dubious) influences.

After inheriting fifty pounds she set herself up in Fitzrovia, and from that point onwards her connections with the artistic world developed at an astonishing pace. Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington, Wyndham Lewis, Jacob Epstein, and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska were all friends by the time she was in her early twenties. They bought each other’s paintings, often shared food, clothing, and shelter – and certainly didn’t stint themselves on whatever drinks were available.

She made a conscious effort to lose her virginity, and ended up doing so in the same rooms in Bloomsbury where Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud had lived in the 1870s. Her life at this stage appears to have been permanently blessed with good fortune. A friend gave her thirty pounds, which paid for a trip to Paris, where she met Modigliani on the first night out. There followed fancy dress parties, all night drinking, and naked dancing. Zadkine, Archipenko, and Kisling flit through the pages, and she eked out her savings by working as an artist’s model – which seems to be almost an excuse for taking her clothes off, which she was given to doing at the end of a night’s drinking.

Suddenly the indulgence of la vie boheme was shattered by the outbreak of war. She limped back home with just twopence to spare for the final tube fair. Yet after what seems like a miraculous escape from danger, she rather perversely returned to Paris to be with the man she loved – who she calls Edgar but whose real name was Roald Kristian. They returned to England, got married, and joined Roger Fry in his Omega Workshops. The subsequent war period is an odd mixture of the first bombing raids on London, Zeppelins bursting into flames, and scrounging drinks in the Cafe Royal. Her husband was arrested as an unregistered alien, spent time in jail, and was then deported to France, from which he never returned.

She moved into Fitzroy Square and befriended Walter Sickert. At this point her class of patrons and admirers seems to go up a notch: she met and painted portraits of the Sitwells, and yet all the time she was tempted to return to Paris, which she felt to be her spiritual home. For a time she took over Sickert’s old position of teaching at Westminster Technical Institute, but as soon as she had been paid at the end of the term and had enough for the fare, she returned to Paris.

There she rejoined her old friend Marie Wassilieff, who had become Leon Trotsky’s mistress during the war. She dined with Brancusi (a good chef) and fell for a romantic Pole who absconded with all her money and her best friend (who was better-looking). Then it was off to the south of France, staying with another Pole and visiting Tsuguharu Foujita, the Japanese artist. There were trips to Collioure, Cerbère, and Port Vendres, an illegal excursion to Port Bou in Spain, picnics, a little painting, and a lot more wine. But strangely enough she felt that the work she produced there was amongst her weakest and she concluded that she and the south of France were not truly compatible.

It’s difficult to tell the exact year or even the rough period in which many of these events take place – but the drinks are recorded with never-ending enthusiasm – including cider laced with Calvados, stout with champagne (at that time known as ‘Turk’s Blood’) and a mixture of absinthe, gentian, and brandy which sent one of her friends into a catatonic spasm and even she admits she could not choke down. Despite the all night parties and the rivers of champagne, the element of bohemianism continues with living in unheated flats where the water freezes in the sink at night.

Dolores Courtney by Nina Hamnett

At one point Aleister Crowley introduced a new cocktail containing laudanum, and Hamnett fills in his background, including the practice of Black Magic on a Greek island. For this accusation he sued her in court when the memoirs were published – and lost his case. The resulting scandal sent sales of the book soaring. She met Ford Maddox Ford and Gertrude Stein, then smoked hashish with Cocteau and Raymond Radriguet who opened a new restaurant called Le Boeuf sur le Toit (immortalised by the Darius Milhaud composition).

Parties start off late in the evening, go on from one night club to another, and end up in Les Halles around 8.00 am with breakfast and more drinks. There was another more successful visit to the south of France – St Juan les Pins and Nice which was then becoming fashionable where she sang with Rudolph Valentino (full name Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguolla) who she later introduced to James Joyce. As the memoirs go on, the characters become more and more eccentric – including a lady acrobatic dancer who travelled with two pet monkeys and a snake. Feeling an exhibition coming on, Hamnett returned to London, where her travelling companion managed to set fire to a friend’s flat. The exhibition was a disaster, but she returned to Paris and ended up singing to an audience of Stravinsky and Diaghilev.

The memoir ends with a quite moving account of the funeral of Raymond Radriguet (Cocteau’s lover) who died at only twenty years old, and an idyllic further stay in Grasse in the south of France where she sang songs for fellow guest Francis Poulenc. The account stops abruptly some time around 1926, when she returned from France to take up residence permanently in Fitzrovia, where she became known as the ‘Queen of Bohemia’. There is actually a follow-up volume to these memoirs entitled Is She a Lady? published in 1955, a year before she threw herself out of the window of her flat and was impaled on the area railings below. She lingered painfully in hospital for three days, where her last words were “Why don’t they let me die?”

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Nina Hamnett, Laughing Torso, London: Virago Press, 1984, ISBN: 860686507

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Our Mutual Friend

July 14, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Our Mutual Friend is the last novel Charles Dickens completed. It first appeared in nineteen monthly installments between May 1864 and November 1865, published by Chapman and Hall. These booklet-sized publications were priced at one shilling (1s) which was not exactly cheap in the 1860s – and of course a second profit was made when the novel was printed in book form (in one or three volumes) a much higher price. Each issue featured thirty-two pages of text and two illustrations by Marcus Stone.

a mothly instalment

Our Mutual Friend – critical commentary

Characters

Dickens generates his usual gallery of characters and caricatures – some of them serious portraits of human psychology (such as Wrayburn and Headstone) others vivid and memorable but two-dimensional figures such as Jenny Wren (real name Fanny Cleaver) and Sloppy, the foundling who is summarised by his buttons and a gigantic laugh.

Wrayburn is not unlike Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities – a depressed and slightly misanthropic barrister who has no clients. He is listless and without purpose – until he encounters Lizzie Hexam, with whom he falls in love. Although she too is in love with him, they think there is too wide a gap in their social class to permit marriage. At the end of the novel he commits the selfless act of marrying her on his death bed, to give her social status. But in fact he recovers.

Headstone is an interesting study in erotic fixation and obsessive jealousy. He too falls in love with Lizzie Hexam, but is entirely consumed by his jealous hatred of Wrayburn, his rival for her affections. This obsession drives him to a savage act of attempted murder, and when Riderhood threatens to expose his identity as the attacker, he kills both his blackmailer and himself in the Weir.

There is a great deal of social satire focused on the nouveau-riche Veneerings, people who not only display their wealth in a vulgar and ostentatious manner, but who establish around themselves a social circle of ‘friends’ characterised by the fact that in fact nobody knows anybody else.

There is a great deal of critical commentary on one of the less successful characters in the novel – Mr Riah the Jew. Dickens was criticised by a number of people for his anti-Semitic depiction of Fagin, the Jewish gangmaster in Oliver Twist. Mr Riah is almost like an apology and a compensation – a figure of unalloyed goodness, patience, and sympathy who is obliged to enforce the ruthless debt-collection service owned by the villainous Fledgeby.

Plot

It has to be said that the story line of the novel is way below the normal level of invention and credibility one expects in a Dickens novel. First of all there are the complications of John Harmon’s multiple aliases in Julius Handford and John Rokesmith, and his barely-credible motivation for keeping his identity secret. Fortunately, the secrets of these maneuvers are revealed half way through the novel, so the reader can participate in the development of Harmon’s later ambitions.

But a great deal of the second half of the novel is based upon a cheap trick whereby Dickens conceals vital aspects of the plot from the reader, and has his characters acting out a charade of pretence to support the deception.

The prolonged concealment of Boffin’s knowledge of Harmon’s true identity is a literary sleight of hand which cheats the reader to an unacceptable degree. This is because the plot device violates essential conventions of a realist narrative. The reader is given no possibility of knowing or working out the truth of the matter.

It is also bad literary faith because so many of the events of the novel rest upon the deception. Boffin’s obsession with misers and apparent ill-treatment of Harmon as his secretary, plus Bella’s own drift towards mercenary life, are important elements of the narrative, and most readers are likely to feel have a sense of anti-climax bordering on feeling cheated when the truth is revealed at the end of the novel.

The same is true in the case of Mr Venus in his secret pact with Boffin against the scurrilous Wegg. Even the most attentive reader has no opportunity to see this in advance, and since these two plot revelations come in rapid succession they undermine the logic and persuasiveness of the narrative. In terms of story telling, they are cheap and vulgar devices, hardly worthy of a great novelist.

Symbol

The novel is dominated by the central symbol of the River Thames. The story begins and (more or less) ends there – with death a common feature of both scenes. In the first, Gaffer Hexam drags a dead body from the river at night, which sets the whole events of the novel in motion. And and in the final drama of the narrative Headstone drags Riderhood to their deaths at the Weir on the upper reaches of the Thames.

It is on the river that Lizzie goes into hiding, and it is there that Betty Higden goes to die in retreat from the Workhouse. The river is repeatedly emphasised as a source of trade and commerce, but it also acts as a metaphor for rebirth and renewal. Wrayburn is savagely attacked on the riverbank by Headstone and left in the water for dead: but he miraculously recovers. Even the villainous Riderhood is apparently drowned when his boat is rammed by a steamship: but he too recovers, to boast that he is a man who cannot be drowned.

Concealment

There is a repeated motive of concealment in the novel – all instances of which are instrumental in providing the element of suspense which has led many critics to describe the novel as a riddle or an elaborate puzzle. But of course an element of suspense is natural in a serial narrative. The commercial necessity of publishing in this format of monthly episodes requires that readers should be induced to purchase successive volumes to know what is coming next.

John Harmon conceals his identity more than once. First he exchanges clothes and identities with his shipmate George Radfoot. This is designed to enable him to escape the burden of inheritance, but it results in the murder and mutilation of his comrade. Immediately following the crime, he adopts the first of two aliases – Julius Handford, under which name he deals with Mortimer Lightwood and the police. Following this he adopts the alias of John Rokesmith, under which name he seeks employment with the Boffins.

Eugene Wrayburn even conceals his good motives from himself. He starts out as the cynical and unsuccessful barrister-friend of Lightwood, and then finds it difficult to understand his own motivation once he has met Lizzie Hexam – when it is clear to the reader that he has fallen in love with her. His is a case of ‘concealment; across a very wide class divide, which is only bridged when he makes the self-sacrificing gesture of marrying her when he is on what he thinks will be his death bed.

In her turn, Lizzie has concealed her love for Wrayburn for the majority of the narrative – because she believes there is no possibility of bridging the class divide between them. Headstone (also besotted with love for Lizzie) conceals his identity and actually disguises himself as Riderhood to make his murderous attack on Wrayburn.

Wegg wants to conceal his dust-sifting and his intention to expropriate his employer Boffin. At the same time, Mr Venus conceals from Wegg the fact that he is acting as a sort of double-agent on behalf of Boffin (which is one of the factors which makes the conclusion of the novel so unsatisfactory). The Lammles first of all conceal from each other the fact that they have no money, and in order to continue living in upper middle-class society they then conceal their intentions towards Georgiana Podsnap and Bella Wilfer, hoping to use them as pawns in their career of self-advancement

Narrative style

Despite weaknesses in the plot and structure of the novel, there is one feature of the manner in which the narrative is presented which remains as impressive as Dickens at his greatest (as in Bleak House, Dombey and Son, and Great Expectations. That is the narrative voice – the compelling, passionate, infinitely flexible, and endlessly inventive manner in which Dickens operates as the teller of the tale.

The narrative is written in (technically) third-person omniscient mode: that is, the author remains (theoretically) outside the story, but reveals the thoughts and feelings of the characters. However, Dickens operates almost like a circus ringmaster, dipping in and out of his own narrative in an oblique (almost concealed) first person mode.

He introduces his characters, and will even address them, speculate about them, and ask them questions. He introduces a subject (say, the Veneerings’ arriviste social climbing) and speculates about the topic, thinking aloud as part of the story, rhetorically asking the reader’s opinion – sometimes even addressing society in general, as he does when ironically punctuating old Betty Higden’s criticism of the Poor-house system:

“Kill me sooner than take me there. Throw this pretty child under cart-horses feet and a loaded wagon, sooner than take him there. Come to us and find us all a-dying, and set a light to us all where we lie and let us all blaze away with the house into a heap of cinders sooner than move a corpse of us there.”

A surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many years of hard working and hard living, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards! What is it that we call it in our grandiose speeches? British independence; rather perverted? Is that, or something like it, the ring of the cant?

It is also worth noting from a stylistic point of view that he is also much given to sudden switches in tenses – particularly from the past tense into the vivid present; to the use of verbless and subjectless sentences; and the use of extended metaphors, some of which he even addresses as if they were characters, instead of the things for which they stand.

Our Mutual Friend – study resources

Our Mutual Friend – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

Our Mutual Friend – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

Our Mutual Friend – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Our Mutual Friend – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Our Mutual Friend – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

Charles Dickens – biographical notes

Our Mutual Friend – eBook at Project Gutenberg

Our Mutual Friend – audioBook at LibriVox

Our Mutual Friend – complete Marcus Stone illustrations

The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens – Amazon UK

Our Mutual Friend – York Notes at Amazon UK

Our Mutual Friend – Brodie’s Notes at Amazon UK

Our Mutual Friend – Naxos audio book – Amazon UK

Charles Dickens’ London – interactive map

Oxford Reader’s Companion to Charles Dickens – Amazon UK

Our Mutual Friend – plot summary

Book The First – The Cup and the Lip

Chapter I. Poor river worker Gaffer Hexam and his devoted daughter Lizzie are scavenging on the Thames when they locate a corpse and are challenged by a rival, Rogue Riderhood, a desperate riverside character.

Chapter II. A comic dinner takes place at the Veneerings, where guest solicitor Mortimer Lightwood recounts the story of Harmon (the Dust King) and his will in which he left his empire to son John on condition that he marry Bella Wilfer, a woman he has never met. But it is John Harmon who has recently been reported drowned.

Chapter III. Charley Hexam reports the finding of John Harmon’s body to Mortimer Lightwood. They visit the body at the police station , together with stranger Julius Handford. Next day the coroner reports the unsolved crime as murder.

Chapter IV. John Rokesmith takes up lodgings with the Wilfer family and their now ‘widowed’ daughter Bella who was due to marry John Harmon.

Chapter V. Nicodemus Boffin (the Golden Dustman) employs Silas Wegg to read Gibbon’s Decline of the Roman Empire to him. Wegg goes to Boffin’s Bower (formerly known as Harmony Jail) which is Harmon’s old house.

Chapter VI. Rogue Riderhood spreads malicious gossip about Gaffer Hexam in the pub to the landlady Abbey Potterson. She questions Lizzie, who thinks Riderhood himself might be the murderer. Abbey bars both men from her pub. Lizzie sends her brother Charley away to be a trainee teacher, and he departs with his father’s curse.

Chapter VII. Mr Wegg calls on Mr Venus the melancholy taxidermist regarding his leg bones. Venus confirms Harmon’s great wealth, and reveals that he has been taking an interest in the murder case. Venus is unhappy because his lady friend objects to his trade.

Chapter VIII. Mr Boffin reluctantly inherits the Harmon estate. He instructs Lightwood to issue a large reward on the river for information about the murder, and wants a ‘tight’ will drawn up in favour of Mrs Boffin. He then has an offer of being unpaid secretary from John Rokesmith

Chapter IX. Childless Mrs Boffin wants to adopt a male orphan and the ‘widowed’ Bella Wilfer to make up for her loss of a husband. The Boffins apply to Reverend and Mrs Milvey, then persuade Bella to live with them. Whilst there they meet John Rokesmith. There is rivalry between Lavinia and Bella Wilfer, and the first signs of attraction between Bella and Rokesmith.

Chapter X. Social adventuress Sophronia marries Alfred Lammle in a lavish ceremony hosted by the Veneerings where nobody actually knows anybody else. Afterwards on honeymoon they discover that neither of them has any money at all. They are both deceived, but decide to form a pact against society.

Chapter XI. Pretentious Mr Podsnap decides to throw a lavish birthday party for his very shy daughter Georgiana. Mrs Lammle sets out to ‘befriend’ Georgiana, egged on by her husband who hopes to profit from the connection.

Chapter XII. Lightwood and Wrayburn join forces in a business and take a house on the river. Roger Riderhood visits and accuses Gaffer Hexam of the murder, claiming that Hexam has confessed it to him. They all go to the police station where Mr Inspector takes Lightwood and Wrayburn into the Followships pub.

Chapter XIII. They drink mulled wine and wait for Hexam to reappear. Wrayburn spies on Lizzie. Riderhood goes out to look for Hexam, but reports back that he has found his boat empty and adrift.

Chapter XIV. When the search party goes out to the boat, Mr Inspector eventually reveals that Gaffer Hexam was drowned, apparently caught up in his own ropes. Lightwood is delirious with fatigue and stress. Wrayburn suddenly disappears from the scene.

Chapter XV. Mr Boffin is overwhelmed by his paperwork at the Bower, so he gladly accepts Rokesmith’s offer of being an unpaid secretary. He also asks Wegg to move into the Bower and look after it when he moves to a more fashionable address.. Mrs Boffin starts to see the ghosts of previous occupants of the Bower (the Harmons).

Chapter XVI. Rokesmith looks after all Boffin’s affairs, but does not wish to deal with Lightwood. He takes Mrs Boffin to visit Betty Higden to see about adopting a child, where they meet Sloppy and the child Johnny. Rokesmith meets Bella and announces that she will soon be welcome at the new Boffin residence in town.

Chapter XVII. The Boffins move into their new aristocratic house in town – and are immediately bombarded with visiting cards, invitations, and begging letters.

‘The Bird of Prey’ – Marcus Stone

Book The Second – Birds of a Feather

Chapter I. Six months later Charley Hexam and headmaster Bradley Headstone go to meet Lizzie Hexam, where she is living with spirited invalid Fanny Cleaver (Jenny Wren) the doll’s dressmaker. Charley and Lizzie disagree about their relationship to a poor upbringing. Lizzie is romantically attached to the river. Headstone seems interested in her, but Wrayburn is lurking.

Chapter II. Eugene Wrayburn arrives at Lizzie’s to report that he has no fresh news on Riderhood, who he has been watching. He wishes to help Lizzie and Jenny, and eventually persuades them to accept his offer. Jenny’s father returns home drunk and abject; so she scolds and reproaches him like a parent.

Chapter III. Veneering decides to enter parliament, and sets up a network of ‘agents’ amongst people he knows to curry influence and favour for him. He also puts up a £5,000 bribe, and is selected by Pocket Breeches where he has never even been before.

Chapter IV. Mr and Mrs Lammle continue to cultivate the gullible Georgiana Podsnap. They introduce her to the rich booby Fledgeby, and there is no rapport between the two young people at all, despite a dinner party and a trip to the opera.

Chapter V. Next day Lammle visits Fledgeby at the Albany to ask him about Georgiana, but Fledgeby refuses to answer any of his questions. Fledgeby then goes to see his ’employee’ at Pudsey & Co, Mr Riah, who introduces him to Lizzie Hexam (who he is teaching) and Jenny Wren who buys his waste fabrics.

Chapter VI. Lightwood asks Wrayburn about the recent movements and mysteries in his life, but Wrayburn denies that any exist. They are visited by Charley Hexam and Bradley Headstone who come to protest against Wrayburn’s interest in Lizzie and his paying for her education. Wrayburn acts contemptuously towards them both. He admits to an interest in Lizzie but can’t say towards what it is heading.

Chapter VII. Silas Wegg resents Rokesmith being put in charge of the Bower, and wonders with Mr Venus if Harmon hid things in his waste heaps.They agree to conduct clandestine searches, hoping to find valuables or papers.

Chapter VIII. Bella is prompted by Rokesmith to visit her old home , but when she arrives there are squabbles with both her mother and sister Lavvy. Rokesmith appears with a gift of £50 from Mr Boffin, which Bella spends on clothes for her father and an afternoon out at Greenwich.

Chapter IX. Rokesmith arranges for the sickly child Johnny (who Mrs Boffin wishes to adopt) to be taken to a children’s hospital, but is too late to save him and he dies, having willed his toys to another sick child.

Chapter X. Mrs Boffin then decides to drop the idea of naming an adopted child after John Harmon, and chooses the awkward Sloppy as Johnny’s replacement.

Chapter XI. Bradley Headstone has fallen in love with Lizzie at first sight. He visits her and makes an embarrassed plea that she give up being educated at Wrayburn’s expense. He wants her to let Charley (and himself) teach her instead. She flatly refuses – because she is secretly in love with Wrayburn and wishes to reform him.

Chapter XII. Riderhood receives a visit from the mysterious ‘Captain’ who is wearing the clothes of George Radfoot, who has been horribly killed. He has knowledge regarding Gaffer Hexam and the Harmon murder. He menaces Riderhood, yet offers to split the reward money with him.

Chapter XIII. The mysterious Captain is actually John Harmon, alias Julius Handford, alias John Rokesmith. He is revisiting the scene of his supposed murder, and the narrative reconstructs his back story through his efforts to reconstruct events.

He and George Radfoot were shipmates and confidants, returning to London. Harmon felt oppressed by his father’s wealth and intentions, so exchanged clothing with Radfoot in order to circulate incognito. Radfoot visits Riderhood; Harmon is poisoned; Radfoot is mutilated and murdered by mistake. Harmon then escapes via the river and hides away, living off money from Radfoot’s coat.

He debates with himself about revealing his true identity, and concludes that since he is amongst true friends and loves Bella, he should remain as Rokesmith. But when he returns home Bella petulantly reproaches him for daring to pay court to her.

Chapter XIV. Betty Higden decides that she must separate herself from Sloppy and approaches the Secretary for a loan to set up as an itinerant worker. The Secretary arranges for Sloppy to be given lessons from Headstone, and writes a letter of recantation for Riderhood to sign.

Chapter XV. The besotted Headstone and Charley visit Lizzie in a churchyard so that Headstone can present his proposal of marriage to her – which she rejects. Charley then pleads his friend’s case, and this leads to an argument between them. Lizzie is escorted home by Mr Riah and the imperious Wrayburn.

Chapter XVI. At a celebratory breakfast to mark the first wedding anniversary of the Lammles, it is reported that Lizzie Hexam is missing, and Mrs Lammle asks Twemlow to warn Mr Podsnap against her own match-making mischief regarding Georgiana.

‘Bella Righted by the Golden Dustman’ – Marcus Stone

Book The Third – A Long Lane

Chapter I. Mr Riah delivers his accounts to Fledgeby, who abuses him with anti-Semitism. Lammle arrives to reveal that the Podsnaps have written to break off relations. Fledgeby orders Riah to buy up some debts on the cheap. Riah then reports that he has offered Lizzie sanctuary, away from her suitors and tormentors.

Chapter II. Mr Riah and Jenny Wren show Riderhood’s recantation to Abbey Potterton (and they make a copy of it). A steamer on the river runs down another boat in the fog, drowning its owner – Rogue Riderhood.

Chapter III. Riderhood is brought into the pub and thought to be dead, whereupon people begin to feel sympathetic towards him. But he is revived, and becomes his nasty self again.

Chapter IV. The Wilfers celebrate their wedding anniversary, which is characterised by under-cooked chicken and Mrs Wilfer’s miserable and lugubrious recollections. Bella then confides to her father the marriage proposals she has received and her fears that Boffin’s wealth is turning him into a mercenary.

Chapter V. Mr Boffin patronises Rokesmith, preaches money values to Bella, and collects books on misers. Mrs Lammle cultivates Bella, who is sceptical and divided in her feelings. Boffin moves Rokesmith into his own house – to save money and have him permanently on hand.

Chapter VI. Boffin has Wegg read to him from lives of the great misers, and then he goes out to extract something from the great dustmounds (observed by Wegg and Mr Venus). He then announces that he has sold off the dust heaps.

Chapter VII. Wegg reveals to Venus that he has found a tin money box containing Harmon’s will, which Venus takes from him. They plan to use it against Boffin and his entourage. Venus also reveals that his inamorata is Riderhood’s daughter, Pleasant.

Chapter VIII. Betty Higden has been out on the roads on the upper reaches of the Thames, selling her wares and getting weaker and weaker. She is determined to stay out of the Workhouse. But eventually, worn down and alone, she runs out of life force and dies supported only by the kindness of a stranger – who turns out to be Lizzie Wexham.

Chapter IX. At Betty’s funeral Rokesmith and Bella discuss Lizzie’s predicament. Rokesmith thinks Lizzie might be suffering some social stigma from the false accusations made against her father. On becoming friends, Lizzie tells Bella about Headstone who frightens her and Wrayburn who she loves but thinks is above her.

Chapter X. Wrayburn is being pursued for his bad debts by Mr Riah (working for Fledgeby). Wrayburn wants to discover where Lizzie is hiding, but Jenny refuses to tell him. He is visited by ‘Mr Dolls’ (Jenny’s drunken father) who offers to find out for a fee. Meanwhile Wrayburn is being followed by Headstone and Charley. Wrayburn takes Lightwood out to lead Headstone on a wild goose chase, following him through the streets. Lightwood is horrified by the desperation on Headstone’s face.

Chapter XI. Headstone is consumed by jealousy and hatred of Wrayburn. Whilst spying on him at his Temple Chambers he meets Riderhood and pays him money as a bribe for information about Lizzie.

Chapter XII. The Lammles are in debt, and think their ‘friend’ Fledgeby is holding off Mr Riah as collector. They plot to undermine Boffin’s confidence in the Secretary. But Fledgeby calls, and despite Mrs Lammle’s pleas, he goes to his office and orders Riah to collect the debts.

Chapter XIII. Fledgeby is still in his office when it is visited by Jenny Wren and Twemlow, who reveals that he has a debt being called in by Mr Riah. When Riah returns, Fledgeby forces him through a grotesque charade of pretending to ask for leniency which Riah is obliged to refuse. The silent witness is left with the impression that Mr Riah is unpleasantly ruthless.

Chapter XIV. Venus has a change of heart and reveals to Boffin that he has Harmon’s will and wishes to end his pact with Wegg. Boffin asks him to delay his decision. Wegg threatens to harass Boffin. Mrs Lammle reveals to Boffin that Rokesmith has made a proposal to Bella.

Chapter XV. Boffin accuses Rokesmith of being a duplicitous schemer who is only after the money he is going to settle on Bella, and he sacks his loyal secretary with scorn and reproaches. But Bella leaps to Rokesmith’s defense, criticises Boffin as a man who has become corrupted by money, and leaves the Bower to go back to her family home.

Chapter XVI. Bella goes immediately to her father’s office in the City, where they are joined by Rokesmith, whose marriage proposal she now accepts. She returns home, where Lavvy defiantly faces down their mother’s disapproval of everything.

Chapter XVII. Mrs Lammle warns Twemlow that Fledgeby is the real power behind Riah’s debt collecting – though she has no proof of her claim. Twemlow then attends a big dinner at the Veneerings, where the ‘smash up’ of the Lammles is discussed. Mr Dolls delivers Lizzie’s address to Wrayburn.

‘Miss Wren fixes her idea’ – Marcus Stone

Book The Fourth – A Turning

Chapter I. Headstone is in disguise, following Wrayburn along the river. He meets Riderhood who is now keeper at the Weir Mill Lock. After locating Wrayburn and Lizzie he returns to the lock, where Riderhood discovers that he is impersonating him visually by wearing similar clothes.

Chapter II. The Lammles, now destitute, try to cultivate the Boffins, who hold them at bay and buy themselves off with a £100 sympathy payment. Georgiana tries to be generous towards the Lammles, but Boffin intercepts her gifts, and the Lammles depart, hoping to live somewhere in Europe on the money they have scrounged.

Chapter III. Wegg and Venus summon Boffin and menace him with their plan to take over the Harmon estate. They humiliate him then split the estate into three parts, with especially stringent penalty clauses for Boffin, who is very anxious that his wife shouldn’t discover their impoverishment.

Chapter IV. Bella gets married in secret to Rokesmith, accompanied only by her father.

Chapter V. Announcement of the marriage causes friction and dissent amongst Mrs Wilfer, Lavvy, and George Sampson, then hysterics, followed by self-congratulatory forbearance. Rokesmith works in the City, and offers Bella wealth, which she declines. They live in a state of domestic bliss.

Chapter VI. Wrayburn pays court to Lizzie by the river, but she refuses his advances, even though she loves him, because of the difference in their social class. Wrayburn is attacked by Headstone (disguised as Riderhood) and left for dead. Lizzie rescues him from the river and takes him to the local Inn.

Chapter VII. Headstone returns to Riderhood at the Lock in a disheveled and bloodied state. Riderhood then follows him and recovers his discarded clothes of disguise. Charley Hexam criticises and renounces Headstone for hindering his rise in society.

Chapter VIII. Fledgeby visits Jenny and tries to bribe her for Lizzie’s place of hiding. When she visits him in his Albany rooms the next day, Lammle is just leaving, having given Fledgeby a thrashing.

Chapter IX. Jenny visits Riah, having guessed that Fledgeby owns Pudsey & Co. Fledgeby fires Riah, who retreats with Jenny, only to encounter her father dying from alcoholism in Covent Garden. No sooner has he been buried than Lightwood arrives with the news that Wrayburn is dying and requests Jenny’s presence.

Chapter X. Wrayburn is close to death, but asks of Lightwood that his attacker should not be brought to justice – because it will damage Lizzie’s reputation. He claims that it was not Riderhood. Believing that he is certain to die, he wishes to be married to Lizzie as an act of atonement.

Chapter XI. Lightwood arrives at the Rokesmiths to take them to the ceremony, but John Rokesmith refuses to attend because he does not want to be recognised. A group is assembled, and en route they encounter Headstone, who collapses in a fit when he hears that Lizzie is to be married. The wedding takes place, and Wrayburn begins to revive.

Chapter XII. A few months later, after Bella has had a baby girl, the Rokesmiths bump into Lightwood in London. John Rokesmith is forced to admit to his Julius Handford alias. He is explaining one part of his implication in the Harmon affair to Bella when they receive a visit from Mr Inspector. He takes Rokesmith to the pub, where he is identified. Rokesmith quits his job and moves Bella to live at the Boffins’ house.

Chapter XIII. The Boffins then reveal to Bella how they guessed John Harmon’s true identity and have been acting out a charade of becoming miserly as a negative lesson for Bella. Even the ill treatment of Rokesmith was all an act. Harmonious relations are restored.

Chapter XIV. Mr Venus announces to Wegg that he is to be married to Pleasant Riderhood. He and Wegg go to settle accounts with Boffin, but it transpires that Venus has secretly been on Boffin’s side all along. They have Harmon’s will, and were leading on Wegg to a greater downfall. John Harmon has his inheritance, but has given Boffin the Dust Heaps. Sloppy throws Wegg out into the street.

Chapter XV. Headstone feels guilty and realises his plan has failed. Riderhood visits him at school and reveals his knowledge of the attack on Wrayburn. When Headstone visits him at the lock he demands money and threatens to bleed him dry. Headstone tries to leave, but in the end kills them both by dragging Riderhood into the weir.

Chapter XVI. The Wilfers visit the Harmons, still arguing amongst themselves. Sloppy is becoming a cabinet maker. He visits Jenny Wren and pays court to her. Wrayburn visits Harmon and they discuss the problem of mixing Lizzie in polite society.

Chapter XVII. Lightwood goes to dinner at the Veneerings, who are about to ‘crash’ and plan to live in Calais. Lady Tippings taunts him snobbishly about Wrayburn’s marriage to Lizzie. He is surrounded by prejudice and nastiness.

Postscript Dickens comments personally on the composition of his novel – on its plot and credibility, perhaps unconsciously acknowledging that he had dropped below his usual standards.

‘The Wedding Dinner at Greenwich’ – Marcus Stone

Our Mutual Friend – principal characters

Harmon	original creator and owner of the ‘dust’ empire
John Harmon	his son, alias Julius Handford, alias John Rokesmith, alias the Secretary, true heir to the Harmon estate
Nicodemus (‘Noddy’) Boffin	alias ‘The Golden Dustman’. former servant to Harmon Snr, who inherits his wealth and house
Mr Fledgeby	a pompous dandy, who owns Pudsey & Co
Bradley Headstone	the headmaster in a school, obsessed with Lizzie Hexam
Jesse (‘Gaffer’) Hexam	a rough Thames waterside man
Lizzie Hexam	his devoted and attractive daughter
Charley Hexam	his headstrong but clever son, apprenticed to Headstone
Roger ‘Rogue’ Riderhood	a desperate and unpleasant riverside character
Pleasant Riderhood	his daughter, an unlicensed pawnbroker
Mr Inspector	a police officer
Betty Higden	keeper of a ‘minding school’ and a mangle
Our Johnny	an orphan great-grandson of Betty Higden
Sloppy	an awkward foundling, adopted by Mrs Higden ‘He do the police in different voices’
Alfred Lammle	a socialite and fortune-hunter
Mortimer Lightwood	a solicitor and attorney with only Harmon as his one client
Eugene Wrayburn	his friend, a barrister without a brief, an indolent and unambitious misanthrope
Silas Wegg	a ballad seller with a wooden leg who reads to Boffin
Mr Venus	a taxidermist who is disappointed in love
Rev Frank Milvey	a curate with a large family
Mr John Podsnap	a member of society, a pompous self-satisfied man
Mr Riah	a venerable Jew, of noble and generous nature, Fledgeby’s employee at Pudsey & Co
Fanny Cleaver	a doll’s dressmaker, referred to as ‘Jenny Wren’
Mr Cleaver	Jenny Wren’s drunken father, referred to as ‘Mr Dolls’,
Miss Emma Peacher	a teacher in love with Headstone at his school
Miss Abbey Potterson	landlady of The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters
Reginald Wilfer	‘The Cherub’ – a henpecked clerk
Mrs Wilfer	his wife, an angular and dyspeptic misery
Bella Wilfer	their elder pretty daughter, protege of the Boffins
Lavinia ‘Lavvy’ Wilfer	their younger sharp-tongued daughter
George Sampson	a feeble young man, engaged to Lavvy

Mont Blanc – Charles Dickens special edition

Other works by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens – web links

Charles Dickens at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, tutorials and study guides, free eTexts, videos, adaptations for cinema and television, further web links.

> Charles Dickens at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary techniques, his influence and legacy, extensive bibliography, and further web links.

Charles Dickens at Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the major works in a variety of formats.

Dickens on the Web
Major jumpstation including plots and characters from the novels, illustrations, Dickens on film and in the theatre, maps, bibliographies, and links to other Dickens sites.

The Dickens Page
Chronology, eTexts available, maps, filmography, letters, speeches, biographies, criticism, and a hyper-concordance.

Charles Dickens at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of the major novels and stories for the cinema and television – in various languages

A Charles Dickens Journal
An old HTML website with detailed year-by-year (and sometimes day-by-day) chronology of events, plus pictures.

Hyper-Concordance to Dickens
Locate any word or phrase in the major works – find that quotation or saying, in its original context.

Dickens at the Victorian Web
Biography, political and social history, themes, settings, book reviews, articles, essays, bibliographies, and related study resources.

Charles Dickens – Gad’s Hill Place
Something of an amateur fan site with ‘fun’ items such as quotes, greetings cards, quizzes, and even a crossword puzzle.

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Oxford Book of Essays

July 29, 2014 by Roy Johnson

classics of the essay genre written in English 1700-2000

The Oxford Book of Essays is a compilation of short literary prose studies edited by John Gross of pieces written in English stretching from Francis Bacon in 1625 to Clive James in 1980. He admits in his introduction that it’s almost impossible to define the literary essay (as distinct from the academic essay). The essay has no set rules or even recognisable shape: it can take the form of a moral homily, a character sketch, a piece of travel writing, or even a book review. The only requirement (to paraphrase Henry James) is that it should be interesting.

The grand-father of the Renaissance essay is Michel de Montaigne – who is actually mentioned in Fancis Bacon’s earliest entry in this collection – a figure who almost ‘invented’ the modern discursive essay, which generally combines personal reflection, entertaining anecdote, and historical background reference.

Some of the best of the earliest essayists in this plump volume have a genius for casting their thoughts almost in the form of aphorisms. Thomas Browne for instance, in his essay On Dreams reflects ‘[Sleep] the brother of Death extracteth a third part of our lives’, going on to observe that ‘If some have swooned, they may also have died in dreams, since death is but a confirmed swooning’ (1650). And Swift is equally succinct in On Good Manners: ‘Pedantry is properly the overrating any kind of knowledge we pretend to’ (1714).

As a literary genre the essay came to its first maturity when an educated readership coincided with the establishment of a vigorous periodical press. This was during the heyday of the The Spectator and the Tatler edited by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.

These journals also introduced the idea of a persona who made comments on coffee house gossip and social characters of the time . In the ‘Sir Roger de Coverley Papers’ Addison pushed the boundaries of the essay form towards narrative fiction. And he writes entertaining reflections on mortality and death couched in essays on the buildings at his disposal – Westminster Abbey and The Royal Exchange.

In general the pieces written around this golden era tend to be witty, satirical, and deeply engaged with contemporary events. They represent the forming of modern post-Renaissance consciousness – the Age of Enlightenment. Even James Boswell’s slightly self-regarding style cannot dampen the impact of his passionate tirade against militarism in On War, a piece occasioned by a visit to the Arsenal in Venice.

The form of the assay is certainly loose, but there always seems to be a danger of falling into triviality – as in William Hazlitt’s piece considering the affectations of Beau Brummell or Anthony Trollope’s Pooteresque railings against plumbers. But on the other hand there is no rule that says the essay must always be serious. Nevertheless, it is those essays and reviews that embrace a rigorous critical attitude which remain the most impressive.

G.K. Chesterton’s defense of ‘penny dreadfuls’ which predates George Orwell’s essay on ‘Boy’s Weeklies’ by forty years is one of these. Philip Larkin’s review of the work of the Opies on children’s street rhymes is impressive as it calls the whole concept of childhood into question. V.S. Naipaul takes a similar attitude, smashing the reputation of Christopher Columbus (real name Christobal Colon) into pieces. And the finest work in the collection is an impassioned study of the White Man and the Black Man in America written by James Baldwin when he was staying in a remote Swiss village.

In terms of selection and editing, John Gross does seem to be cheating somewhat by including ‘essays’ which have been created by shortening longer pieces of work (by writers such as Lord Macaulay, John Stuart Mill, and Matthew Arnold). This approach devalues the very notion of the essay as a genre and reduces its definition to any short example of prose. But Gross compensates by including some excellent pieces from later twentieth century writers we might not normally think of as essayists – proving that the genre is still alive and in very good health.

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John Gross (editor), The Oxford Book of Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp.704, ISBN: 0199556555

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Philip Larkin biography

September 10, 2014 by Roy Johnson

his life, and a critical re-assesment of his major poetry

Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love is the latest biographical study of arguably Britain’s most popular twentieth century poet. In his Introduction, respected and prolific Larkin scholar James Booth clearly sets out his position and concerns. Philip Larkin he believes is ‘by common consent, the best-loved British poet of the last hundred years’. But three decades after his death, he ‘remains a controversial figure, both as a poet and a man’. Ironically, his posthumous reputation was inadvertently tarnished by his two literary executors. Anthony Thwaite’s Selected Letters of Philip Larkin (1992) (properly) included his ribald and Chaucerian correspondence with like-minded friends, notably Kingsley Amis. The self-appointed literary guardians of public morality were quick to pounce, accusing him of racism, sexism, Thatcherism, misogyny and homophobia.

Andrew Motion’s official biography, Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life (1993), despite its impressive research, was also disapproving of his alleged character traits and proclivities. More recent ‘Larkin Studies’ have been (to borrow a Larkinian phrase) more precious than valuable, subjecting him to arcane post-modern analysis and exegesis. But the publication of Archie Burnett’s Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems (2012), with its meticulous ‘Commentary’ on the provenance of his verse, has done a lot to restore a Larkin-centred appreciation of his poetic oeuvre.

James Booth now convincingly and gracefully rehabilitates Larkin (whatever his real or imagined personal ‘failings’) as a poet of the people: ‘Phrases and lines from his poems are more frequently quoted than those of any other poet of his time’. ‘Sexual intercourse began/In nineteen sixty-three’; ‘What are days for?’; ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad’; ‘What will survive of us is love.’ Booth argues that ‘For the moment he seems to have had the last poetic word on love, on death, on the Great War, on parents, on ageing, on hedgehogs.’

Booth also suggests that Larkin’s poems feature the most uncompromising reflections on death outside the soliloquies of Shakespeare. With a veiled reference to Larkin’s sanctimonious detractors, he cautions that ‘there is no requirement that a poet should be likeable or virtuous’, but adds that all of his former friends and colleagues remember Larkin as a compassionate, courteous and extremely funny person, certainly not the morose ‘Hermit of Hull’. He was, Booth contends persuasively, ‘an ebullient provocateur with an instinct to entertain’, and ‘the various ideological Larkins who raise the passions of some critics, are provisional personae’. Like other human (and humane) beings, Larkin presented different faces to different people. His epistolary and hilarious ‘obscenities’ to Kingsley Amis, for example, were not retailed to Barbara Pym.

Booth deftly traces Larkin’s early years in Coventry and his relations with his parents, Sidney and Eva. As is well known, Sidney, City Treasurer of Coventry, was a declared admirer of Hitler and the Third Reich. Booth asserts that his father’s political views served only to turn his son away from embracing any coherent political ideology. In fact, his vague political sympathies veered more to the left than to the right, and many of his later poems first appeared in journals like the New Statesman.

On the other hand, Larkin père encouraged his son’s early passion for jazz, and also provided the family home with a decidedly ‘modern’ library: Hardy, Shaw, D. H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley. But his parents’ obviously unhappy union did instil in the young Philip a life-long fear of marriage – or ‘misogamy’. The lacklustre Eva, although castigated in some of Larkin’s published letters, was to be the recipient of thousands of tender (and as yet unpublished) notes and letters from him for the remainder of her long life.

His years at Oxford introduced Larkin to Kingsley Amis and a circle of friends who made jazz their secular religion. Following his war-time job as a librarian in Wellington, where he met his first love, Ruth Bowman, Larkin went to the University College of Leicester and encountered the formidable and voluble Monica Jones. She was to remain his increasingly embittered partner until his death in 1985.

After a happy spell at Queen’s University, Belfast, where he had a brief sexual liaison with Patsy Strang, daughter of a South-African diamond-mining magnate, Larkin moved to the University of Hull, and embarked on affairs with the shy (and devoutly Roman Catholic) Maeve Brennan, and in the 1970s a much happier one with his common-sense and attractively mature secretary, Betty Mackereth. Larkin’s love life receives sensitive but also critical treatment from Booth. None of these women were his intellectual equals, but each, successively, became his poetic muse. No one (apart from Larkin himself) has written more insightfully about these complicated relationships.

However, perhaps the greatest strength of the book is Booth’s analyses of Larkin’s major (and minor) poems. A few examples must suffice. A Study of Reading Habits is a didactic warning against subliterary escapism. But there is an oblique subtext of self-mockery. Now, his status safely established, he ensures that one of his most quotable lines will be: ‘Books are a load of crap’.

In Church Going ‘The Church represents a moribund authority to which the poet sulkily refuses to defer. [But] his tone allows his pious readers to imagine that the poet himself shares their superstitious self-deception.’ He argues that The Whitsun Weddings, as the train journey unfolds, ‘becomes an Ode to Incipience.’ And on the notorious This Be The Verse Booth comments: ‘This must bid fair to be the funniest serious English poem of the twentieth century’ [and] must also already rival Gray’s “Elegy” in the number of parodies and pastiches it has generated.’

Larkin once said ‘I like to think of myself as a funny man’. A minor criticism of Booth’s book is that more space could have been given to Larkin the wit – and less, perhaps, to his early experiments with decidedly soft porn, as revealed in Trouble at Willow Gables, written under the pseudonym Brunette Coleman. Booth sees them as ‘high camp comedy’. Not all readers would agree.

He is on firmer ground with such Larkinesque bons mots as: sexual intercourse is ‘like asking someone else to blow your nose for you’, and [to Barbara Pym] ‘On Tuesday I have to address the freshers on “books” (“How to Kill, Skin & Stuff Them’). Or [to Kingsley Amis] after Larkin had declined the Poet Laureateship which was then accepted by Ted Hughes: ‘The thought of being the cause of Ted’s being buried in Westminster Abbey is hard to live with.’ The Selected Letters, and his poems offer many other revealing and ludic examples of Larkin the ‘funny man’.

Elsewhere, Booth offers nuanced interpretations of Larkin’s infamous assault on ‘modernism’ in the arts in general and jazz in particular, evaluates his two completed and published novels [Jill and A Girl in Winter], and points out that much of his poetry reflects ‘the twelve-bar blues formula’ so that a reader ‘plays’ a Larkin poem just as one might ‘play’ a recording of Bessie Smith or of Louis Armstrong (his great hero).

Booth also relates Larkin’s awareness of and empathy with the plight of African-Americans, and his increasing deafness – as well as his love of animals and, not least, his professional achievements as Librarian at the University of Hull. We are reminded that Larkin is probably unique among twentieth-century poets in writing in Toads in a `natural, first-hand way about work in the sense of paid employment. No other significant poet, except Wallace Stevens, held down a nine-to-five job with no expectation of becoming a `full-time’ professional writer.’

Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love is the best biography we have or are likely to have for a long time – until possibly the eventual release of hundreds, if not thousands, of his currently embargoed letters. Even these are unlikely to contradict Booth’s apt conclusion: ‘What will survive of him is poetry. But the thought of his literary afterlife was never any consolation to him.’

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James Booth, Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love. London: Bloomsbury, 2014, pp.544, ISBN: 1408851660

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Philip Larkin letters

October 5, 2014 by Roy Johnson

witty, erudite, and scurrilous correspondence

Philip Larkin was very much a glass half empty sort of person. Even when things were going reasonably well in his life, he would find a reason to look on the glum side. He satirically called himself ‘the Hermit of Hull’ and generally moaned about everything – the weather, his neighbours, the state of his health, and even the plebeian food he chose to consume. Yet in his heyday he had three lovers at the same time; public honours and popular success were showered on him as a poet, and he even had more money than he knew how to spend. Yet despite the persistent gloominess, these letters also reveal that he could be entertainingly irreverent and very funny indeed.

The editor Anthony Thwaite is at pains to point out that this is only a selection from Larkin’s complete correspondence – and it is so selective that there’s a potential danger of creating a lopsided picture of the man himself.

For instance the figure of Monica Jones hovers in the background of many letters, but there are very few addressed to the woman herself – she who played such a significant role in Larkin’s erotic and intellectual life. (There is a separate collection – Letters to Monica.) However, the few which are reproduced make very uncomfortable reading. In one Larkin gives an ‘honest’ but excruciatingly self-centred account of a weekend visit from a former lover (Patsy Strang) which verges on the sadistic – written to a woman who devoted her emotional life to him.

Of course the letters also reveal what were considered inappropriate character traits when they were first published – his penchant for soft pornography, his tendency to smut and behind-the-bike-sheds swearing – particularly in his correspondence with Kingsley Amis. But it’s worth bearing in mind both the stifling mediocrity of much British culture in these post-war years, against which these attitudes were a healthy antidote, and the fact that a fellow son of the midlands (Joe Orton) was revving up by writing in exactly the same manner a few miles down the road.

What underlies a great deal of the correspondence from a sociological point of view is that once having established himself at Oxford there is ever afterwards a network of relationships, employment, and social connections which has the British university system at its core. It emphasises Oxbridge as a system which provides a three year membership that lasts a lifetime.

Yet despite his persistent gloom and claims of being neglected, he was well connected with Faber & Faber, the BBC, and prestigious journals such as The Spectator, The Listener, and New Statesman. But to do him credit, a great deal of his early work was published by small independent presses by whom he sometimes wasn’t even paid.

The year 1955 appears to have been something of an annus mirabilis for him – first a series of publications edited by admirers such as Robert Conquest and D.J.Enright which were followed by good reviews. Then there was the move to Hull. His first impressions were not very favourable: ‘It’s a frightful dump … The village smells of chips. The town smells of fish … Life here varies from dreary to scarcely-bearable’. Yet in the end it turned out to suit him well enough (‘It’s very nice & flat for cycling’) though his regard for the University might have shocked his colleagues had they known at the time:

But in the main this institution totters along, a cloister of mediocrities isolated by the bleak reaches of the East Riding, doomed to remain a small cottage-university of arts-and-science while the rest of the world zooms into the Age of Technology. The corn waves, the sun shines on faded dusty streets, the level-crossings clank, bills are made out for 1957 under billheads designed in 1926, and the adjacent water shifts and glitters, hinting at Scandinavia … That’s a nice piece of evocation for you.

He also had no time for the business of ‘lit crit’ and the pampered existence in university academic departments. Commenting in a letter to Barbara Pym he observes: ‘If you were in university life you would be familiar with the phrase ‘crushing teaching load’ — i.e. six hours a week six months a year’.

In terms of literary development it’s interesting to note that he started in the realm of fiction, and even produced two novels – Jill and A Girl in Winter – before disenchantment set in following an unfinished sand abandoned third and fourth novel. He then settled to poetry alone, which seemed better suited to his temperament.

Yet before he had even reached the age of forty he was writing: ‘I really have no sense of the future now, except as the approach of death’ and on reaching fifty he thought it was a miracle he was still alive. As if to confirm his own sense of the sands running out, he produced less and less poetry as he got older, and yet perversely devoted huge amounts of time and effort into compiling the badly-received Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (which he referred to satirically as ‘really the Oxford Book of Nineteen & Half Century’s Right-Wing Animal-Lovers Verse.

Even though he was writing in a number of different linguistic registers to people who reflect quite distinct relationships in his life – friends, lovers, publishers, public figures – he had an amazing gift for throwing off witty epigrammatic statements:

I don’t think I write well — just better than anyone else

Personally I should need only 2 words to describe English poetry since 1960 — ‘horse-shit’

I should like to change my address in Who’s Who from ‘c/o The University of Hull’ to ‘c/o Faber & Faber , 3 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AU’, and I hope this will be acceptable to you. My reason is to make it even more difficult for people to get at me.

This attitude even extends into the darker areas of his life. After travelling regularly at weekends for years to the nursing home in Leicester where his mother was confined, he mentions to a friend:

My mother, not content with being motionless, deaf and speechless, is now going blind. That’s what you get for not dying, you see.

He was fiercely loyal to old friends such as Kingsley Amis, Robert Conquest, and Anthony Thwaite; he helped other writers notably Barbara Pym and his old school friend Colin Gunner locate publishers; and he was amazingly diligent, well-informed, and persistent over the rights of published writers to their royalty entitlements and re-publication fees. He even registered himself for VAT when it was introduced.

In many respects he was a figure of contradictions – which these entertaining letters bring out very well. He was the recluse who (within the UK) traveled widely and socialised regularly; the confirmed bachelor who maintained sexual relationships with a number of women – often at the same time; the radical anti-establishment figure who accepted public honours by the bucketload; the prolific writer who produced only a handful of well-known poems; and the anti-materialist who was much-depicted with an old-fashioned bicycle but who actually drove a four litre Rolls Royce Vanden Plas.

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Anthony Thwaite (ed), Selected Letters of Philip Larkin 1940-1985, London: Faber & Faber, 1993, pp.791, ISBN: 057117048X

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