Charles Dickens' London

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Charles Dickens, junior, gave a piece of timely advice to the enthusiasts who are ever seeking to identify the localities (especially those connected with London) referred to in his father's novels.

He said: "In their wish to verify as closely as possible the places with which the Dickens books deal, people run a considerable danger of losing sight of the rather important fact that the imagination of the writer has generally, except in describing an actual place under its actual name, raised so considerable a superstructure on the basis of the original fact as to make it practically unrecognizable.

It is true that many of the places described in Charles Dickens' books were suggested by real localities and buildings, but the more the question comes to be examined, the more clear it is that all that was done with the prototype was to use it as a painter or a sculptor uses a sketch, and that, under the hand of the writer, and in the natural process of evolution, it has grown in almost every case into a finished picture with few, if any, very salient points about it to render its origin unmistakable. Photographic accuracy must not be demanded in these cases."

This is undoubtedly true.

But there are in existence many "real localities and buildings" which the master-novelist must have closely studied, and streets and courts where he often strolled with keen observant eye, which we can with a certain amount of accuracy identify, and even if those "localities" are found to be completely changed, the name is usually retained; and, for the rest, we must let go the imagination.

Next: Charles Dickens' London: The Pickwick Papers