Results 101 - 120 of 414 Article Index

Endorsement of purpose and plan of Society for Assisting Emigration from the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

John F. Davis, China, during the War and since the Peace (1852).

Dickens probably wrote the following portions of 'Boys to Mend': from 'People are naturally' to 'summer days' (p. 597); from 'O honorable friend' to 'what could he, have been!' (p. 598); the concluding paragraph.
Dickens may also have retouched or added to the following passages: from 'A dull mist of heat' (p. 597) to 'baleful weeds and poisons?' (p. 598) - though the section from 'Every hedge' (p. 597) to 'breath of wind' (p. 598) is almost certainly entirely by Morley; from 'Your child' to 'certainly do it' (p. 598); the paragraph beginning 'Aided by the resident chaplain' (p. 599); from 'There are corn fields' to 'in the school' (p. 600); from 'There is another boy, confined' (p. 601) to 'promises well' (p. 602).
In addition, Dickens seems to have interpolated many phrases - sometimes within dashes or parentheses - and to have done much emending and minor editing.
The article gave Dickens some difficulty. On 12 August 1852, he wrote to Wills from Dover: 'Sitting down this morning to Morley's Boys to Mend, I couldn't take to it on the short notice, and thought of the enclosed instead [probably 'Our Vestry,' which appeared in Household Words on 28 August]. You shall have the rest (about three slips) by tomorrow's post.' Before the week was over, Dickens had returned to Morley's paper and had completed it. This is clear from an unpublished letter to Wills (19 August 1852), now in the Huntington Library, in which Dickens asks Wills to soften a phrase in the second paragraph of 'Boys to Mend' so as to qualify his criticism of the Ragged Schools movement and thus prevent possible damage to it. The alteration was made.
Dickens' attitude, imagery, and diction in his portions of this piece should be compared with analogous elements in his strictures on 'boys to mend' in Bleak House (1852-1853). The similarity is not surprising, for Dickens was deeply engaged at the moment in writing Bleak House, which was also appearing concurrently in monthly parts.

Harry Stone; © Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968. DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.

Dickens wrote the following portions of 'North American Slavery': the opening paragraph; the subsequent sections referring to Uncle Tom's Cabin (pp. 3 and 4).
Dickens may also have retouched or added to the following passages: the paragraph beginning 'This constant sale' (p. 3); from 'Why did he return?' (p. 3) to 'negro gentleman' (p. 4); from 'The slave population' to 'the negroes bear it' (p. 4); the final paragraph.
In addition, Dickens seems to have made occasional emendations elsewhere in the article.
Writing of 'North American Slavery' in a letter (20 December 1852), Dickens said: 'I wrote no part [of the article], but the high and genuine praise of Mrs Stowe's book [Uncle Tom's Cabin].' This disclaimer need not be taken literally, for though the opening paragraph may be the only extended section wholly by Dickens, his method of intensively editing, rewriting, and adding to what went into Household Words often made other sections of articles as much his as the original author's. This is preeminently true of what Dickens called his 'composite' articles - that is, articles, such as this one, which are listed in the Household Words Contributors' Book as jointly by Dickens and a collaborator. Dickens would not have been listed as a joint author if he had simply added the initial paragraph. The only published text of the letter from which the above disclaimer is quoted is in Harry Stone, 'Charles Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe,' Nineteenth-Century Fiction, XII (December 1957), 188-202.
Dickens had long been interested in American slavery. His library contained a collection of books and pamphlets on the subject, and he devoted an entire chapter of American Notes (1842) to attacking the system and recording its horrors. Household Words continued the campaign. 'North American Slavery' was followed by additional articles in which other writers objectified or elaborated what Dickens and Morley had written - for example, 'Freedom, or Slavery?' (22 July 1854), 'Slaves and their Masters' (23 August 1856), and 'Sketching at a Slave Auction' (14 February 1857).

Harry Stone; © Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968. DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.

Casimir Leconte, "Les Noirs libres et les noirs esclaves", Revue des deux mondes (July 1852).

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).

Based on two papers given by Dr. John Davies, Inspector-General of Army Hospitals, to the Royal Society in 1845 and 1861.