Dickens probably wrote the following portions of 'Spitalfields': from 'And what strange streets' (p. 27) to 'in the streets' (p. 29); from 'We knock at the door' (p. 30) to the conclusion.
Dickens may also have added substantially to the following sections: from the beginning to 'come to Spitalfields?' (p. 25); from 'Along a narrow passage' to 'money of Great Britain' (p. 25).
In addition, Dickens seems to have added many telling touches to passages primarily by Wills. For a discussion of the Dickens-Wills attributions, see note to 'Valentine's Day at the Post-Office.'
Spitalfields, as the article relates, was a portion of London resettled in the seventeenth century by French Huguenot weavers. These men had made the district a center of home silk weaving - a method of manufacture that had latterly become outmoded and uneconomic. Writing with subdued force and symbolic richness, Dickens, in his chief contribution to the piece (pp. 27-29), describes the weaver and his task, juxtaposes traditional ways with the thunderous rush of industrialization, and limns a stark picture of a doomed man at his doomed work.
Harry Stone; © Bloomington and Indiana University Press, 1968. DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.
