Results 241 - 260 of 4522 Article Index

Retitled 'Tramps' in collected editions of the series

Dickens had strong feelings on the subject of begging and mendicity (see 'The Begging-Letter Writer', HW, Vol. I, 18 May 1850), and while openly describing in the present article some of his favourite Kent haunts and scenery, also reveals knowledge of the ploys used by tramps and beggars to extract donations from other pedestrians. In David Copperfield (1850), Dickens had described how the young David is robbed on the road to Dover by a young tinker who beats his female companion. 'The trampers', David recalls, '...inspired me with a dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind' (Ch. 13).

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Retitled 'Dullborough Town' in collected editions of the series

In the index of Vol. III of ATYR (1860), the present Item appears under the title 'Childhood Associations', and the two are clearly linked by their presentation of what appear to be interesting recollections of Dickens's very early childhood. Accordingly, scholars and biographers since Forster have not hesitated to make use of both essays to supplement otherwise scanty evidence about his early life (see Forster, Book I, Ch. 3, Book 8, Ch. 5; Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens, His Tragedy and His Triumph, 1952, Vol. 1, pp. 11-26 passim). The memory of arriving in London for the first time at the Cross-Keys, Wood-street, Cheapside, in a coach smelling of straw, is one Dickens later assigns to Pip in the 13th instalment of Great Expectations (ATYR, Vol. IV, 23 February 1861).

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