Retitled 'The Italian Prisoner' in collected editions of the series
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72), the radical leader of the Young Italy movement and joint-leader of the short-lived 'Roman Republic' in 1849, spent much of his life in exile, including many years in London where he ran a school for the sons of Italian exiles in the Tottenham Court Road district (see William Roberts, Prophet in Exile: Joseph Mazzini in England, 1837–1868, 1989, pp. 6–7). Dickens, as Forster records, was 'brought into contact with the great Italian by having given money to a begging imposter who made unauthorised use of his name' (Foster, Book 6, Ch. 6), and their subsequent friendship strengthened Dickens's support for the Italians in their struggle for freedom from what he saw as the twin evils of tyranny and priestcraft. In August 1849, on learning of Mazzini's safe escape after the re-taking of Rome, Dickens drafted an 'Appeal to the English People on Behalf of the Italian Refugees' for the national Italian Appeal Committee, which was published in various newspapers, and The Examiner of 8 September (see The Dickensian, Vol. 10 [1914], p. 320ff.).
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