Barnaby Rudge, page 83
Notes
I am greatly indebted to previous editions of the novel, in particular those of Gordon Spence for Penguin and Donald Hawes for Everyman, as well as to T. W. Hill for his ‘Notes on Barnaby Rudge’, in the Dickensian. I have also found The Dickens Index, ed. Nicolas Bentley, Michael Slater and Nina Burgis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); The London Encyclopedia, ed. Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert (London: Macmillan, 1993); and the Pilgrim edition of Dickens’s letters, ed. Madeline House, Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson, most helpful. The following editions and abbreviations have been used:
Hawes Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, ed. Donald Hawes (London: Everyman, 1990)
Hill T. W. Hill, ‘Notes on Barnaby Rudge’, Dickensian 50–53 (1954–7)
Pilgrim The Pilgrim Edition of the Letters of Charles Dickens, vols. 1 and 2 ed. Madeline House and Graham Storey, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965, 1969); vol. 4 ed. Kathleen Tillotson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977)
Spence Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, ed. Gordon Spence (London: Penguin, 1973)
(Biblical quotations are from the Authorized Version.)
INTRODUCTION
1. Franco Moretti, An Atlas of the European Novel 1800–1900 (London: Verso, 1999), p. 33.
2. John Sutherland, Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (London: Longman, 1988), p. 297.
3. John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens (London: Chapman and Hall, 1872–4), Bk 2, ch. 9; ed. A. J. Hoppé (London: Dent, 1966), Vol. I, p. 142.
4. On repetition in historical fiction, see J. Hillis Miller, ‘Henry Esmond: Repetition and Irony’, in Fiction and Repetition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 73–115.
5. George Lukács, The Historical Novel (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), pp. 20–24.
6. Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama and the Mode of Excess (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 11–15.
7. Ibid., pp. 18–19.
8. On the history of the riots, see Appendix VI and Further Reading.
9. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London: Vintage, 1996), p. 352.
10. Ibid., p. 351. A possible source for Dickens’s depiction of Gordon and the rioters is the Kent uprising, which was widely reported in the press in June 1838, of ‘Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtenay’. Courtenay, or John Thom, led what E. P. Thompson called ‘the last peasants’ revolt’ (The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 881), which was eventually put down by troops with the loss of several lives. There are a number of parallels between contemporary accounts of these events and Dickens’s portrayal of Gordon and his followers. For an excellent account of the significance of Courtenay, see Richard Stein, Victoria’s Year: English Literature and Culture 1837–8 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 169–76.
11. Colley, Britons, p. 351.
12. Lukács, The Historical Novel, pp. 292–3.
13. Ian McAlman, ‘Prophesying Revolution: “Mad Lord George”, Edmund Burke and Madame La Motte’, in Living and Learning: Essays in Honour of J. F. C. Harrison, ed. Malcolm Chase and Ian Dyck (Aldershot: Scolar, 1996), p. 53.
14. 3 June 1841, The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume 2, 1840–1, ed. Madeline House and Graham Storey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 294–5.
15. Colley, Britons, pp. 38, 57.
16. ‘[T]he younger (masculine) generation achieves its identity and masculinity in America and the West Indies, while the older generation … plays out the final act of the Roman and the English, the Jesuit and the Virgin’, Judith Wilt, ‘Masques of the English in Barnaby Rudge’, Dickens Studies Annual 30 (2001), 78.
17. 21 July 1841, Letters of Charles Dickens, p. 337.
18. 18 September 1841, ibid., p. 385.
19. Sally Shuttleworth, ‘“So childish and so dreadfully un-childlike”: Cultural Constructions of Idiocy in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, in Crossing Boundaries: Thinking through Literature, ed. Julie Scanlon and Amy Waste (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).
20. On ‘picturesque history’ in this period, see Rosemary Mitchell, Picturing the Past: English History in Text and Image (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000). Asking George Cattermole, one of the book’s illustrators, to depict the ruins of the Warren, Dickens writes ‘I think it would make a queer picturesque thing in your hands’ (Letters of Charles Dickens, p. 352).
21. Examiner, 7 August 1841, reprinted in Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, Bk 2, ch. 12; Hoppé, Vol. I, pp. 164–5.
22. 6 August 1841, Letters of Charles Dickens, p. 357.
23. See Thomas Jackson Rice, ‘The Politics of Barnaby Rudge’, in The Changing World of Charles Dickens, ed. Robert Giddings (London: Vision, 1986), pp. 51–74.
24. See E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 559.
25. Karl Marx, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte’, in Surveys from Exile: Political Writings, Vol. 2, ed. David Fernbach (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 146.
26. Steven Marcus, ‘Sons and Fathers’, Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey (London: Chatto and Windus, 1963), p. 184.
27. Slavov Zizek, Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan In Hollywood and Out (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 124–5; Patrick Brantlinger, The Reading Lesson: The Threat of Mass Literacy in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), p. 31.
28. Letters of Charles Dickens, pp. 197–8.
29. John Ruskin, The Complete Works of John Ruskin, ed. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, Vol. XXII (London: George Allen, 1906), p. 467. In ‘Fiction, Fair and Foul’ Ruskin describes the novel as a product of ‘brain disease’ which ‘runs entirely wild’. Ruskin, The Complete Works, Vol. XXIV, pp. 278–9.
30. Paul Radin, The Trickster (New York: Schrocken, 1972), p. 155.
31. Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘The Problem of Socrates’, in Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, trans. Duncan Large (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 11.
32. See Appendix II.
33. Charles Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock and Other Stories, ed. Peter Mudford (London: Everyman, 1997), p. 64.
34. Ibid., pp. 65, 146.
35. Letters of Charles Dickens, pp. 304, 356.
36. Ibid., p. 418.
37. Robert L. Patten, ‘William Harrison Ainsworth’, in Paul Schlicke (ed.), The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 7. See also Martin Meisel, Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 261–5.
38. Letters of Charles Dickens, p. 199.
39. Paul Schlicke, ‘Barnaby Rudge’, in Schlicke (ed.), The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens, p. 33.
40. Ibid. According to Kathryn Chittick, the novel ‘went almost totally unnoticed’ on its first appearance: Kathryn Chittick, Dickens and the 1830s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. ix.
41. Forster, Life of Charles Dickens, Bk 2, ch. 9; Hoppé, Vol. I, p. 144.
A NOTE ON THE TEXT AND ILLUSTRATIONS
1. John Butt and Kathleen Tillotson, Dickens at Work (London: Methuen, 1957), p. 80.
2. The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume 2, 1840–1, ed. Madeline House and Graham Storey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 253, 275.
3. Robert L. Patten, Charles Dickens and his Publishers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 117.
4. J. Donn Vann, ‘Editions’, in Paul Schlicke (ed.), The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 208.
5. Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, ed. Gordon Spence (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 36.
6. Letters of Charles Dickens, p. 243 and note.
7. Michael Steig, Dickens and Phiz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), p. 52.
8. Joan Stevens, ‘ “Woodcuts Dropped into the Text”: The Illustrations in The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge’, Studies in Bibliography 20 (1967), 125.
PREFACE
1. Work of Fiction: Thomas Gaspey’s novel The Mystery or, Forty Years Ago (3 vols, 1820) has three chapters concerned with the Gordon Riots, but it is not clear if Dickens knew of this work. See John Butt and Kathleen Tillotson, ‘Barnaby Rudge: the first projected novel’, Dickens at Work (London: Methuen, 1957), pp. 77–8.
2. old Newspapers … Annual Register: Dickens names several newspapers of the period in ch. 39 and is known to have consulted the newspapers of 1780 in the British Museum when writing this novel (see Butt and Tillotson, Dickens at Work, pp. 84–5). The Annual Register; or A View of the History, Politics, and Literature For the Year is a record of all the notable events of a year, first published in 1759 and edited for many years by Edmund Burke. Dickens owned a set in eighty volumes, 1759–1827 (Pilgrim, 4, p. 717), and is known to have consulted the 1780 number in the writing of Barnaby Rudge.
3. Mary Jones: ‘Was hanged by Edward Dennis, the public hangman, on 16 October 1771 for stealing four pieces of muslin worth £5. 10s.’ (Hawes). See ch. 37 and Appendix III. For similar cases see Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London: Allen Lane, 1991), pp. 338–9.
4. Sir Samuel Romilly: (1757–1818), criminal law reformer who made great efforts to lessen the severity of the English criminal law.
5. Mr Rogers … knew not what.’: Samuel Rogers (1763–1855), poet and friend of Dickens. In ch. 72 of The Old Curiosity Shop (which was dedicated to Rogers), Dickens describes how, following Nell’s death, her grandfather ‘pined and moped away the time, and wandered here and there as seeking something, and had no comfort’. ‘And long might’st … knew not what’ comes from Rogers’s poem ‘Ginevra’ from Italy (1822–8), ll. 78–80. Appropriately, the poem describes the sudden death on her wedding-night of Ginevra, and the grief of her father at the loss. The italics are Dickens’s.
CHAPTER THE FIRST
1. Epping Forest … the Maypole: The forest is a remnant of ancient woodland, north-east of London; through enclosure, it had shrunk to 12,000 acres by 1777 and by the mid-nineteenth century to half of that. The Standard is ‘A water-standard at the junction of Cornhill with Gracechurch street, Bishopsgate, and Leadenhall Street. Though the water had ceased to flow by 1603, the Standard remained for many years after, and was used as a point of measurement of distances from the City’ (Spence); (see also note 1 to ch. 18). The Maypole is probably based on the old King’s Head Inn, Chigwell. On 25 March 1841, Dickens wrote to John Forster: ‘Chigwell, my dear fellow, is the greatest place in the world. Name your day for going. Such a delicious old inn opposite the churchyard – such a lovely ride – such beautiful forest scenery – such an out of the way, rural, place – such a sexton!’ (Pilgrim, 2, p. 243).
2. sixty-six years ago: In 1775, sixty-six years before the publication of Barnaby Rudge in 1841. In later editions, Dickens amends the phrase to ‘at that time’ (but not in chapter 4).
3. King Henry the Eighth … Queen Elizabeth: Henry VIII (1491–1547), second son of Henry VII, and King of England from 1509. Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Queen of England, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, proclaimed Queen in 1588 in succession to Mary I, and a heroine to Protestants (see note 3 to ch. 35).
4. Chigwell: Village in Essex, twelve miles north-east of London and a favourite resort for Londoners. Dickens describes an expedition to Chigwell in ‘The Young Ladies’ Young Gentleman’, Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838).
5. Warren: A significant name for Dickens, who as a boy had worked at Warren’s Blacking Warehouse at Hungerford Stairs and later Covent Garden.
6. King George: King George III (1738–1820), grandson of George II and King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1760.
7. swine … scattering pearls before: From the Sermon on the Mount: ‘neither cast ye your pearls before swine’ (Matthew 7:6).
8. King George the Second: (1683–1760), son of George I and King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1727.
9. young princes: King George III and Queen Charlotte had nine sons, seven of whom were born by 1775.
CHAPTER THE SECOND
1. who ride the whirlwind and direct the storm: From Joseph Addison’s poem ‘The Campaign’ (1705), ll. 290–91: ‘And, pleased th’Almighty’s orders to perform, / Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.’
CHAPTER THE THIRD
1. Great Mogul: The Great (or Grand) Mogul was the European name for the Emperor of Delhi, and was popularly used to mean any autocratic or despotic ruler. The mogul dynasty ruled large parts of India from the early sixteenth century, and the last Mogul Emperor was exiled by the British in 1857.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
1. Clerkenwell … Charter House: Clerkenwell is a suburb of London, north and slightly uphill from the City of London, rapidly urbanized in the eighteenth century and a centre for clock-and watch-makers, and other craftsmen. The Charter House is a historic school and hospital in Clerkenwell, founded in 1611, and originally a Carthusian monastery.
2. Highgate … Whitechapel: Highgate is a village about five miles to the north of the City, Whitechapel an area just to the east of the boundary of the City.
3. New River: Channel more than thirty-eight miles long cut in the early seventeenth century to bring spring water from Amwell and Chadwell in Hertfordshire to London. The New River Head was at Clerkenwell (ch. 67).
4. ’Prentice’s Garland … Guide to the Gallows: ‘A number of books with similar titles were published, e.g., The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum (1734), The Apprentices’ Companion (1795) and The Warbler (1772)’ (Hawes).
5. the liver of Prometheus: In Greek mythology, Prometheus was imprisoned on a rock in the Caucasus by Zeus, for daring to bring fire to mankind. His liver was eaten every day by an eagle, and grew back each night.
6. George Barnwell: In the play The History of George Barnwell, or The London Merchant (1731) by George Lillo (1693–1739), George Barnwell is a London apprentice who is seduced by the prostitute Sarah Millwood and induced to rob his master and kill his uncle. The two villains then quarrel, inform on each other and are hanged. Dickens refers to the play several times in his work, most notably in ch. 15 of Great Expectations.
7. Lion Heart: King Richard the First (1157–99) was known as Coeur de Lion or Lion Heart.
8. Carlisle House: In Soho Square, occupied from 1760 by Theresa Cornelys, a Viennese opera singer and courtesan, it was a popular and fashionable location for dancing, cards, operatic concerts and masquerades.
9. Protestant Manual: The Protestant Manual of Christian Devotions, composed of instructions, offices, and forms of prayer, in a plain, rational and scriptural method, etc., 2 pts (London, 1750).
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
1. Southwark … London Bridge: Southwark is a London borough, south of the Thames, and the main entry to London from that direction. Old London Bridge, the first stone bridge across the Thames, was built in 1176 and remodelled several times, particularly in 1758–62, when the two central arches were replaced with a single navigation span. (It was finally replaced in 1831.)
2. the patient composure of long effort and quiet resignation: cf. ‘he is one by whom / All effort seems forgotten, one to whom / Long patience has such mild composure given, / That patience now doth seem a thing, of which / He hath no need’, William Wordsworth (1770–1850), ‘Old Man Travelling: Animal Tranquility and Decay, A Sketch’, ll. 8–12, in Lyrical Ballads (1798). The poem appears in the same volume as Wordsworth’s ‘The Idiot Boy’, which has often been compared to Barnaby Rudge.
3. smear of blood: The doctrine of maternal impression, which was widely current in the nineteenth century, was that the mother’s mental impressions could be transmitted to the child in the womb.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
1. accommodating his action to his speech: cf. Hamlet III.ii.17. See also chs. 24, 39, 70.
2. a large raven: See Appendix III (and its note 2).
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
1. wise … neutral: Macbeth II.iii.108–9.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
1. Barbican: Street leading off Aldersgate in the City of London, named after a fortification or watchtower that once stood there. In the eighteenth century, it was inhabited by tradesmen, especially new and second-hand clothes dealers.
2. ready for his reception: ‘Dickens based his picture of trade union ritual on various reports of trials of striking union members charged with conspiracy or with administering illegal oaths. The Annual Register for 1838 summarizes what was discovered about union rituals from the union trials of the 1830s and the Select Committee on Combinations of 1837–8’ (Patrick Brantlinger, The Spirit of Reform: British Literature and Politics 1832–1867 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 92). E. P. Thompson, in The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 185, notes that a secret committee of the London Corresponding Society met in the cellars of Furnival’s Inn in the 1790s, where Dickens was to live some forty years later. For a description of trade union initiation ceremonies, see Brantlinger, pp. 92–3 and Thompson p. 559.
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