Barnaby Rudge, page 87
hartshorning: Applying hartshorn, a strong-smelling substance deriving from the horns of hart (i.e. deer) and a common source of ammonia.
henbane: The plant Hyoscyamus niger; in ch. 9 the drug extracted from it, with narcotic and poisonous properties.
hipped: Morbidly depressed or low-spirited.
hogshead: Large cask of liquor, holding sixty-three old wine gallons, the equivalent of fifty-two and a half imperial gallons.
hooped and furbelowed: Wearing a skirt held out with hoops and covered in trimmings and flounces.
hot purl: Warm beer infused with sugar, spices and gin.
in twig: In a good state, in good fettle: ‘I have gone to work this morning in good twig, strong hope, and cheerful spirits’ (Pilgrim, 2, p. 198).
indenters: Indentures, a written contract which bound the apprentice to his master for seven years, regulated by the Statute of Artificers of 1563.
jack-towel: Roller-towel.
jade: Originally a worthless horse, it came to be applied to women, sometimes with a playful sense as in ch. 41.
jail fever: Virulent form of typhoid which killed hundreds of Newgate prisoners each year.
javelin-man: Spear- or pike-bearer in the retinue of a sheriff or judge.
journeymen: Those who had successfully completed an apprenticeship to a particular trade, and were therefore superior to apprentices, but were not independent masters.
kennel: Street gutter.
King’s evidence: A criminal would give evidence against his fellow-accused in order to gain immunity from prosecution or a more lenient treatment.
knocked up: Awakened (ch. 34).
leads: Sheets of lead forming a roof.
light guinea: A guinea was a gold coin, minted between 1663 and 1813, worth 21s (£1.05). A light guinea would be one short in weight, either through usage or deliberate reduction.
link-boy: Boy employed to carry a link or torch made of tow and pitch to light the street for pedestrians.
loadstone: Oxide of iron with magnetic properties.
mace: Strike with a mace or heavy club.
mere assumptions: Unwarrantable claims.
mooncalf: Foolish, or mooning and absent-minded person.
muffineer: ‘A small castor with a perforated top for sprinkling sugar or salt on muffins; also a covered dish to keep muffins hot’ (SOED).
mumchance: Silent or tongue-tied.
Mussulman: Muslim, follower of Islam.
natural: One naturally deficient in intellect, a fool or idiot.
natural children: Illegitimate children.
odd or even: Gambling game, in which one player holds in his or her hands a small number of hidden pieces, and the opponent tries to guess if there are an odd or even number of them.
off the stones: ‘A colloquialism, popular in 1830–1880 for “outside London”’ (Hawes).
ordinary: Chaplain of Newgate prison (chs. 16, 77); regular meal at a fixed price in an eating-house or inn (ch. 54).
over-proof: Drink above the standard strength.
packthread: Stout twine for tying up packs or bundles.
pattens: Wooden overshoes.
pent-houses: Sheds, or other structures, usually with a sloping roof, attached to a main building.
pitch and toss: Gambling game, in which pennies are pitched at a target. The winner is the player whose coin comes closest to the target.
pomatums: Pomades, or scented ointments for the skin or hair.
porter’s knot: Knotted rope harness worn across the shoulders and back with a loop around the forehead, used by porters for carrying heavy loads.
post octavo: A size of paper smaller than octavo (sheets of paper folded to make 16 pages in books).
poussetting: To dance round and round with joined hands, as in a country dance.
pressed: Press-ganged, compulsorily enlisted in the armed forces.
Progress: A journey in state made by a royal or noble person (ch. 19).
providing yourself: Finding yourself a new job.
puncheons: Large casks for liquids, of varying capacity; used to age spirits, particularly rum.
quadrille: Both a card-game for four players and a square dance, of French origin, for four couples.
quarter-days: ‘The four days fixed by custom as marking off the quarters of the year, on which the tenancy of houses usually begins and ends, and the payment of rents and other quarterly charges falls due’ (SOED).
quartern loaf: Loaf of bread weighing four pounds.
ranger: Gamekeeper.
roasting-jack: Device for turning meat on a spit.
roc: Or rukh, a fabulous bird of stupendous size that appears several times in The Arabian Nights.
round-house: Lock-up or place of detention.
runts, fantails, tumblers, and pouters: Kinds of pigeon.
satyr: In Greek myth, a wood-spirit or demon, partly human and partly animal. Satyrs were associated with the god Bacchus, and with sexual license.
scavengers: Street-cleaners or dirt-collectors.
score up: Get drink on credit.
shay: Chaise.
single-stick: Fighting game with a stick held in one hand, like a fencing foil.
slack-baked: Only partly baked, so in ch. 41 of a lighter brown than the Toby’s face.
small ale: Weak beer.
smalls: Small-clothes, close-fitting knee-breeches.
spatterdashes: ‘A kind of long gaiter or legging made of leather, cloth etc. to keep the trousers or stockings from being spattered, especially in riding’ (SOED).
standish: Stand containing ink, pens and other writing materials and accessories.
tagrag and bobtail: The rabble. ‘Tagrag’, from the sixteenth century, is now ‘ragtag’ (from about 1820).
tags of staylaces: The ends of cords used to tighten a woman’s stays or bodice.
tap-room: The room in an inn or public house where drinks are kept on tap.
Tartar: Violent or intractable person; vixen or shrew.
Templars: Inhabitants of the Temple (see note 2 to ch. 15), including law students.
three-bottle man: Someone capable of drinking three bottles of wine at a sitting.
tie-wig: Wig tied with a ribbon at the back.
tipstaff: An Officer of the Court, who had powers of arrest, and so called from his rod tipped with a badge of office.
tiring equipage: Apparatus or case of articles for dressing.
toast in a tankard: Piece of bread, toasted and sometimes spiced, placed in a drink and thought to improve its flavour.
top-sawyers: Men who take the upper position in a saw pit and draw higher wages; hence, one who is superior or comes first.
tosspot: Heavy drinker, drunkard.
travelling post: With post-horses, so express, with speed or haste.
triple bob major: Peal rung on eight bells, repeated three times.
truckle-bed: ‘A low bed running on truckles or castors, usually pushed beneath a high or “standing” bed when not in use’ (SOED).
turnkey: Prison guard in charge of the keys.
two-pair: Second storey.
usquebaugh: Whisky (Irish and Scots Gaelic for Water of Life).
voluntaries: Extempore singing.
worked off: Hanged.
yeoman: Man of respectable standing, below the rank of a gentleman.
Yorkshire cake: ‘A speciality of the county, this is a sweet teacake, often toasted and buttered’, as in ch. 4 (Hawes).
A Dickens Chronology
1812 7 February Charles John Huffam Dickens born at Portsmouth, where his father is a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. The eldest son in a family of eight, two of whom die in childhood.
1817 After previous postings to London and Sheerness and frequent changes of address, John Dickens settles his family in Chatham.
1821 Dickens attends local school kept by a Baptist minister.
1822 Family returns to London.
1824 Dickens’s father in Marshalsea Debtors’ Prison for three months. During this time and afterwards Dickens employed in a blacking warehouse, labelling bottles. Resumes education at Wellington House Academy, Hampstead Road, London, 1825–7.
1827 Becomes a solicitor’s clerk.
1830 Admitted as a reader to the British Museum.
1832 Becomes a parliamentary reporter after mastering shorthand. In love with Maria Beadnell, 1830–33. Misses audition as an actor at Covent Garden because of illness.
1833 First published story, ‘A Dinner at Poplar Walk’, in the Monthly Magazine. Further stories and sketches in this and other periodicals, 1834–5.
1834 Becomes reporter on the Morning Chronicle.
1835 Engaged to Catherine Hogarth, daughter of editor of the Evening Chronicle.
1836 Sketches by Boz, First and Second Series, published. Marries Catherine Hogarth. Meets John Forster, his literary adviser and future biographer. The Strange Gentleman, a farce, and The Village Coquettes, a pastoral operetta, professionally performed in London.
1837 The Pickwick Papers published in one volume (issued in monthly parts, 1836–7). Birth of a son, the first of ten children. Death of Mary Hogarth, Dickens’s sister-in-law. Edits Bentley’s Miscellany, 1837–9.
1838 Oliver Twist published in three volumes (serialized monthly in Bentley’s Miscellany, 1837–9). Visits Yorkshire schools of the Dotheboys type.
1839 Nicholas Nickleby published in one volume (issued in monthly parts, 1838–9). Moves to 1 Devonshire Terrace, Regents Park, London.
1841 Declines invitation to stand for Parliament. The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge published in separate volumes after appearing in weekly numbers in Master Humphrey’s Clock, 1840–41. Public dinner in his honour at Edinburgh.
1842 January–June First visit to North America, described in American Notes, two volumes. Georgina Hogarth, Dickens’s sister-in-law, becomes permanent member of the household.
1843 Speech on the Press to Printer’s Pension Society, followed by others on behalf of various causes throughout Dickens’s career. A Christmas Carol published in December.
1844 Martin Chuzzlewit published in one volume (issued in monthly parts, 1843–4). Dickens and family leave for Italy, Switzerland and France. Dickens returns to London briefly to read The Chimes to friends before its publication in December.
1845 Dickens and family return from Italy. The Cricket on the Hearth published at Christmas. Writes autobiographical fragment, ?1845–6, not published until included in Forster’s Life (three volumes, 1872–4).
1846 Becomes first editor of the Daily News but resigns after seventeen issues. Pictures from Italy published. Dickens and family in Switzerland and Paris. The Battle of Life published at Christmas.
1847 Returns to London. Helps Miss Burdett Coutts to set up, and later to run, a ‘Home for Homeless Women’.
1848 Dombey and Son published in one volume (issued in monthly parts, 1846–8). Organizes and acts in charity performances of The Merry Wives of Windsor and Every Man in His Humour in London and elsewhere. The Haunted Man published at Christmas.
1850 Household Words, a weekly journal ‘Conducted by Charles Dickens’, begins in March and continues until 1859. Dickens makes a speech at first meeting of Metropolitan Sanitary Association. David Copperfield published in one volume (issued in monthly parts, 1849–50).
1851 Death of Dickens’s father and of infant daughter. Further theatrical activities in aid of the Guild of Literature and Art, including a performance before Queen Victoria. A Child’s History of England appears at intervals in Household Words, published in three volumes (1852, 1853, 1854). Moves to Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, London.
1853 Bleak House published in one volume (issued in monthly parts, 1852–3). Dickens gives first public readings for charity (from A Christmas Carol).
1854 Visits Preston, Lancashire, to observe industrial unrest. Hard Times appears weekly in Household Words and is published in book form.
1855 Speech in support of the Administrative Reform Association. Disappointing meeting with now married Maria Beadnell.
1856 Dickens buys Gad’s Hill Place, near Rochester.
1857 Little Dorrit published in one volume (issued in monthly parts, 1855–7). Dickens acts in Wilkie Collins’s melodrama The Frozen Deep and falls in love with the young actress Ellen Ternan. The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, written jointly with Wilkie Collins about a holiday in Cumberland, appears in Household Words.
1858 Publishes Reprinted Pieces (articles from Household Words). Separation from his wife followed by statement in Household Words. First public readings for his own profit in London, followed by provincial tour. Dickens’s household now largely run by his sister-in-law Georgina.
1859 All the Year Round, a weekly journal again ‘Conducted by Charles Dickens’, begins. A Tale of Two Cities, serialized both in All the Year Round and in monthly parts, appears in one volume.
1860 Dickens sells London house and moves family to Gad’s Hill.
1861 Great Expectations published in three volumes after appearing weekly in All the Year Round (1860–61). The Uncommercial Traveller (papers from All the Year Round) appears; expanded edition, 1868. Further public readings, 1861–3.
1863 Death of Dickens’s mother, and of his son Walter (in India). Reconciled with Thackeray, with whom he had quarrelled, shortly before the latter’s death. Publishes ‘Mrs Lirriper’s Lodgings’ in Christmas number of All the Year Round.
1865 Our Mutual Friend published in two volumes (issued in monthly parts, 1864–5). Dickens severely shocked after a serious train accident at Staplehurst, Kent, when returning from France with Ellen Ternan and her mother.
1866 Begins another series of readings. Takes a house for Ellen at Slough. ‘Mugby Junction’ appears in Christmas number of All the Year Round.
1867 Moves Ellen to Peckham. Second journey to America. Gives readings in Boston, New York, Washington and elsewhere, despite increasing ill-health. ‘George Silverman’s Explanation’ appears in Atlantic Monthly (then in All the Year Round, 1868).
1868 Returns to England. Readings now include the sensational ‘Sikes and Nancy’ from Oliver Twist; Dickens’s health further undermined.
1870 Farewell readings in London. The Mystery of Edwin Drood issued in six monthly parts, intended to be completed in twelve. 9 June Dies, after stroke, at Gad’s Hill, aged fifty-eight. Buried in Westminster Abbey.
Stephen Wall, 2002
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank Robert Mighall, who commissioned this edition; Gordon Spence, the editor of the previous Penguin edition of Barnaby Rudge, for generously responding to my queries; the British Library for supplying a microfilm of the first edition; Kath Begley at the Bank of England and the librarians at the Universities of Keele and Birmingham for their assistance. Michael Allen, Gill Ballinger, Hannah Barker, Malcolm Crook, Brian Harding, Colin Jones, Dick Leith, Fred Levit, Patrick McCarthy, David Parker, Roger Pooley, Michael Slater, Grahame Smith, Carolyn Steedman, Charles Swann, Andrew Xavier and Jack Zipes have also been most helpful. Lindeth Vasey has been the most scrupulous of copy-editors. Jim McLaverty has patiently answered questions on matters textual, and Sally Gray and Flora Bowen have given invaluable assistance throughout. I was lucky enough to have been invited to the annual Dickens Universe at the University of California, Santa Cruz in August 1999 when its proceedings were devoted to the study and discussion of Barnaby Rudge. I am particularly grateful to my fellow lecturers Patrick Brantlinger, John Glavin, David Parker, Hilary Schor, Jeff Spear, Robert Tracy and Judith Wilt, from whom I learned so much about a novel I had thought I knew well. To faculty members Murray Baumgarten, Florence Boos, Janice Carlisle, Maria Teresa Chialant, Joe Childers, Bill Daleski, Ed Eigner, Kathleen Hulley, Gerhard Joseph, Carol Mackay, Helena Michie, Goldie Morgentaler, George Newlin, Bob Newsom, Angelique Richardson, Catherine Robson and Michael Timko, to John Romano, JoAnna Rottke, Pat Vinci and all participants in that week, my warmest thanks. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Catherine Gallagher, Martin Jay, John Jordan and Joss Marsh for their many kindnesses. The Dickens Universe at Santa Cruz and the work of the Dickens Project are models of intellectual collaboration and pleasure; for me the fires of Newgate will be forever mingled with the scent of redwoods on that beautiful campus.
THE BEGINNING
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