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52 17 Facts About Charles Dickens

17 Facts About Charles hire and fire matrons, deal with the drains and
the gardener, report to Coutts in detail several
Dickens times a week on whatever was happening there,
handle the money, keep careful written accounts
of the backgrounds of the girls, and arrange their
Continued from Page 51
emigration to Australia, South Africa, or
Canada.”
8. HE PERFECTED THE CLIFFHANGER
ENDING. 15. HE WAS A VICTORIAN
Most of Dickens's novels - including GHOSTBUSTER.
classics like David Copperfield and Oliver Twist In an era of séances and mediums, when
- were initially written in monthly, weekly, or many Victorians believed in both spiritualism
infrequent installments on a subscription basis and science, Dickens didn’t discriminate. In
or in magazines, only to be republished in fact, along with other authors like Arthur Conan
complete book form later. In doing so, Dickens Doyle and William Butler Yeats, he was a
employed cliffhangers from chapter to chapter member of the Ghost Club, a kind of members-
to get eager readers to buy subsequent episodes. only group that attempted to investigate
In one 1841 incident, American readers supposed supernatural encounters and
were so anxious to know what happened in hauntings, often exposing frauds in the process.
Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop that they It makes sense, considering that some of
flocked to docks in New York harbor, hoping to Dickens’s best-known work, like A Christmas
ask passengers arriving from Europe whether Carol, hinges on the supernatural. But unlike
they’d read the ending of the story and if the Conan Doyle, he remained a skeptic.
character of Nell had died. (Spoiler alert: She “My own mind is perfectly unprejudiced
did.) and impressible on the subject. I do not in the
least pretend that such things are not,” Dickens
9. HE HAD PET RAVENS AND KEPT said in a September 1859 letter to writer William
THEM AROUND EVEN AFTER THEY Howitt. “But … I have not yet met with any
DIED. Ghost Story that was proved to me, or that had
Dickens owned a beloved raven he not the noticeable peculiarity in it—that the
Red Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect
named Grip, and it even appears as a character alteration of some slight circumstance would
bliss. But, it was not to be.”
in his novel Barnaby Rudge. In an 1841 letter to bring it within the range of common natural
a friend named George Cattermole, Dickens probabilities.”
12. HE WASN’T AFRAID TO SPEAK HIS
said he wanted the titular character of the book
MIND.
“always in company with a pet raven, who is 16. A TRAIN CRASH NEARLY DERAILED
immeasurably more knowing than himself. To In an 1860 letter written to Florence
Marryat, the daughter of his friend Captain OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
this end I have been studying my bird, and think On June 10, 1865, Dickens was traveling
Frederick Marryat, Dickens berated her after
I could make a very queer character of him.” home from France when his train derailed while
she asked him for writing advice and submitted
Following the bird’s death from eating crossing a bridge, and his car was left dangling
a short story for a literary journal he was editing
lead paint chips later that year, Dickens replaced from the tracks. After finding a conductor to
called All the Year Round.
it with another raven, also called Grip, which give him keys to the seven first-class train cars
“To read professed contributions
was allegedly the inspiration behind Edgar that had tumbled into the river below, the then
honestly, and communicate a perfectly
Allan Poe’s poem ”The Raven.” When the 53-year-old writer helped save stranded
unprejudiced decision respecting every one of
second Grip met his demise, Dickens had a passengers.
taxidermist stuff and mount the bird in an them to its author or authoress, is a task, of the When all was said and done, he was
magnitude of which you evidently have no
elaborate wooden and glass case, which is now forced to climb back into the dangling car to
conception,” Dickens told her. “I cannot […]
in the Free Library of Philadelphia’s collection. retrieve a just-completed missing installment of
alter what seems to me to be the fact regarding
this story (for instance), any more than I can Our Mutual Friend that he was supposed to send
10. HE ALSO KEPT HIS PET CAT to his publishers.
alter my eyesight or my hearing. I do not deem
AROUND FOR A WHILE.
it suitable for my Journal,” and later telling her
Not to be outdone by birds, companions 17. HE WAS BURIED IN WESTMINSTER
plainly, “I do not think it is a good story.”
of the feline variety also accompanied Dickens ABBEY AGAINST HIS WISHES.
throughout his life, with the author once The author had specific plans for how he
declaring, “What greater gift than the love of a 13. HE WAS A PRODIGIOUS wanted to spend eternity. He initially wished to
WORDSMITH.
cat?” be buried next to his wife Catherine’s sister, his
Not to be outdone by the likes of
When his cat Bob died in 1862, he had muse Mary Hogarth (who had died in 1837 and
William Shakespeare, Dickens was the other
its paw stuffed and mounted to an ivory letter was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in
British writer known to create words and
opener and engraved with “C.D., In memory of London). He then requested to be buried in a
phrases of his own. Thank Dickens for words
Bob, 1862.” The letter opener is now on display simple grave in the cemetery of Rochester
and phrases like butter-fingers, flummox, the
at the Berg Collection of English and American Cathedral in Kent.
creeps, dustbin, ugsome, slangular, and more.
Literature at the New York Public Library. Dickens collapsed from a stroke while
dining with his wife's other sister, Georgina
14. HE STARTED A HOME FOR “FALLEN
11. HE REVEALED THAT HIS EARLIEST Hogarth, at his home; he died on June 9, 1870.
WOMEN.”
INSPIRATION WAS LITTLE RED RIDING But he didn't end up in either of his chosen
With help from millionaire banking
HOOD. spots. Instead, he was whisked away to the
heiress Angela Coutts, Dickens set up and
In 1850, Dickens began editing a weekly Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey because the
effectively managed Urania Cottage, a
magazine, Household Words, to which he also Dean of Westminster, Arthur Stanley, wanted a
rehabilitation home for homeless women, ex-
contributed short fiction and serialized novels. famous writer to give some cultural significance
prisoners, and prostitutes so they could
In one of his first stories for the magazine, “A to the Abbey at the time.
(hopefully) emigrate to Britain’s colonies and
Christmas Tree,” Dickens described his earliest Despite stipulating in his will that "no
reintegrate into Victorian society.
muse as the main character in the fairytale Little public announcement be made of the time or
Red Riding Hood - perhaps as a way of dealing According to The Guardian, Dickens place of my burial," hundreds of thousands of
would “visit the house in Shepherd's Bush,
with his own childhood innocence devoured by people lined up to walk past his body in
often several times a week, to supervise it,
unexpected evils. “She was my first love,” he Westminster Abbey. []
select inmates, consult with prison governors,
wrote. “I felt that if I could have married Little