The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Hello Curiosities,

The new year starts for us with another of Dickens’s more serious – and sometimes rather gloomy – novels but never fear because it will not be completely devoid of humour, and in my personal opinion we are in for one of the finest novels Dickens ever wrote. And I have the pleasure to introduce you into the first four chapters.

So, let’s not waste any more time on preliminaries and circumlocution and start right away with Book the First “Poverty”, Chapter 1, which is entitled “Sun and Shadow”. And forsooth! don’t we get a lot of sun at the beginning, which is set in Marseilles, “thirty years ago”, which would fix the date around 1825 or ’26. Dickens brilliantly conjures up the unpleasant atmosphere of a Southern European summer, when the sun glares like a lidless, inhuman eye at every single thing beneath:

”Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves. […]The universal stare made the eyes ache. Towards the distant line of Italian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist, slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere else. Far away the staring roads, deep in dust, stared from the hill-side, stared from the hollow, stared from the interminable plain. Far away the dusty vines overhanging wayside cottages, and the monotonous wayside avenues of parched trees without shade, drooped beneath the stare of earth and sky. So did the horses with drowsy bells, in long files of carts, creeping slowly towards the interior; so did their recumbent drivers, when they were awake, which rarely happened; so did the exhausted labourers in the fields. Everything that lived or grew, was oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly over rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, like a rattle. The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in the atmosphere as if the air itself were panting.
Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep out the stare. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot arrow. The churches were the freest from it. To come out of the twilight of pillars and arches—dreamily dotted with winking lamps, dreamily peopled with ugly old shadows piously dozing, spitting, and begging—was to plunge into a fiery river, and swim for life to the nearest strip of shade. So, with people lounging and lying wherever shade was, with but little hum of tongues or barking of dogs, with occasional jangling of discordant church bells and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day.”

It is surely a day one would prefer to spend indoors, but the kind of indoors offered to us by the narrator is not much better than a sojourn outside on that relentlessly sunny day. The narrator takes us inside ”a villainous prison”, thus introducing one motif that is going to become very important in this novel, most of you probably knowing that the Marshalsea, the infamous debtor’s prison is going to play a major role. It was here that Dickens’s father was put in 1824, i.e. around the time the novel begins, for owing some money to a baker. Dickens himself was 12 at that time and seeing his father incarcerated within the grim prison walls must have made a deep impression on the child’s mind. The narrator leaves no doubt as to the corrupting influence of the prison atmosphere when he writes:

”A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard, so the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside, and would have kept its polluted atmosphere intact in one of the spice islands of the Indian ocean.>”

There are two prisoners in the cell we are introduced to: One of them has an outward appearance that is not very prepossessing:

”[H]is eyes, too close together, were not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in his, and they were sharp rather than bright—pointed weapons with little surface to betray them. They had no depth or change; they glittered, and they opened and shut. So far, and waiving their use to himself, a clockmaker could have made a better pair. He had a hook nose, handsome after its kind, but too high between the eyes by probably just as much as his eyes were too near to one another. For the rest, he was large and tall in frame, had thin lips, where his thick moustache showed them at all, and a quantity of dry hair, of no definable colour, in its shaggy state, but shot with red. The hand with which he held the grating (seamed all over the back with ugly scratches newly healed), was unusually small and plump; would have been unusually white but for the prison grime.”

This man is called Monsieur Rigaud. A little later into the chpater, we learn that whenever he laughs, his moustache would go upwards and his nose would move down, which gives him a very sinister and cruel air.

”'I am a'—Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it—'I am a cosmopolitan gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss—Canton de Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.'“

I could not help thinking that the label of being a cosmopolitan gentleman, owning no particular country, seems to imply that Rigaud is the Devil himself, because the Old Gentleman is also a man of the world, a globetrotter, who is at home everywhere. In a way, I also felt reminded of Mlle Hortense, who was also born in Belgium, unless I am mistaken, and so I fully expect M. Rigaud to play an important, if sinister, role in the course of the events that will be told in the novel.

The other prisoner is an Italian by the name of John Baptist – where there is a devil, there must be a John Baptist – Cavalletto, who has been taken to prison for smuggling. Signore Cavalletto is described like this:

”A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though rather thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his grotesque brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown throat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown breast. Loose, seaman-like trousers, decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and a knife in it.”

I was, and still am, puzzled at the little detail of the prisoner being allowed to keep a knife, obviously some sort of dagger, in the prison cell, but maybe in those days prisoners were allowed to keep weapons on them.

When the prison warden comes in order to give the prisoners their food – they obviously have to pay for their own food, which accounts for the fact that Rigaud feasts much more sumptuously than Cavallatto –, he has his little daughter with him, who wants to feed her ”father’s birds”. M. Rigaud is told that after the meal he is going to be taken before the judges, and this prospect apparently puts him down and spoils his appetite a little bit. Nevertheless, he takes the opportunity to state his case before Cavalletto, obviously with a view to practising his own defense before the judge. We learn that he took lodgings with a well-to-do landlord, who mysteriously died within half a year. M. Rigaud then married the man’s young widow, on whom the property was settled, but they used to quarrel a lot. One day when they were walking along a cliff, Mme Rigaud, in a fit of temper, attacked M. Rigaud, and during their quarrel, she fell off the cliff, by accident. Well, people sometimes do that to spite their spouses, don’t they?

At any rate, we are left to our own devices as to whether we should believe M. Rigaud’s story or not. The people of Marseille, however, seem to entertain serious doubts because quite a bunch of them are protesting in front of the prison, eagerly demanding that M. Rigaud be meted out his just punishment. Cavalletto, of whom we get a much more favourable impression, seems to listen attentively to M. Rigaud’s account of the crime he is charged with, from time to time being thrown a cigarette by his fellow-prisoner. By the way, the annotations in my Penguin edition told me that at that time cigarettes were still so rare that they were considered to be a delicacy. As far as I know, cigarette smoking became popular among soldiers in the Crimean War whereas before it was mainly pipes and cigars, which take a lot more time. Finally, Rigaud is led out of the cell, and Cavalletto is left alone again. We may be quite sure that the cosmopolitan gentleman will be able to wriggle the judge around his finger.

The second chapter, which is called “Fellow Travellers”, also begins in a sort of prison in that it features some travellers who are in quarantine since they came from “the East”, where the plague is still rife. Today is the day they are allowed to enter Marseilles. Among these travellers, the narrator singles out a handful of people who are going to play some role in the course of events. First of all, there are Mr. and Mrs. Meagles and their daughter, whom they call Pet. They also have some kind of maidservant travelling with them by the name of Harriet Beadle, but they call her Tattycoram. Then there is Arthur Clennam, whom we will follow into Chapters 3 and 4, and a young woman named Miss Wade. The narrator also mentions

”a tall French gentleman with raven hair and beard, of a swart and terrible, not to say genteelly diabolical aspect, but who had shown himself the mildest of men”,

who does not play any important role in their conversation but who is mentioned all the same, and I have the strong suspicion that this may be the very cosmopolitan gentleman we have met in the first chapter. On the other hand, this would mean that there must have been some lapse of time between the events recorded here and in Chapter 1 because how else could M. Rigaud made his way among the travellers. After all, they apparently came from the East, and we left him in the Marseilles prison at the end of the preceding chapter. Still, the question remains why a freshly released prisoner would have to go into quarantine.

In giving us the background of the respective characters, Dickens proves once again the masterful narrator as whom we know him – for the information is not given by an omniscient narrator but seeps in, by and by, during their conversation. We learn, for instance, that Mr. Meagles is not half as grumpy as he comes across at first sight and that he is anything but a practical man although he seems to be taking great pride in thinking himself to be one. He frankly tells Mr. Clennam that Pet used to have a twin sister, who died as a little child, and he comforts himself with the idea that on the day he passes on he will be greeted in the great by-and-by by a young woman the spitting image of his daughter Pet. Mr. Meagles also tells his new friend that they took Tattycoram into their house so that their daughter might have a playfellow and that they took her from the Foundling Hospital in London. His kindheartedness becomes obvious when he says:

” ‘So I said next day: Now, Mother, I have a proposition to make that I think you'll approve of. Let us take one of those same little children to be a little maid to Pet. We are practical people. So if we should find her temper a little defective, or any of her ways a little wide of ours, we shall know what we have to take into account. We shall know what an immense deduction must be made from all the influences and experiences that have formed us—no parents, no child-brother or sister, no individuality of home, no Glass Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. And that's the way we came by Tattycoram.’

‘And the name itself—‘

‘By George!’ said Mr Meagles, ‘I was forgetting the name itself. Why, she was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle—an arbitrary name, of course. Now, Harriet we changed into Hattey, and then into Tatty, because, as practical people, we thought even a playful name might be a new thing to her, and might have a softening and affectionate kind of effect, don't you see? As to Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out of the question. If there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms, anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks our English holding on by nonsense after every one has found it out, it is a beadle. You haven't seen a beadle lately?’

‘As an Englishman who has been more than twenty years in China, no.’

‘Then,’ said Mr Meagles, laying his forefinger on his companion's breast with great animation, ‘don't you see a beadle, now, if you can help it. Whenever I see a beadle in full fig, coming down a street on a Sunday at the head of a charity school, I am obliged to turn and run away, or I should hit him. The name of Beadle being out of the question, and the originator of the Institution for these poor foundlings having been a blessed creature of the name of Coram, we gave that name to Pet's little maid. At one time she was Tatty, and at one time she was Coram, until we got into a way of mixing the two names together, and now she is always Tattycoram.’”

By the way, Dickens really seems to have had it in for beadles, don’t you think? Mr. Meagles also has the funny habit of addressing foreigners in idiomatic English, being somehow convinced that they would be able to understand him, and although he travels a lot for pleasure, he never picks up any vestige of the respective language that is spoken in the country. He also says something that might add to the topic of the novel:

”’One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind; I dare say a prisoner begins to relent towards his prison, after he is let out.’”

I somehow have the impression that Mr. Clennam himself has spent some of his lifetime in some sort of prison, and I wonder whether he is quite as forgiving about the circumstances of his confinement as Mr. Meagles supposes a prisoner to be. Of Mr. Clennam we learn that he was ”a grave man of forty” and he says about himself:

” […] I am such a waif and stray everywhere, that I am liable to be drifted where any current may set.’”

He rather despondently continues:

”’I have no will. That is to say,’—he coloured a little,—‘next to none that I can put in action now. Trained by main force; broken, not bent; heavily ironed with an object on which I was never consulted and which was never mine; shipped away to the other end of the world before I was of age, and exiled there until my father's death there, a year ago; always grinding in a mill I always hated; what is to be expected from me in middle life? Will, purpose, hope? All those lights were extinguished before I could sound the words. […]I am the son, Mr Meagles, of a hard father and mother. I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence. Strict people as the phrase is, professors of a stern religion, their very religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and sympathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain for the security of their possessions. Austere faces, inexorable discipline, penance in this world and terror in the next—nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart everywhere—this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to apply it to such a beginning of life.’”

A poor lonesome stranger Mr. Clennam seems to be. And yet he seems to be more likeable than Miss Wade, who also is a lonesome woman, but who is proud and disdainful and rather prefers her own company over that of any of her fellow travellers. In connection with Mr. Meagles observation on prisons, Miss Wade states:

”’If I had been shut up in any place to pine and suffer, I should always hate that place and wish to burn it down, or raze it to the ground. I know no more.’”

She does not warm towards Pet the way everyone else does, but instead she ominously tells her:

”’In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming to meet us, from many strange places and by many strange roads, […] what it is set to us to do to them, and what it is set to them to do to us, will all be done.’”

This sounds rather like a threat, or at least like an instance of extremely fatalistic thinking. Her words seem to acquire some hidden sort of meaning when later on, Miss Wade happens to run into Tattycoram, who is in a strange fit, inveighing against the Meagles and her daughter, accusing them with selfishness, but some moments later, Tattycoram repents her harsh words and retracts them, sobbing:

”’Go away from me, go away from me! When my temper comes upon me, I am mad. I know I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, and sometimes I do try hard enough, and at other times I don't and won't. What have I said! I knew when I said it, it was all lies. They think I am being taken care of somewhere, and have all I want. They are nothing but good to me. I love them dearly; no people could ever be kinder to a thankless creature than they always are to me. Do, do go away, for I am afraid of you. I am afraid of myself when I feel my temper coming, and I am as much afraid of you. Go away from me, and let me pray and cry myself better!’”

I also had the impression that by reminding Tattycoram of her dependent position and entreating her to show patience, Miss Wade wanted to achieve the very opposite, but we will have to wait in order to see whether I was right or not – for here the chapter ends.

In Chapter 3, Arthur Clennam finally reaches his “Home”. I read somewhere that Dickens was very strongly opposed to (Puritan) Sabbatarianism as well as to all forms of extreme and cheerless Christianity. Just remember Mr. Snagsby who said that his little woman liked her religion rather sharp, and also remember the Chadbands or Mr. Pecksniff as dire examples of Christian humbugs and hypocrites. At the beginning of this chapter, the narrator describes every detail of a dismal, mirthless Sunday in order to voice Dickens’s criticism, and we see how Sunday used to be a kind of prison for Arthur Clennam in the days of his youth, which not only supports the point the narrator is trying to make about Sundays but also give us further insight into Clennam’s bleak childhood and the kind of family he was brought up in:

”There was the dreary Sunday of his childhood, when he sat with his hands before him, scared out of his senses by a horrible tract which commenced business with the poor child by asking him in its title, why he was going to Perdition?—a piece of curiosity that he really, in a frock and drawers, was not in a condition to satisfy—and which, for the further attraction of his infant mind, had a parenthesis in every other line with some such hiccupping reference as 2 Ep. Thess. c. iii, v. 6 & 7. There was the sleepy Sunday of his boyhood, when, like a military deserter, he was marched to chapel by a picquet of teachers three times a day, morally handcuffed to another boy; and when he would willingly have bartered two meals of indigestible sermon for another ounce or two of inferior mutton at his scanty dinner in the flesh. There was the interminable Sunday of his nonage; when his mother, stern of face and unrelenting of heart, would sit all day behind a Bible—bound, like her own construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and straitest boards, with one dinted ornament on the cover like the drag of a chain, and a wrathful sprinkling of red upon the edges of the leaves—as if it, of all books! were a fortification against sweetness of temper, natural affection, and gentle intercourse. There was the resentful Sunday of a little later, when he sat down glowering and glooming through the tardy length of the day, with a sullen sense of injury in his heart, and no more real knowledge of the beneficent history of the New Testament than if he had been bred among idolaters. There was a legion of Sundays, all days of unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly passing before him.”

Mr. Clennam apparently does not feel a very strong intention to visit his home but eventually he does, and he finds it unchanged:

”It was a double house, with long, narrow, heavily-framed windows. Many years ago, it had had it in its mind to slide down sideways; it had been propped up, however, and was leaning on some half-dozen gigantic crutches: which gymnasium for the neighbouring cats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, and overgrown with weeds, appeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance.”

The door is opened to him by Mr. Flintwinch, the old family servant, whose outward appearance strangely seems to mirror the lopsidedness of the house:

”His neck was so twisted that the knotted ends of his white cravat usually dangled under one ear; his natural acerbity and energy, always contending with a second nature of habitual repression, gave his features a swollen and suffused look; and altogether, he had a weird appearance of having hanged himself at one time or other, and of having gone about ever since, halter and all, exactly as some timely hand had cut him down.”

There is not much love lost between Arthur and Mr. Flintwinch, and the servant grumpily leads Arthur before his mother, who is sitting in a wheelchair and who seems to take a grim pleasure in the fact that she – a prisoner, too – has not left her room the last fifteen years, and that she has been conducting the family business from the confines of her room. Mrs. Clennam apparently considers herself morally superior to all those people who are able to leave their house and to interact with the world. She says that it has pleased God to put her into this position but there does not seem to be any humility in her behaviour and attitude. She also makes a point of not discussing business on a Sunday but nevertheless always starts discussing business herself. In her presence, Arthur feels like a child again and all those memories of his gloomy childhood, spent in the company of his father and his mother, who would never exchange a friendly word with each other, but just sat there like two marble statues, are rekindled. Mrs. Clennam takes her grimly frugal supper in Arthur’s company without ever asking her son whether he would like something to eat, too. This struck me as odd. But not only this. In the course of their dismal conversation, it becomes clear that Arthur’s father died somewhere abroad, probably in China, and that Arthur was with him during his last days. Mr. Clennam senior was very anxious that his watch be sent to his wife, and although Arthur could not detect anything unusual or noteworthy about or inside the watch, he took care that his father’s belongings were dispatched to Mrs. Clennam.

In the darkness of the room there are also two other people: There is a young girl, but she is never mentioned by the narrator at all. Only later, when Arthur and Mrs. Affery Flintwinch, who is the second bystander in the dark room, have a private conversation together, does Arthur ask about the girl, and he is given the answer that the young girl is Little Dorrit, whom Affery calls “a whim” of Mrs. Clennam’s. – I thought this rather an unusual way of introducing a character, let alone an eponymous character, but that’s Dickens.

Being asked why she is now married to Flintwinch, Affery confides to Arthur that she has actually been bullied into this union and that she stands no chance of her own against “the two clever ones”, as she calls Mr. Flintwinch and Mrs. Clennam. Affery also tells Arthur that Flintwinch sometimes even quarrels with Mrs. Clennam and that he does not mince his words. At the same time she warns Arthur to stand up against them and not allow them to subdue him. She also makes mention of Arthur’s ex-sweetheart, who is now a rather well-to-do widow but who was apparently not deemed good enough as a match by Arthur’s parents in the old days so that they thwarted the union. Now, however, matters are different, as Affery says, and Arthur falls into daydreaming, not least about this former love interest of his.

The fourth Chapter is rather short, and in it, “Mrs. Flintwinch Has a Dream”. In fact, the narrator gives us to understand that it might not really be a dream at all but something that Mrs. Flintwinch, after waking up from a few hours’ sleep, observes. Not finding her husband in bed next to her, Affery walks downstairs and sees, in a little room that is not normally used, two Mr. Flintwinches. One of them, her Jeremiah, is sitting at a table, watching the other Flintwinch, his double, sleeping. When the double finally awakes, there is a mysterious conversation going on between the two Flintwinches. The double is going to take a box with him, which is described like this:

”It was an iron box some two feet square, which he carried under his arms pretty easily. Jeremiah watched his manner of adjusting it, with jealous eyes; tried it with his hands, to be sure that he had a firm hold of it; bade him for his life be careful what he was about; and then stole out on tiptoe to open the door for him.”

Unfortunately, after the double has left, Jeremiah notices that his wife has been watching him, and once they are back in their bedchamber, he grabs her by the throat and shakes her, calling on to her to wake up as she had been dreaming again. He also tells her that if she has any more of those dreams, he will have to give her a large dose of her physic. Affery understands this thinly veiled threat and goes to bed again.

I guess my first thought on starting the last Dickens novel I haven't read before--and happily have no idea of the story!--is well, this is going to be a weird one. There are a number of grotesquely troubled people starting this story out even if you don't count the ones who are in prison. And also a lot of echoes--in addition to the beadle and debt-prison preoccupations Tristram already pointed out, there's a haughty woman, an innocent young thing (no doubt with small hands), and a deranged female servant. Dickens sure has some favorite types.

But it's fun to see so much plot slowly raising itself off the ground. I am also enjoying Arthur Clennam despite his low and somewhat self-pitying spirits, and I hope he gets a second shot of happiness.

The one false note to me is I couldn't help but agree Tattycorum was misused even before she suggested it herself. I know we're supposed to approve of Mr. Meagles, but I find it kind of horrifying that a child would be taken into a family and raised and treated as the inferior of another child. I'm sure it beats staying in the Foundling Hospital, but I don't find the Meagles to be as kind as I think I am supposed to find them.

Tristram wrote: "Only later, when Arthur and Mrs. Affery Flintwinch, who is the second bystander in the dark room, have a private conversation together, does Arthur ask about the girl, and he is given the answer that the young girl is Little Dorrit, whom Affery calls “a whim” of Mrs. Clennam’s. – I thought this rather an unusual way of introducing a character, let alone an eponymous character, but that’s Dickens."

I found this very odd as well!

Julie wrote: "I guess my first thought on starting the last Dickens novel I haven't read before--and happily have no idea of the story!--is well, this is going to be a weird one. There are a number of grotesquel..."

In the mirror of Victorian times, your reservations with regard to the Meagleses' kindness towards Tattycoram - and I, too, share them - were probably not seen. A Victorian might have thought that Tatty was a child from the lower classes and that she was somewhat born to be a maidservant in that, had she lived in an intact family, there might have been the moment for her to leave her parental home and take up a situation in a family. But I see what you mean, and I share it, although life in the Foundling place might even have been harder for the girl. Still, I see a lot of smugness in Mr. Meagles and a lot of dumbness in his daughter.

Talking of echoes, the scene where Tatty had her fit of passion reminded me of the scene in Bleak House where Caddy came into Esther's room the first night and unburdened her heart towards Esther. Both Tatty and Caddy have a certain kind of moroseness and anger in them.

Another echo I see is a similarity between Miss Wade and Irene Dombey - both women are proud and forbidding, but maybe, we can also see some differences between them.

SO MUCH to unpack here! I do love this novel.

In chapter one, we have several themes that might be worth keeping an eye out for as we get deeper into the story. Of course, there is the prison theme - as Tristram points out, we have prisoners everywhere, from Arthur Clennam, to his mom, to Affery, to Tattycorum... each in a prison of sorts.

I also noticed a great emphasis on hands (as Peter did in our last book), particularly the hands of Rigaud, which are described by the narrator several times. While Rigaud's hands are smooth, small, and soft (like a woman's?), he used them to slap his wife around. John Baptist, on the other hand, is obviously a better man, but has calloused, dirty hands. Don't judge a book by its cover.

Finally, the "staring" and the heat seemed to be given special emphasis.

In Chapter 2, Mr. Meagles' description of the Plague hit home with me. Do we not all feel like victims of Covid, whether or not we've actually contracted it? Perhaps for the first time, I got this passage.

I've always found Miss Wade to be one of Dickens' most fascinating characters. What has she been through that has made her so bitter and caustic? Like Tattycoram, I'm afraid of her.

As for Tattycoram, I have mixed feelings. Yes, Meagles is condescending and, perhaps, not completely altruistic. BUT taking in an orphan for selfish reasons was sadly common at that time. Think of the orphan trains that would take a bunch of kids out of the city to small towns across America, where people would come to the train station and pick them out as they might slaves or work horses to be servants or farm hands. Based on what we know so far, Harriet (should we call her Harriet or Tattycoram, I wonder?) has been given a pretty good life with people who are, at least, kind to her. No, it's not ideal, but she's not sweeping streets like Jo (in Bleak House. Based on her mercurial mood swings, she at least seems to realize this.

Julie wrote: "...an innocent young thing (no doubt with small hands)..."

Stop! You'll make me spit out my tea! :-)

I love the description of the Clennam's house, both inside and out. I find myself trying to imagine its layout, as I did with Bleak House, but it eludes me. I wonder if Dickens had specific places in mind when he describes these homes, or if it's all in his head. I wish some architect who's a Dickens fan would do a book with renderings of all his houses, based on Dickens' descriptions.

I wonder if the Jailer's daughter will come back at some point. She was so out of place in that prison! I think we will see other people who are 'out of place' in a prison in this novel.

I also had the same, I do not particularly like Mr. Meagles' smugness about being practical and how condescending he is about Tattycoram. Even giving her a joke of a name that sounds like the kind of names Victorians would give black slaves because it sounds so exotic. That is the vibe I got there. Also, poor girls, both Tattycoram and Pet. Imagine the pressure on Pet to be the perfect daughter, because she now has to carry the goodness for both herself and her sister - and how she is supposed to just go on with her life 'in a practical way', despite losing her twin sister as a young child. How, as it comes across now, her parents wanted to replace her dead twin sister with a maid servant. Even if Pet is not the most considerate person towards Tattycoram, can we really blame her with how much energy the perfect, blank untroubled mind charade must cost her? I too know we are supposed to like the Meagles, but what I see is a very disfunctional family busy to keep up appearances. They try very hard to be a good family and to be kind though, and they just do not have the times on their side either.

I loved the description of Arthur Clennam's old house too. It is just as dreary as it should be in a Dickens novel. Talking about prisons, this house has the same air as the prison in Marseilles has: dark, dreary, with an ability to make even the warmest, sunniest day miserable and cold.

Sorry, but I did not "get" that we are supposed to like the Meagles. I have not liked him or any of the family from the first. I like Tattycoram from the first - she is a slave, not even having her own name. And her breakdown touched me. She knew that she could not continue that way. peace, janz

A name is a powerful thing, and by taking Harriet's name away, it surely must have felt as if they had taken an important piece of her identity. A bit presumptuous at the very least.

This makes me think of David Copperfield and all the various names bestowed on him by so many people. It seems that nicknames can be loving endearments, or a way to belittle. In the case of the Meagles and Tattycoram, I'd say it's both. They consider it an endearment but she (and, I think, many of us) see this particular redubbing in a different light.

From the first four chapters I am in awe in Mr Dickens's ability to make the story blush with mood. Rigaud's nose dropping into his mustache was both horrific an image but also humorous, in a way. It leaves me thinking of some gruesome parrot. Right away I do not trust a thing this man is saying and he just seems so awful that I'm delighted by his character and can't wait to see what sort of sick business he gets into. The Meagles I find endearing and bright and lively characters that Dickens writes so well. It is as if he is saying, None of us our perfect, especially me, so delight in our strange sensibilities. Tattycoram is so volcanic in her personality going from one extreme to another in seconds that she is hard to figure which makes her interesting to both me and Miss Wade. The part about the "Pet's" twin sister dying is rather touching by Mr Meagles and shows how he feels deeply. Chapter 3 left me feeling so much for Mrs. Flintwich and how she was lured into that awful marriage as though she were a tricked child. It was so hard listening to her explain that process they put her through like she had no will whatsoever.

Also, thanks to Tristram for summarizing the chapters which is always helpful as a refresher.

Mary Lou wrote: "As for Tattycoram, I have mixed feelings..."

As do I. I have not read this novel before but knowing Dickens I am afraid to make a quick judgment of her character since she is featured so briefly and seems to be out of her wits, but what an entrance it was!

Mary Lou wrote: "I wish some architect who's a Dickens fan would do a book with renderings of all his houses, based on Dickens' descriptions...."

What a fantastic idea! The most difficult to me with any book, not just Dickens, is picturing layouts of houses. I have an overall feel for the Clennam home but other than that I am lost within it.

As to taking away a person's identity with their name, I can fully subscribe to this notion, and Tattycoram is indeed a quirk of a name, indicating that Harriet might indeed have been intended as some kind of plaything for "Pet", whose name, unless I am mistaken, we don't now, either, yet. On the other hand, "Harriet Beadle" was not a name bestowed by loving parents but by a matter-of-fact employee of the foundling home, and especially the last name, Beadle, indicates that the narrator might see "Tattycoram" as an improvement. Strange as it is.

I thought that we were supposed to like the Meagles because of Mr. Meagles's illusion of being practical, whereas in fact, he is absolutely eccentric - but, as the narrator seems to imply because after all, he and his wife take care of an orphaned girl - in a good way. As Jantine pointed out, though, the family is clearly dysfunctional and neurotic, and one may argue whether the way they treat Pet is really efficient in dealing with their bereavement. Let's see what we are going to learn about them in later chapters.

Sam wrote: "Also, thanks to Tristram for summarizing the chapters which is always helpful as a refresher"

You're welcome, Sam.

Hello everyone

This is the first time I've posted in a very long time, but glad to be back to talk about Little Dorrit.

This is the first time I have read this novel and I can say it's immediately hooked me in.

I have read everyone's ideas about the characterisation and agree on all accounts. Instead of adding to what has already been said (especially as we're still so early into it) I thought I'd share my thoughts on the settings.

As always, Dickens is such a master at developing tension through setting. Especially his use of personification which suggests any lack of opportunity to escape. It's almost as if not only society is against some of these characters, but nature and the world itself. The oppressiveness, too, is almost claustrophobic.

The last time I was in the South of France was a very long time ago, however, the arid stagnant heat very much reminds me of what it is normally like (although not today) in Sydney, during summer. Even the noises of the cicadas add that additional ambience of the Mediterranean which I really love. It almost seems out of place in a Dickens novel, but demonstrates his acuteness of place. Mind you, the stillness by the coast could be perceived as unusual, which again, I think, adds a dimension of foreboding.

(I have a habit of "thinking out loud", which probably explains why I sometimes question myself when typing, so please forgive the toing and froing.)

But for me it's the description of the back streets of London which brings it alive. When Arthur walks home from the coffee house near St Paul's, it may conjure images of bleakness for most, but at the moment it's actually making me feel incredibly homesick (having not being able to visit home for so long). During my visits to London I have trod many of those back streets, numerous times, and can almost believe I am there, albeit, without the old world degradation.

Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts so far.

Has anyone else been down those back streets near St Paul's (or around any other parts of Dickensian London)? I'd love to hear if you have and what the thought about them.

Sadly, I haven't been to London in years, Kate. But like you, I found it unusual for a Dickens novel to have that kind of Mediterranean opening chapter, although the atmosphere of staring and stagnancy is extremely well-done and tunes in well with the prison motif. Now that I come to think of it, the staring seems to forebode the lack of privacy that is typical of prison life: You are always under surveillance and cannot go through your day - for example with regard to your rising and sleeping hours - when you see fit but have to submit to prison rules and routines.

Julie wrote: "I guess my first thought on starting the last Dickens novel I haven't read before--and happily have no idea of the story!--is well, this is going to be a weird one. There are a number of grotesquel..."

Hi Julie

I’m going to follow your first impressions with great interest. Having read LD myself before, I find this read some of my former impressions are radically different. This novel is full of weirdly interesting characters and settings. It will be a great read.

Enjoy

Mary Lou wrote: "SO MUCH to unpack here! I do love this novel.

In chapter one, we have several themes that might be worth keeping an eye out for as we get deeper into the story. Of course, there is the prison them..."

Mary Lou

Ah yes. Miss Wade and Tattycoram. Now there is a duo to keep our eyes on.

So many ways to be imprisoned. I’m tempted to make a list under such headings as physical, social, emotional, psychological, financial … have I left any out?

Glad to see your detailed posts. I hope you are fully recovered from your tumble.

Sam wrote: "From the first four chapters I am in awe in Mr Dickens's ability to make the story blush with mood. Rigaud's nose dropping into his mustache was both horrific an image but also humorous, in a way. ..."

Hi Sam

Yes, Dickens is the master of creating mood. What a whiplash between the searing heat of France and the gloomy oppressive nature of London.

It is wise to suspend our judgement of the characters too quickly. Sometimes there is a clue to the character within their name but as with most things Dickens there are always many surprises luking throughout the plot.

I’m glad you have joined us.

Kate wrote: "Hello everyone

This is the first time I've posted in a very long time, but glad to be back to talk about Little Dorrit.

This is the first time I have read this novel and I can say it's immediatel..."

Hi Kate

Welcome back. Never worry about any wandering of your thoughts. I will enjoy the company.

I agree with you that the opening of this novel with its heat, blazing sun, and the oppressive sounds of heat added as a bonus to the setting of chapter one is unusual for Dickens. We recently finished Bleak House. The first chapter of that novel was certainly the opposite. Lots of mud and gloom, much like our opening of this novel. I’m not sure there if there is a Dickens novel where the opening chapter is not at least partly framed by the weather in some way.

As an aside, here in Toronto we are freezing. Please send some heat asap.

Yes, Tristram. I also recognise the idea of constant surveillance. I interpret it as symbolic of social expectations, which we too have never been able to escape.

Judging from the time in which Dickens wrote this, could it be perceived to be his own voice in relation to his private life and unwanted criticism?

Hi Peter

The last Dickens novel I read was A Tale of Two Cities. I haven't read Bleak House in a while, although loved it. But just like the rest of them, extremely somber. Like you say, regardless of the location, he always uses weather to set the tone. One of his most notable stylistic features, which I do enjoy.

You are more than welcome to some heat, although it's raining far more than usual for this time of year and is making for horrible muggy weather. I'm sure Dickens could write a thing or two about it!

Peter wrote: "Mary Lou wrote: "SO MUCH to unpack here! I do love this novel.

In chapter one, we have several themes that might be worth keeping an eye out for as we get deeper into the story. Of course, there i..."

I like your catalogue of prisons, Peter. Tattycoram, for instance, is not only in a financial and emotional prison (obviously, she is a very impulsive woman and hardly has the freedom to give vent to her feelings) but also in a social one that is called "thankfulness". By the standards of her time, she ought to feel grateful to the Meagleses, and she obviously doesn't, which stirs her bad conscience. "Thankfulness" is a prison that allows very little room to its inmates because there are so many people in it.

Peter wrote: "Sam wrote: "From the first four chapters I am in awe in Mr Dickens's ability to make the story blush with mood. Rigaud's nose dropping into his mustache was both horrific an image but also humorous..."

Talking about names, what do you make of the name Meagles? It doesn't sound too pleasant to me, because it makes me think both of "meagre" and "measles". Are there any nice words it conjures up in you?

Kate wrote: "Yes, Tristram. I also recognise the idea of constant surveillance. I interpret it as symbolic of social expectations, which we too have never been able to escape.

Judging from the time in which Di..."

The last time we read this book, we came up with some parallels between Dickens himself and his rather indecisive and passive hero Clennam. We might want to keep an eye on that.

Re: the name Meagles ... being an animal person, the things I thought of were beagles and eagles. Both positive associations in my mind.

Mary Lou wrote: "Re: the name Meagles ... being an animal person, the things I thought of were beagles and eagles. Both positive associations in my mind."


For me, it conjured up "mangles" - not the most pleasant, but perhaps appropriate given other chapters (although those may have also contributed to the conjuring!).

I agree. Meagles = misspelled mangles. Not a pleasant thought. I have thought of him as Mr. Mangles from the beginning.

I never thought of Dickens as passive. And Clennam seems to be a passive person. Dickens wrote about the awful stuff in his time - legal, the poor, prisons, etc. and was often condemned by the political folks. peace, janz

Peacejanz wrote: "I agree. Meagles = misspelled mangles. Not a pleasant thought. I have thought of him as Mr. Mangles from the beginning.

I never thought of Dickens as passive. And Clennam seems to be a passive pe..."

Hi Peacejanz

Yes. Dickens’s personal life as well as his public and writing lives were anything but passive.

You have got me thinking about Dickens’s main protagonists in his novels. I agree that Clennam is (so far) rather passive. If we define passive as meaning that more happens to a person than a person initiates themselves other protagonists that come to mind are Esther from BH, Oliver from OT, and Little Nell from OCS. Interesting.

Yes, I am going to think about this more. I am definitely a proactive person and I just realized that I cannot write much about a passive character. Dull, inactive, just sits there. Push those brain cells. Thanks for pointing out other characters to me. I am not through with this. Is there some connection that Dickens is making? peace, janz

It took awhile to get started on this, just not much time to read due to caregiving for my husband and now Covid. But I am excited about it now and anxious to move ahead. I was happy to have Little Dorrit introduced although it does leave us in the dark for now. I do have an inkling since I have seen the PBS miniseries. There are a good many questions already regarding the other characters who I am sure we will see again. I am especially interested in the Clennam family who seems rather interesting. I would like to see Arthur Clennam move into a happier period of his life though I have a feeling it will not happy quickly.

Peter wrote: "I agree that Clennam is (so far) rather passive. If we define passive as meaning that more happens to a person than a person initiates themselves ..."

I agree, and he is almost willfully passive in the sense that he seems to be blaming other people for his life not working out the way he wants it. In light of his passivity I'm not sure why I find him the most intriguing character so far--maybe because he seems on the edge of changing his ways?

Kate wrote: "Hello everyone

This is the first time I've posted in a very long time, but glad to be back to talk about Little Dorrit.

This is the first time I have read this novel and I can say it's immediatel..."


Hi Kate, I missed you!

Here come the illustrations, there are pretty many for this installment. This surprised me at first because I wouldn't have considered this to be a well known book of Dickens. The second surprise I had was something that has never happened to me before. When I typed "Little Dorritt illustrations" or something like that all I got were pictures from different Little Dorritt movies. I didn't even know there was one LD movie let alone enough to fill the entire page with pictures of them. So it took me a tiny bit more effort to get to the illustrations than usual, but here they are:


The Birds in the Cage

Chapter 1

Phiz

Text Illustrated:

The man who lay on the ledge of the grating was even chilled. He jerked his great cloak more heavily upon him by an impatient movement of one shoulder, and growled, "To the devil with this Brigand of a Sun that never shines in here!"

He was waiting to be fed, looking sideways through the bars that he might see the further down the stairs, with much of the expression of a wild beast in similar expectation. But his eyes, too close together, were not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in his, and they were sharp rather than bright-pointed weapons with little surface to betray them. They had no depth or change; they glittered, and they opened and shut. So far, and waiving their use to himself, a clockmaker could have made a better pair. He had a hook nose, handsome after its kind, but too high between the eyes by probably just as much as his eyes were too near to one another. For the rest, he was large and tall in frame, had thin lips, where his thick moustache showed them at all, and a quantity of dry hair, of no definable colour, in its shaggy state, but shot with red. The hand with which he held the grating (seamed all over the back with ugly scratches newly healed), was unusually small and plump; would have been unusually white but for the prison grime.

The other man was lying on the stone floor, covered with a coarse brown coat.

"Get up, pig!" growled the first. "Don't sleep when I am hungry."

"It's all one, master," said the pig, in a submissive manner, and not without cheerfulness; 'I can wake when I will, I can sleep when I will. It's all the same."

As he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratched himself, tied his brown coat loosely round his neck by the sleeves (he had previously used it as a coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement yawning, with his back against the wall opposite to the grating.

"Say what the hour is," grumbled the first man.

"The mid-day bells will ring — in forty minutes." When he made the little pause, he had looked round the prison-room, as if for certain information.

"You are a clock. How is it that you always know?"

"How can I say? I always know what the hour is, and where I am. I was brought in here at night, and out of a boat, but I know where I am. See here! Marseilles harbour;' on his knees on the pavement, mapping it all out with a swarthy forefinger; "Toulon (where the galleys are), Spain over there, Algiers over there. Creeping away to the left here, Nice. Round by the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine Ground. City there; terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here, Porto Fino. Stand out for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia, so away to — hey! there's no room for Naples;" he had got to the wall by this time; "but it's all one; it's in there!"

He remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow-prisoner with a lively look for a prison. A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though rather thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his grotesque brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown throat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown breast. Loose, seaman-like trousers, decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and a knife in it. — Ch. 1, "Sun and Shadow,".

Commentary:

The opening scene in the prison Marseilles is in the artistic mode of the dark plates, in which here as in Bleak House in particular, Phiz's viewer struggles to understand what is happening in the darkened cell, and, after reading the accompanying text in Book One, Chapter 1, to discern the faces of the jailor and his young daughter as well as those of the mismatched cellmates. The style of the illustration, the obscuring and baffling but also highly atmospheric mode of the dark plate whose potential for reader engagement, Phiz had explored extensively in Bleak House, prepares the reader for the scenes in the Marshalsea and the complicated plot involving the criminal suppression of a will:

What would usually be background is now the centre of interest. Human figures, when present, are small and insignificant, while of the ten dark plates the first four and last two have no figures at all . . . On Browne's part the development of this mode shows the depth of his response to Dickens's writing at this time, for it is ideally suited to conveying the oppressive gatherings of fog and darkness in human affairs so powerfully presented in the novel. Browne's small fugitive figures reflect not only Lady Dedlock's situation [in Bleak House, but also the novel's general intimation of the pitiable helplessness and isolation of hounded human beings. [Harvey 152, 153]

In contrast, in Harry Furniss's re-interpretation, the pen-and-ink drawing reverses foreground and background, as the jailor and his child become the central figures in the pen-and-ink drawing, and the prisoners mere faces at the bars in Feeding the Birds. Daring to begin is sequence of forty illustrations that leaves the viewer literally in the dark, Phiz emphasizes the impenetrable gloom and uncomfortable dankness of the prison cell even at noon, setting the key-note for the experience of the Dorrits in the Marshalsea.

The prisoners Rigaud and Caveletto are, likewise, the focal point in Felix Octavius Carr Darley's frontispiece entitled Feeding the Birds, a title that suggests that the American illustrator was sharpening Phiz's original conception. Whereas Darley emphasizes the villainous Rigaud, a satanically-bearded, gentlemanly accused murderer who in England adopts the pseudonym "Blandois," Phiz has the reader experience extreme puzzlement as to the nature of scene and the cause of the incarceration of two very different prisoners.

A rather different interpretation of the ill-sorted pair of prisoners occurs in the 1867 Diamond Edition by Sol Eytinge, Jr. illustration Rigaud and Cavaletto (Chapter One, "Sun and Shadow"). Although Phiz's images of Rigaud are acceptable for establishing the novel's dominant tone, Eytinge's character study captures more of Rigaud's robustness and deviousness, qualities which render him a foil to the good-hearted peasant, Cavaletto. The American editions of the 1860s appear not to have influenced such later British interpretations as James Mahoney's in the 1870s Household Edition, the full title for the wood-engraving being:

In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its chambers, so repulsive a place, that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men. — Book I, chap. 1.

Like Harry Furniss in his 1910 narrative-pictorial sequence for the novel, Darley floods the scene with light. However, in the Furniss composition, the illustrator shows the same scene from outside the prison bars, as if Rigaud and Giovanni Battista are animals in a cage, and the jailor and his daughter visitors at a zoo. To aid the reader in focussing on the passage in chapter one realised in the dark plate, Phiz has referred to Rigaud and Cavalletto as "birds" and their cell as a "cage," thereby dehumanizing them. Furniss and Phiz show the upper-class villain and elemental Italian as equals in their captivity, despite the differences in diet that wealth and poverty create even in prison. Ironically, the Frenchman accused of killing his wife fares better in captivity than the Italian brought up on charges of smuggling.

The dark plate in the original edition has a strong diagonal in the shaft of light that crosses the cell from the bars in the window, upper left, highlighting the head of Blandois, looking out the cell window, to the lower right, the glum expression on Cavaletto's face and the repast on the stone floor. The arch becomes a proscenium, suggesting a theatrical opening, with these initial speakers as a kind of antiphonal chorus. The expectant, alert, slender figure of Blandois suggests hope; the closed posture and sad expression on the Italian prisoner's suggest resignation.

Feeding the birds

Chapter 1

Felix O. C. Darley

Text Illustrated:

the prison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four years old, and a basket.

"How goes the world this forenoon, gentlemen? My little one, you see, going round with me to have a peep at her father's birds. Fie, then! Look at the birds, my pretty, look at the birds." . . . "Poor birds!" said the child.

The fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped shrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel's in the prison. John Baptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good attraction for him. The other bird remained as before, except for an impatient glance at the basket.

"Stay!" said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer ledge of the grate, "she shall feed the birds. This big loaf is for Signor John Baptist. We must break it to get it through into the cage. So, there's a tame bird to kiss the little hand! This sausage in a vine leaf is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again — this veal in savoury jelly is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again — these three white little loaves are for Monsieur Rigaud. Again, this cheese — again, this wine — again, this tobacco — all for Monsieur Rigaud. Lucky bird!" [Ch. 1, "Sun and Shadow," I]

Commentary:

The scene is a prison cell in Marseilles about 1820 in the month of August, and the characters depicted in the Darley frontispiece are Monsieut Rigaud, a wealthy Frenchman accused of murdering his wife, and John Baptist Cavalletto, a Genoese smuggler, for whom the turnkey and his daughter have radically different meals as Rigaud can afford to supplement the spartan prison diet with a number of luxuries. The illustration makes it clear that the novel begins inside a prison cell, the first of a number of such institutions and buildings in Little Dorrit, whose central symbol is the Marshalsea, the notorious debtors' prison in which the novelist's own father, John, was incarcerated in the 1820s. Not evident in the cavernous darkness of Phiz's The Birds in the Cage (Book One, Chapter 1), the jailor and his young daughter, faces at the bars, are subordinated in Darley's frontispiece to the villainous Rigaud. Albeit a secondary character, Darley's Rigaud is a realistic version of the bearded, satanic foreigner, an "other" to the novel's smooth-faced Englishmen.

A rather different interpretation of the ill-sorted pair of prisoners occurs in the 1867 Diamond Edition by Sol Eytinge, Jr. illustration Rigaud and Cavaletto (Chapter One, "Sun and Shadow"). Although Phiz's images of Rigaud are acceptable for establishing the novel's dominant tone, Darley's frontispiece captures more of Rigaud's robustness and deviousness, qualities which render him a foil to the good-hearted peasant, Cavaletto. Darley's technical triumph becomes apparent when one regards these parallel illustrations, for Darley's composition contains enough plausible illumination to show the prisoners, and also contains the figures with whom we enter the scene in the text, the jailor and his four-year-old daughter, an angelic visage juxtaposed against the satanic face of the gentlemanly murderer of his wife, Rigaud.

Rigaud and Cavalletto

Sol Eytinge

Commentary:

Here the characters are clearly situated in a prison cell (in fact, as we learn from the text, the Marseilles Prison), as emphasized by the lattice-work of iron bars in the window and the thickness of the stone wall. The dual character presentation is a study in binary opposites; it depends for its effectiveness on the extreme contrast between the cell-mates, for Monsieur Rigaud (standing, left) is suave, composed, well-dressed, and dominant, while Cavelletto (seated, right) seems almost simian, a Darwinian throwback with thick hair, in contrast to Rigaud's much trimmer hair style, and peasant clothing in contrast to the other's gentlemanly, cosmopolitan attire. As a somewhat hairsuit individual in Eytinge's wood-cut Cavalletto is worthy of his Christian names , "John Baptiste" (as Dickens notes in Pictures from Italy, the most common masculine name in Genoa, where the writer spent much of 1844). Eytinge distinguishes the two in terms of the text, for whereas tall Rigaud is "sinister" Cavalletto is specifically a "little man" squatting on the pavement "contentedly," a merry, good-hearted, earthy sort of fellow. However, whereas only the diabolic Rigaud is apparently smoking in the 1871 illustration, in the text both have lit cigarettes. Since Rigaud is standing and their midday meal finished, the passage illustrated is likely this:

"I am a," — Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it, — "I am a cosmopolitan gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss, — Canton de Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world."

His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip, within the folds of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his companion and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he was rehearsing for the President [of the Justice Tribunal, about to pass judgment on Rigaud for the murder of his wife], whose examination he was shortly to undergo, rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a person as John Baptist Cavalletto. [Chapter One, "Sun and Shadow,"]

In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison.

Chapter 1

James Mahoney

Commentary:

Blandois Rigaud in the Mahoney plate is a realistic version of the bearded, satanic foreigner, an "other" to the novel's smooth-faced Englishmen. There is more than a whiff of Brimstone about Rigaud Blandois in the Mahoney illustrations as he is depicted smoking in his initial appearance, bearded, self-confidant, perpetually smiling. A pool of light, presumably emanating from the cell's small window, contains Mahoney's initial and enables the artist to show a niche in the back wall, the straw on the floor, and Rigaud's resigned cellmate, the affable Genoese smuggler Giovanni Battista.

Feeding the Birds

Chapter 1

Harry Furniss

Commentary:

The caption, perhaps by the series editor rather than the illustrator, focuses on the contrast between the soft hands of the professional criminal and the hardened hands of the Italian peasant: The jailor's little daughter put the dainties between the bars into the soft, smooth, well-shaped hand of Monsieur Rigaud, and a lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John Baptist. The writer's intention seems to be to demonstrate the social differences between the cell-mates who stare out through the bars. Furniss's re-interpretation of the opening scene in Marseilles is the reverse of Phiz's The Birds in the Cage in that, whereas the faces of the jailor and his young daughter are barely discernible in the original, they become the central figures in this 1910 pen-and-ink drawing. Rather than emphasize the darkness and darkness of the cell, Furniss shows two sets of bars and a very substantial stone staircase to imply the stoutness of the walls.

Furniss subordinates his ill-kempt prisoners to the figure of the jailor and his daughter, in complete contrast to their being the focal point in Felix Octavius Carr Darley's frontispiece entitled Feeding the Birds (see below). Whereas Darley emphasizes the villainous Rigaud, Furniss has the reader experience the scene from the perspective of someone outside the cell. Furniss does not initially introduce Blandois-Rigaud as an "other" (a sophisticated but dangerous bearded foreigner) to the novel's smooth-faced Englishmen, but as a caged beast with a snout who will do damage if he is released or escapes the confines of his cage.

Like Furniss in his 1910 narrative-pictorial sequence for the novel, American illustrator Darley floods the scene with light. However, in the later composition, Furniss shows the same scene from outside the prison bars, as if Rigaud and Cavaletto are animals in a cage, and the jailor and his daughter visitors at a zoo. To aid the reader in comparing the textual description and illustration, Furniss has provided an extensive quotation beneath the lengthy title, changing the wording so that the passage can stand alone: "The jailor's daughter put the dainties between the bars into the soft, smooth, well-shaped hand of Monsieur Rigaud . . . and a lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John Baptist."

The modification of the passage emphasizes the class differences between the two prisoners, differences all too evident in the food each receives. Furniss, however, shows them as equals in their captivity.

Under the Microscope

Chapter 2

Phiz

The Observer stood with her hand upon her own bosom, looking at the girl.

Chapter 2

James Mahoney

Text Illustrated:

The visitor stood looking at her with a strange attentive smile. It was wonderful to see the fury of the contest in the girl, and the bodily struggle she made as if she were rent by the Demons of old.

"I am younger than she is by two or three years, and yet it's me that looks after her, as if I was old, and it's she that's always petted and called Baby! I detest the name. I hate her! They make a fool of her, they spoil her. She thinks of nothing but herself, she thinks no more of me than if I was a stock and a stone!" So the girl went on.

"You must have patience."

"I won't have patience!"

"If they take much care of themselves, and little or none of you, you must not mind it."

I will mind it."

"Hush! Be more prudent. You forget your dependent position."

"I don't care for that. I'll run away. I'll do some mischief. I won't bear it; I can't bear it; I shall die if I try to bear it!"

The observer stood with her hand upon her own bosom, looking at the girl, as one afflicted with a diseased part might curiously watch the dissection and exposition of an analogous case.

The girl raged and battled with all the force of her youth and fulness of life, until by little and little her passionate exclamations trailed off into broken murmurs as if she were in pain. By corresponding degrees she sank into a chair, then upon her knees, then upon the ground beside the bed, drawing the coverlet with her, half to hide her shamed head and wet hair in it, and half, as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have nothing to take to her repentant breast.

"Go away from me, go away from me! When my temper comes upon me, I am mad. I know I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, and sometimes I do try hard enough, and at other times I don't and won't. What have I said! I knew when I said it, it was all lies. They think I am being taken care of somewhere, and have all I want.

Sorry I can't give you the commentary yet, the entire thing is a spoiler.

"Nothing changed," said the traveller, stopping to look round.

Chapter 3, Book 1

James Mahoney

Text Illustrated:

Mr. Arthur Clennam took up his hat and buttoned his coat, and walked out. In the country, the rain would have developed a thousand fresh scents, and every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful form of growth or life. In the city, it developed only foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained, wretched addition to the gutters.

He crossed by St. Paul's and went down, at a long angle, almost to the water's edge, through some of the crooked and descending streets which lie (and lay more crookedly and closely then) between the river and Cheapside. Passing, now the mouldy hall of some obsolete Worshipful Company, now the illuminated windows of a Congregationless Church that seemed to be waiting for some adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and discover its history; passing silent warehouses and wharves, and here and there a narrow alley leading to the river, where a wretched little bill, Found Drowned, was weeping on the wet wall; he came at last to the house he sought. An old brick house, so dingy as to be all but black, standing by itself within a gateway. Before it, a square court-yard where a shrub or two and a patch of grass were as rank (which is saying much) as the iron railings enclosing them were rusty; behind it, a jumble of roots. It was a double house, with long, narrow, heavily-framed windows. Many years ago, it had had it in its mind to slide down sideways; it had been propped up, however, and was leaning on some half-dozen gigantic crutches: which gymnasium for the neighbouring cats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, and overgrown with weeds, appeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance.

"Nothing changed," said the traveller, stopping to look round. "Dark and miserable as ever. A light in my mother's window, which seems never to have been extinguished since I came home twice a year from school, and dragged my box over this pavement. Well, well, well!"

He went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved work of festooned jack-towels and children's heads with water on the brain, designed after a once-popular monumental pattern, and knocked. A shuffling step was soon heard on the stone floor of the hall, and the door was opened by an old man, bent and dried, but with keen eyes. — Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 3, "Home,"

Commentary:

Arthur Clennam returns to London after an absence of many years in China, where he has been managing the family business. London offers little entertainment, for it is Sunday. Denying himself even the small pleasure of putting up at a coffee house near St. Paul's Cathedral, thirty-something Arthur Clennam feels compelled return to the family mansion, now falling apart, and see his Calvinistic mother, a bitter, wheel-chair-bound invalid.

In the London edition, we encounter the illustration in the midst of the second chapter, "Fellow Travellers," seven pages ahead of the passage realised, so that we anticipate the arrival of the well-dressed young man, umbrella in hand, at the ruined entrance of the dilapidated London mansion, although Mahoney makes it look more like the entrance to a cemetery. The wood-engraving is as dark and melancholy as the opening paragraph of the third chapter, "Home."

At first blush, the gentleman with the large umbrella would seem to be entering a rundown cemetery. Decaying cement and stone, rusting area bars, and what appears to be a large monument (centre) form our impressions of the gloomy, urban scene with multiple chimneys in the background (upper right). Such details accord well with the opening mood of the chapter: "It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale". Clearly, Arthur Clennam would rather stay at the cheery inn rather than return home through the melancholy, sooty, deserted streets, but he realizes that he has no choice but to revisit the house of his childhood with its redolent associations of oppressive Sundays. Although the house seems unchanged, it is now propped up by enormous timbers.

The "traveller" in the act of closing up his umbrella in preparation for entering the dilapidated mansion in a mixed housing and industrial area in London is Arthur Clennam, a thirty-year-old businessman just returned from the family's office in China, presumably Hong Kong. Absent for a decade, the young man in sensible middle-class black has been recalled home after his father's death. But his mother, the stern Calvinist and hard businesswoman, Mrs. Clennam, does not really require his assistance (which she would regard as interference as she has the services of her confidential clerk, the equally secretive Jeremiah Flintwinch. For Arthur this is a house of secrets, and returning means that he must once again confront them and try to maintain some sort of relationship with his unloving mother, now a bitter invalid, confined to a wheelchair and a second-story bedroom.


Oh, I think person writing the commentary has Arthur's age and how long he's been away wrong, but I didn't go back and check yet.

"But what - hey? - Lord forgive us!"

Chapter 4

James Mahoney

Text Illustrated:

Mrs. Flintwinch crossed the hall, feeling its pavement cold to her stockingless feet, and peeped in between the rusty hinges on the door, which stood a little open. She expected to see Jeremiah fast asleep or in a fit, but he was calmly seated in a chair, awake, and in his usual health. But what — hey? — Lord forgive us! — Mrs. Flintwinch muttered some ejaculation to this effect, and turned giddy.

For, Mr. Flintwinch awake, was watching Mr. Flintwinch asleep. He sat on one side of the small table, looking keenly at himself on the other side with his chin sunk on his breast, snoring. The waking Flintwinch had his full front face presented to his wife; the sleeping Flintwinch was in profile. The waking Flintwinch was the old original; the sleeping Flintwinch was the double, just as she might have distinguished between a tangible object and its reflection in a glass, Affery made out this difference with her head going round and round. — Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 4, "Mrs. Flintwinch has a Dream,".

Commentary:

The Clennam maid Affery, Flintwinch's wife, dreams (or apprehends while only half-awake) that she sees her husband with his double in the middle of the night. That Jeremiah Flintwinch has a double gives him the preternatural power of seeming to be in two places at once, and the double has the added advantage for Jeremiah of terrifying Affery and making her believe that she is delusional.

In this dark plate, reminiscent of the style of Phiz in Bleak House Mahoney captures Affery's fugue state, using chiaroscuro to suggest that the light from the room is illuminating both her face and her understanding, as she attempts to observe them and overhear their conversation. Mahoney here is also far more sympathetic to Affery as his rendition of her is neither distorted nor awkward: we are to take her character seriously here, and trust her perception, even if in the illustration she is looking through an open door rather than through "the rusty hinges on the door," as in the text, from her perch at the bottom of the solid staircase, its magnitude and solidity suggested by the oversized newel post.

I love the dichotomy Furniss and Darley show us between the treacherous Rigaud and the innocent child. It's creepy, and I can't help but think that the scene is foreshadowing some battle between good and evil, innocence and depravity.

Thanks, Kim. And when we're done reading, you really should see the BBC version of Little Dorrit, which is very good.

I agree, Mary Lou, I saw that a number of years ago but I am anxious to see it again after we read it. It was very good.

Thanks Mary Lou and Bobbie. I'll have to look for it when we're done reading. Or I suppose I could look for it before, it's not going to be a spoiler, I've read this book often, something I'm always happy about when I'm reading through commentary and cutting out the spoilers. :-)

Kim wrote: "

Under the Microscope

Chapter 2

Phiz

"

Thanks for the juxtaposition of these two drawings, Kim, because they give us the chance to see how just little changes in posture can result in an entirely different mood. The first etching is the one we will find in the book, and it has both Tattycoram and Miss Wade in an attitude that shows withdrawal into themselves: Tatty is curling up like a child that is afraid, but also likely to go into a tantrum, and Miss Wade is half averted from, half drawn towards the spectacle in front of her. This may show that for all her reticence - the narrator makes a lot of it, saying that we don't know whether it only arises on her own part or on that of the other travellers, too -, she is fascinated by Tatty, probably for reasons we are going to get to know later.

The second illustration is clearly inferior: Miss Wade only looks forbidding and disgusted and there is no trace of fascination or sympathy in her, and Tatty's posture is downright melodramatic. Interestingly, it anticipates a movement of the hand which Dickens will use for Mrs. Clennam in the next instalment - I won't consider this little hint as a spoiler - and which is going to be characteristic of Clennam's mother. Maybe, Dickens interfered here and told Phiz that he shouldn't use this posture for Tatty? Who knows.

Kim

Thank you. Yes indeed, as Tristram says, the contrast between message 41 (Phiz) and 42 (Mahoney) shows two methodologies of illustration. Phiz is intricate, delicate, and emblematic. Mahoney is a good example of where 19C book illustration was heading. The great 19C artist/illustrator Millais heads the school of illustrations to come like we see in Mahoney.

Naturally, I like Phiz best. It has already been noted how hands seem to play an important role in this novel as well. Yes indeed. Look at the placement of the hands of both women. We can see how Phiz changed the placement of Tattycoram’s hands from the draft to the final print. Hands, yes I think we need to keep our eyes on how hands are both described and illustrated in this novel.

Hi Kim

Thank you. It's great to be back. I didn't realise how much I missed our discussions.

Love the pictures, as always.

I'm off to read the next section.