A Dickens of a Resolution

NQUESTIONABLY, Charles Dickens had an inventive genius, but for certain former students who were "encouraged" to read his novels in their youth, he also has considerable baggage. So it wasn't until a bit later in life--and with the encouragement of another student/colleague who was taking a course in nineteenth-century English literature--that I found the nerve to read my first Dickens novel, and a hefty one at that: Bleak House. Reader, it is a wondrous tale (wait until you read about the rag-and-bone man). After Bleak House, I gobbled up more of the Victorian master's fare: Dombey & Son, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and A Tale of Two Cities; yet Bleak House remains my all-time favorite. By the end of this juicy feast, I was completely bloated with Charles Dickens and stopped reading him entirely.

Toward the end of this year I heard from yet another friend who was all fired up by Charles Dickens. "Hmm," I thought, "Might it be time once again to pick up one of his tales?" I chose The Old Curiosity Shop, the story of the journey and hardships of Little Nell, first serialized in 1840-41 in Master Humphrey's Clock. With seventy-three chapters, this saga could take quite a while to plow through, but reading it as originally published by the author--a few chapters at a time--seems almost effortless. Plus, I like to savor Dickens, the way I savor tiny morsels of my favorite foods.

Populated with eccentric characters, unforgettable scenes, and language at once comic, tragic, and brilliant ("a pestiferous old slaughter house" is a memorable line), The Old Curiosity Shop and its main character had become, by the time of his death, Dickens' trademark. Reading this story in the twenty-first century, after the rise and decline of interest in Little Nell, is for me a sort of revelation, and an antidote for the hustle and bustle at the close of 2009.

So here's my resolution for the New Year: I will read at least one story or novel (to the end) by Charles Dickens every year. I'll check back next year around this time with the results for 2010. Happy New Year!

Images: "The Old Curiosity Shop," Master Humphrey's Clock, vol. 1 (1841)
Courtesy Grabhorn Collection on the History of  Printing & the Development of the Book
San Francisco Public Library

The novels of Charles Dickens may be borrowed from the Main  Library and most branches. For more on the life and work of this great novelist and social reformer, read the essay "Victorian Novelists Before 1885," in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 21; and his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, volume 5. For readers with San Francisco Public Library cards, these resources are also available in the online databases Literature Resource Center and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Biographies, letters, literary criticism, and the periodicals published by Dickens (Household Words, All the Year Round) may also be found in the library's collections. To learn about nineteenth century London (and before), take a look at this incredible three-volume gazetter:  London, Past and Present; Its History, Associations, and Traditions by Henry B. Wheatley (1891). As always, when in doubt, ask a librarian!