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Three Early Works Attributed to Dickens
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
One unfortunate result of Charles Dickens's great popularity and of the lack of an international copyright law in his time was that many publications were wrongly attributed to him in the United States. Mr. B. W. Matz in the Dickensian for 1925, gives an excellent account of the articles reprinted in America from Household Words with Dickens's name fraudulently attached; and many other similarly erroneous publications could be added to Mr. Matz's list. The greater number of these appeared during the 1850's, and their style and content are so patently uncharacteristic of Dickens that without question they were merely unscrupulous attempts to trade on his reputation. More plausibly an error was the ascription to Dickens of “Some Passages in the Life of Francis Loose-fish, Esq.,” published with the “Tuggs's at Ramsgate” and other tales by Carey, Lea, and Blanchard in 1837. In reality, “Francis Loosefish” was the first of several sketches about that character by Charles Whitehead, and appeared in the second number of the Library of Fiction* which he edited, and to the first and third numbers of which Dickens contributed. If Carey, Lea, and Blanchard knew only that “Francis Loosefish” was by an unidentified editor, their error in ascribing it to Dickens is conceivable, as the characters' names and the style of many passages are distinctly Dickensian. Whitehead and Dickens were closely associated at this time; the styles of their sketches bear a marked resemblance; and the possibility of their indebtedness to each other has not been adequately considered.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1944
References
Note 1 in page 226 B. W. Matz, “Writings Wrongly Attributed to Dickens,” Dickensian, xxi (July, 1925), 128–132.
Note 2 in page 226 For example: Stories From Household Words by Charles Dickens: . . . Loaded Dice (New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1850). An advertisement on the back of the title page of this book also offered The True Story of a Coal Fire by Dickens. In Philadelphia, the T. B. Peterson publishing house sold a five-volume set of the Compete Works of Charles Dickens. Volume Five, entitled Dickens' New Stories, included the “Seven Poor Travellers” in eight parts, of which only the first and concluding parts were actually by Dickens; “Nine New Stories by the Fire,” only two of which were the authentic work of Dickens; and three other fraudulent selections which Mr. Matz discusses: “Lizzie Leigh,” “The Miner's Daughters,” and “Fortune Wildred.“
Note 3 in page 226 The Tuggs's at Ramsgate, By “Boz,” Together with Other Tales by Distinguished Writers (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1837).
Note 4 in page 226 The Metropolitan Magazine, xvi (June, 1836), 46, states that “Francis Loosefish” “by the editor” appeared in the second number of the Library of Fiction. The two-volume edition of the Library of Fiction published by Chapman and Hall, 1836–37, attaches Whitehead's name to the sketch.
Note 5 in page 226 “The Tuggs's at Ramsgate” and “The First of May” (Sketches by Boz, “Scenes,” xx).
Note 6 in page 227 The New-York Mirror, xv (October 14, 1837), 123; xvi (October 20, 1839), 339; xix (August 7, 1841), 252.
Note 7 in page 227 For a full account of the New-York Mirror, see F. L. Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1741–1850 (New York, 1930), i, 320–330.
Note 8 in page 230 See Sketches by Boz, “Scenes,” 10, and “The Tuggs's at Ramsgate“; Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter 14; and Bleak House, Chapter 19.
Note 9 in page 230 See Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter 8, Dick Swiveller: “My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass this door I will say farewell to thee“; David Copperfield, Chapter 54, Mr. Micawber: “. . . our Boat is on the shore, and our Bark is on the sea”; “Going into Society,” The Bonnet:
“My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea,
And I do not ask for more,
But I'll Go:—along with thee.“
Note 10 in page 230 The essay does not resemble Charles Whitehead's essay of a similar title, “Confessions of a Lazy Man.“
An interesting curiosity is the fact that in this very year, 1839, Bentley's Miscellany, edited by Dickens, was accused of “wholesale republications” from the New-York Mirror. Bentley, however, and not Dickens was held responsible. See the London Examiner (March 3, 1839), 133–134.
Note 11 in page 232 Dickens was in France in July, 1837; he occasionally used a French term in his correspondence [see The Nonesuch Dickens, Letters (Bloomsbury, 1938), i, 118]; and later he wrote whole letters or portions of letters in French [see ibid., 755, 756, 784, 812–813]. Although the description of his school in “Our School” cannot be taken too literally, the French master there mentioned may have had a foundation in fact, and Dickens may have studied French under such a master.
Note 12 in page 232 Ibid., 196.
Note 13 in page 234 The Nonesuch Dickens, Collected Papers (Bloomsbury, 1937), ii, 279–302.
Note 14 in page 234 Ibid., 279–282: “The Devil's Walk” and “The Churchyard.“
Note 15 in page 234 Ibid., 113–114, 123–124.
Note 16 in page 234 Ibid., 126, 137–138.
Note 17 in page 234 Refer Edward F. Payne and Henry H. Harper, The Romance of Charles Dickens and Maria Beadnell Winter (Boston, The Bibliophile Society, 1929).
Note 18 in page 235 See Footnote 15.
Note 19 in page 235 See Franklin P. Rolfe, “Additions to the Nonesuch Edition of Dickens' Letters,” Huntington Library Quarterly, v (October, 1941), 115, 140.