A Twist in the Tale: Charles Dickens and Islington
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INTRODUCTION
A Twist in the Tale:
Charles Dickens
and Islington
C HARLES DICKENS (1812-70), England’s most
popular Victorian novelist, knew Islington well.
Dickens recorded life in the area and its
surroundings in fiction and in fact throughout
his career as a writer. He was particularly attracted to
Clerkenwell. The writer regularly visited this densely populated
district, drawing influences for his work from the people that
affluent Pentonville, industrious Battle Bridge and St Luke’s
Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, which he visited on the day
after Christmas 1851.
While never a resident of Islington, Charles Dickens was a
frequent visitor to the home and studio of illustrator George
Cruikshank in Amwell Street. The pair first met in 1835, with
the artist going on to create images for the writer’s early
he encountered, the buildings that he passed and the scenes works, including Sketches by Boz and, famously, Oliver Twist.
that he witnessed. Another of Dickens’s connections to the area was the Finsbury
Charles Dickens’s early descriptions of Islington and Savings Bank on Sekforde Street where, in October 1845, he
Clerkenwell are recorded in his Sketches by Boz (1836), deposited trust funds.
a collection of observational pieces. Further local settings A Twist in the Tale: Charles Dickens and Islington explores
appear in many of his works of fiction: Oliver Twist (1837-9), his connections with the Borough.
for example, features locations from Angel to Smithfield and The reader is invited to discover the streets upon which
Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) takes the reader to Holloway the great writer trod, observed and documented and where
and to Belle Isle, an area of ‘noxious trades’ to the east of his celebrated characters could be found. In doing so, bear
King’s Cross Station. witness to the invaluable social and historical record that
Dickens also documented his observations of Islington Dickens created about this unique part of north London during
in journal articles and through letter writing. He wrote about the Victorian era.
THE FORMER FINSBURY SAVINGS BANK, Sekforde Street, 2010. Dickens
deposited funds here in 1845.
CHARLES DICKENS aged 46-years in 1858, by Charles Baugniet.
CHAPTER I C H A PTE R I
Charles Dickens: influenced the publishing industry in Great
Britain into producing novels in the format
a writer’s life
of inexpensive monthly instalments.
Doughty Street
In 1837 Charles Dickens and his
C
young family moved to 48 Doughty
Street, Bloomsbury, only a short distance
from Clerkenwell. At the address Dickens
HARLES DICKENS remains
wrote Oliver Twist (1837-9), setting
one of the most popular
much of the book in this nearby Islington
writers in the history of
district. The story was a great triumph
literature. He combined
and Dickens subsequently maintained his
masterly storytelling, humour, pathos, and
fame with a constant stream of novels
irony with sharp social criticism and acute
and journal articles, many again with
observation of people and places, both
Islington connections.
real and imagined.
Early years
CHARLES DICKENS, England’s most popular
Charles John Huffam Dickens was Victorian novelist.
born on 7 February 1812 in Landport,
Portsmouth, the second of eight children. Fame
His father, John, was an assistant clerk
A man of enormous energy and wide
stationed in the town’s navy pay office.
talents, Dickens also engaged in many
However, young Charles spent most
other activities. He edited the weekly
of his childhood in London and Kent,
periodicals Household Words (1850-9)
both of which appear frequently in his
and All the Year Round (1859-1870),
novels. Dickens and his family moved to
administered charitable organisations, and
Camden Town, north London, in 1822.
pressed for many social reforms. Dickens’s
He started school at the age of nine but
extra-literary activities also included
his education was interrupted when his
managing a theatrical company that
father, mother and younger members
DICKENS HOUSE MUSEUM, 48 Doughty Street, played before Queen Victoria in 1851 and
of the family were imprisoned for debt 2011. The building is the only surviving Dickens giving public readings of his own works in
in 1824; a job for Charles was found in residence in London. England and America.
a blacking factory just off the Strand.
In 1827 Dickens took a job as a legal FRONTISPIECE TO SKETCHES BY BOZ illustrated by
Dickens as novelist Final chapter
clerk. After learning shorthand, he began George Cruikshank. As Dickens matured artistically, his
working as a court and parliamentary novels developed from tales based on In spite of international fame and
reporter, developing the power of precise were collectively published as Sketches the adventures of a central character, success, Dickens’s career was shadowed
description that was to make his creative by Boz in 1836. The same year he like The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas by domestic unhappiness. Incompatibility
writing so remarkable. married Catherine Hogarth, with whom Nickleby (1837-8) and Oliver Twist to and his relationship with a young actress,
he was to have ten children. Dickens works of important social relevance, Ellen Ternan, led to his separation from his
Career transformed another project from a set psychological insight and narrative wife in 1858. He suffered a fatal stroke
of loosely connected vignettes into a complexity. Among his later, great works on 9 June1870 and was buried five days
In December 1833 Dickens wrote
‘serialised’ comic narrative, The Pickwick are Bleak House (1852-3), Little Dorrit later at Westminster Abbey.
the first in a series of original descriptive
sketches of daily life in London, under the Papers (1836-7). Its success made (1855-7), Great Expectations (1860-1),
pseudonym ‘Boz’; these and similar pieces Dickens famous and, at the same time, it and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5).
CHAPTER II C H A PTE R II
In the footsteps of Dickens and his district of Holloway, he was less than
complimentary about its south-western
The Lane was also the route from Battle
Bridge to ‘Boffin’s Bower’, the home of
characters: Angel to Archway neighbour, Belle Isle: the novel’s ‘golden dustman’, Nicodemus
(Noddy) Boffin.
“R. Wilfer locked up his desk one
evening, and, putting his bunch of
Archway
T
keys in his pocket much as if it were While Dickens gave much of his
his peg-top, made for home. His attention to Islington’s southern locations,
home was in the Holloway region the north of the Borough was not
HERE are a number of Islington High Street north of London, and then divided completely without mention. Dickens
references to Islington and Another famous hostelry and just from it by fields and trees. Between has characters travelling through the
its northern reaches in around the corner from the Angel was the Battle Bridge and that part of the Highgate Archway: Noah Claypole and
the great fictional works Peacock Inn at 11 Islington High Street. It Holloway district in which he dwelt, Charlotte from Oliver Twist pass through
of Charles Dickens. It is still possible to is mentioned in Nicholas Nickelby (1838- was a tract of suburban Sahara, when heading for London, The Holly Tree’s
recognise some of these locations where 9) as the first stopping place of the coach where tiles and bricks were burnt, narrator comments on road conditions in
the author’s characters lived, worked that conveyed Nicholas and cruel school bones were boiled, carpets were Islington having been on a “coach rattling
or travelled. master Wackford Squeers to Bothebys beat, rubbish was shot, dogs were for Highgate Archway over the hardest
Hall in Yorkshire. Dating back to 1564, ground I have ever heard the ring of iron
Angel the Peacock is also mentioned in The Holly
fought, and dust was heaped by
shoes”, and it was “at the Archway Toll
“Here London begins in earnest…,” contractors. Skirting the border of
Tree (1855). The story’s narrator found this desert, by the way he took, when over at Highgate” that Inspector Bucket
Noah Claypole remarks to his companion “everybody drinking hot purl [an alcoholic first picked up the trail of Honoria, Lady
Charlotte in Oliver Twist (1837-9) when the light of its kiln-fires made lurid
winter drink], in self-preservation” at the smears on the fog, R. Wilfer sighed Dedlock in Bleak House (1852-3).
walking past the Angel Inn. There had inn. The Peacock closed in 1962 and shop and shook his head. ‘Ah me!’ said he, The Highgate Archway was replaced in
been an inn on this site since the 16th premises now occupy the site. ‘what might have been is not what is!’ 1900 by the present-day Archway Bridge
Century and the Angel, so named around
With which commentary on human and it served much the same purpose – a
1638, was a popular stopping place for
life, indicating an experience of it not gateway into and from London, linking the
travellers to the City. Dickens would have
exclusively his own, he made the best Great North Road with Holloway Road.
been familiar with the Angel, by then
a well-known coaching inn; the site is of his way to the end of his journey.”
now occupied by the Co-operative bank (Our Mutual Friend, Chapter IV)
on the corner of Pentonville Road and
Islington High Street. Today, the ‘Isle’ is an area of small
businesses and residential housing
between Caledonian Road and York Way;
the latter once known as Maiden Lane.
THE PEACOCK INN, Islington High Street, 1821, by
Islington-born artist James Pollard.
Battle Bridge and Holloway
For his last completed novel, Our THE HIGHGATE ARCHWAY, c.1820.
Mutual Friend (1864-5), Dickens turns
in part to Battle Bridge (King’s Cross) and
Belle Isle, an area of noxious trades to the
east of King’s Cross Station. While the
writer places the story’s Reginald Wilfer,
the kindly clerk and father of Bella, and
THE ANGEL INN, c.1850. his family in the developing residential HOLLOWAY, early -19th Century.
CHAPTER III C H A PTE R III
In the footsteps of Dickens and his Expectations (1860-1) despairingly
exclaimed, “...and the shameful place,
characters: Pentonville to Smithfield being all a smear with filth and fat and
blood and foam, seemed to stick to me.
So I rubbed it off with all possible speed.”
T HERE are several
references to the southern
part of Islington in the
works of Charles Dickens.
Clerkenwell was especially significant in
many of his stories’ narratives. Several
locations still remain recognisable in
The fictional tale of ‘The Bloomsbury
Christening’ published in Sketches by
Boz (1836) features the ill-natured
Nicodemus Dumps who “rented a
‘first-floor furnished’, at Pentonville,
which he originally took because it
commanded a dismal prospect of an
GOSWELL STREET, early-19th Century.
first morning of his travels, he throws
open his chamber window and found,
“Goswell-street was at his feet, Goswell-
street was on his right hand – as far
as the eye could reach, Goswell-street
extended on his left; and the opposite side
spite of damage sustained during the adjacent churchyard.” St James’s Chapel of Goswell-street was over the way. “
Second World War and later post-war Churchyard, now a public garden off
redevelopment. Pentonville Road, was the story’s point of Clerkenwell: people and
reference. Elsewhere in the vicinity, and
Pentonville close to the New River Head reservoir, places
were the temporary lodgings of devious In Bleak House (1852-3) Mount
Dickens chose Pentonville in which
Uriah Heep from David Copperfield Pleasant is described as a “rather ill-
to place a number of his characters. “My
(1849-50), “The ouse that I am stopping favoured, ill-savoured neighbourhood.”
own abode is lodgings in Penton Place,
at – [is] a sort of a private hotel and Adelphus Tetterby, impoverished news
Pentonville. It is lowly, but airy, open
boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near vendor, kept shop in Jerusalem Passage,
at the back, and considered one of the
the New River ed.” Clerkenwell (The Haunted Man, 1848)
‘ealthiest outlet”, said William Guppy,
and Gabriel Vardens’ locksmith shop, the
a clerk from Bleak House (1852-3),
about his home at 87 Penton Place (now In and around City Road Golden Key in Barnaby Rudge (1841), was
said to be “in a venerable suburb – it was
Rise). Another clerk, Mr Pancks in Little “‘My address,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘is
a suburb once of Clerkenwell towards that
Dorrit (1855-7), had a private address Windsor Terrace, City Road. I - in short,’
part of its confines which is nearest to the
in Pentonville and brother and sister Tom said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel
Charterhouse.”
and Ruth Pinch, from Martin Chuzzlewit air, and in another burst of confidence - ‘I
(1843-4), also lodged in the area. live there.’” So declares Wilkins Micawber Dickens returns to Clerkenwell on
in David Copperfield (1849-50) when many fictional occasions. A Tale of Two
heading home with young David via Cities (1859) has Jarvis Lorry, clerk
Finsbury Square. Today, Windsor Terrace at Tellson’s bank, walking along “sunny
features Micawber Court, an apartment streets from Clerkenwell (where he lived)”
block, and nearby Edward Street was and Mr Venus, a taxidermist featured in
renamed Micawber Street in 1937, both Our Mutual Friend (1864-5), lived in “a
commemorating Dickens’s celebrated narrow dirty street in Clerkenwell,” where
character. The City Road is also briefly he was visited by sinister ballad-seller and
referenced in Dombey and Son (1846-8). social parasite Silas Wegg.
TRADES IN CLERKENWELL GREEN as listed in
Goswell Street (now Road) is where Smithfield was the location where Robson’s London Directory, 1843. Dickens would
the benign Samuel Pickwick lodged young Barnaby Rudge helped his father have been familiar with businesses in and around
with Mrs Bardell in The Pickwick Papers discard his irons after his release from the Green.
THE NEW ROAD AT PENTONVILLE (later Newgate Prison, and where Pip in Great
Pentonville Road), early-19th Century. (1836-7). When Pickwick arises on the
CHAPTER IV C H A PTE R IV
Oliver Twist and Islington Clerkenwell was 47,634, increasing
nearly 20% in the following ten years.
(Part One) Angel to Holborn
John Dawkins (the Artful Dodger)
is Oliver’s guide south through the
O
Islington Turnpike, which once stood at
the junction of Liverpool Road (then Back
Road) and Islington High Street, past the
LIVER TWIST or The
Angel Inn and on towards Sadler’s Wells
Parish Boy’s Progress is
and beyond:
perhaps Charles Dickens’s
most enduring work.
It was originally published in Bentley’s “As John Dawkins objected to their CLERKENWELL WORKHOUSE from Vine Yard Walk,
Miscellany in monthly instalments from entering London before nightfall, it early-19th Century. Oliver and the Dodger went
down a little court by the workhouse on their way to
February 1837 until April 1839. The was nearly eleven o’clock when they visit Fagin in Holborn.
first novelisation of the tale appeared in reached the turnpike at Islington.
1838, six months before the serialisation They crossed from the Angel into The Dodger led Oliver past the
was completed. Dickens was twenty- St. John’s Road; struck down the buildings and through streets of
five-years old and living at 48 Doughty small street which terminates at Clerkenwell, their names still largely
Street (now Dickens House Museum), Sadler’s Wells Theatre; through recognisable today: Angel, Sadler’s
Bloomsbury, when he began writing Exmouth Street and Coppice Row; Wells, Exmouth Market and St John
Twist; the address is near to several down the little court by the side of Street. Coppice Row later made way for
locations in Clerkenwell that the author the workhouse; across the classic Farringdon Road and Hockley-in-the-
weaved into the story’s narrative. ground which once bore the name Hole, renamed Ray Street, was once an
of Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence 18th-century place of entertainment.
into Little Saffron Hill; and so into Today, Oliver’s route passes a mix of
Saffron Hill the Great: along which historical 19th-century housing and
the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, 20th-century commercial buildings.
directing Oliver to follow close at his
heels.” Archway and Highgate
(Oliver Twist, Chapter VIII) Even Islington’s most northern
A LATER EDITION OF OLIVER TWIST with extremities make an appearance in
illustrations by George Cruikshank. Oliver Twist. Noah Claypole and
companion Charlotte pass through the
A wretched place former Highgate Archway when travelling
Oliver Twist’s initial encounter with to London. The Archway was built in
Clerkenwell and adjacent neighbourhoods 1813 to the design of John Nash and was
was less than pleasurable, “A dirtier or replaced with the present Archway Bridge
more wretched place he had never seen… in 1900. And nearby, Bill Sikes strode up
and the air was impregnated with filthy Highgate Hill in his flight from justice.
odours. The sole places that seemed
to prosper, amid the general blight of
the place, were the public-houses.”
Overcrowding was common-place, with
the majority of residents living in poor SHOPS IN ST JOHN’S STREET ROAD (now St John
CHARLES DICKENS aged 27-years in 1839, by Street), early-19th Century.
Daniel Maclise. conditions. In 1831, the population of
CHAPTER V C H A PTE R V
Oliver Twist and Islington and up Exmouth Street…and…when it
reached the Angel at Islington, stopping
livestock market and, three years later,
the Metropolitan Cattle Market opened
(Part Two)
at length before a neat house in the shady on Copenhagen Fields, Islington.
street near Pentonville.”
Pentonville Road has since been “The ground was covered, nearly
altered by road widening and ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a
development into a semi-commercial thick steam, perpetually rising from
area, with local authority housing having the reeking bodies of the cattle, and
replaced many of its original houses and mingling with the fog, which seemed
Clerkenwell Green late-Victorian Peabody Buildings in Pear
buildings. to rest upon the chimney-tops,
Dickens describes this location as an Tree Court still hint at the claustrophobic
atmosphere of the original setting. hung heavily above… Countrymen,
“open square in Clerkenwell, which is yet butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys,
called, by some strange perversion of Clerkenwell Green is also the location
of the Middlesex Sessions House thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of
terms, ‘The Green’.” However, in spite of every low grade, were mingled
lacking any ‘greenery’, as is still the case where, later in the story, Mr Bumble the
Beadle is involved in an ill-fated legal together in a mass; the whistling
today, Clerkenwell Green was the setting of drovers, the barking dogs, the
for one of the pivotal events in Oliver hearing before “the quarter-sessions at
Clerkinwell [sic].” Completed in 1782, this bellowing and plunging of the oxen,
Twist – the titular character’s initiation the bleating of sheep, the grunting
into the art of picking pockets. grand grade II-listed building is now home
to the Central London Masonic Centre. and squeaking of pigs, the cries of
hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and
quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of
bells and roar of voices, that issued
from every public-house…and the
unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and
dirty figures constantly running to
and fro, and bursting in and out of
the throng; rendered it a stunning
and bewildering scene, which quite
confounded the senses.”
(Oliver Twist, Chapter XXI)
OLIVER IS APPREHENDED near Clerkenwell Green.
Engraving by George Cruikshank.
Smithfield Market
Oliver Twist was not to enjoy his initial
CLERKENWELL GREEN, with the Middlesex Sessions stay in Pentonville for very long. He was
House centre background, 1826. soon whisked away, back to the crime
and grime of the Clerkenwell and the City
Pentonville fringes, including a visit to the livestock
THE DODGER and Charley Bates ‘at work’ in The Clerkenwell of Oliver Twist market at Smithfield. Here, with the
Clerkenwell Green. Engraving by George Cruikshank. wasn’t entirely devoid of refinement. brutal Bill Sikes, Oliver experiences
The narrow court from which the Its northern district, Pentonville, was market day.
Artful Dodger, Charley Bates and their occupied by the genteel middle classes.
Dickens clearly felt no affection
‘apprentice’ Oliver emerge to rob Mr It is here, to his home, that the
for the market. Smithfield was then SMITHFIELD MARKET, which quite “confounded”
Brownlow is generally assumed to be benevolent Mr Brownlow takes Oliver
a dangerous place but its days were Oliver’s senses, early-19th Century.
Pear Tree Court, which is to the north following his court appearance, “The
numbered. In 1852 an Act of Parliament
of Clerkenwell Green. Today, the coach rattled away down Mount Pleasant
was passed for the construction of a new
CHAPTER VI C H A PTE R VI
Dickens Crown in Pentonville before commencing
to the Eagle, just off the City Road, where
Charles saw the clown perform there.
In 1837 Dickens was offered Grimaldi’s
and Islington further refreshment was taken!
Pentonville
unfinished Memoirs to edit. He reluctantly
accepted the commission, finding the
task a great chore, and turned to George
Dickens liked Pentonville. Early in his Cruikshank for illustrations.
D
writing career, when engaged to Catherine
Hogarth, he considered buying a house in St Luke’s Hospital for
ICKENS knew Islington “… ‘Don’t you be in a hurry, coachman,’
the area. At that time, it was occupied by Lunatics
the genteel middle classes but property Dickens attended a seasonal
well and used his replied the girl, ‘and recollect I want to
values were then beyond his means, celebration with patients at St Luke’s
personal experience of be set down in Cold Bath Fields – large
“strolled about Pentonville, thinking the air on the day after Christmas 1851. He
the area when writing house with a high garden-wall in front;
did my head good, and looked at one or describes this visit in an article, co-written
about local people and places in his you can’t mistake it’…”
two houses in the new streets. They are with William Henry Wills, titled ‘A curious
factual writings. Here are some examples. Dickens’s own wanderings on 2 May extremely dear, the cheapest being £55 a dance round a curious tree’, published in
1836 in ‘The first of May’ records him year with taxes.”
‘Boz’ in Islington heading along Maiden Lane (York Way) to Household Words on 17 January 1852.
Pentonville was to feature in some of
Sketches by Boz (1836) is a collection Copenhagen House and Fields (now the
Dickens’s most famous works, including
of short, non-fiction and fictional pieces area around Caledonian Park) and then
The Pickwick Papers (1836-7), Oliver
written by Charles Dickens under the returning towards Battle Bridge (King’s
Twist (1837-9), Little Dorrit (1855-7)
pseudonym ‘Boz’, a nickname that he Cross) where he encounters a ‘shed’
and Bleak House (1852-3).
had given his younger brother Augustus. containing a wayward party of May Day
Islington and its environs appear in a characters. He describes Battle Bridge
number of ‘sketches’. as a district “inhabited by proprietors
Sadler’s Wells Theatre,
“Fast pouring into the city, or of donkey-carts, boilers of horse-flesh, Clerkenwell
directing their steps towards Chancery- makers of tiles, and sifters of cinders.” Clerkenwell’s famous place of
lane and the Inns of Court…” is how Dickens was to revisit Battle Bridge in entertainment was founded as a music
‘Boz’ describes Islington and Pentonville Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) thirty house and health spa in the 17th Century. ST LUKE’S HOSPITAL FOR LUNATICS, Old Street,
clerks’ daily commute to work (‘The years later. Upon publication of Oliver Twist, a number early-19th Century. It mixed benevolence with
“unconscious cruelty.” Dickens was a campaigner for
Streets – Morning’). In ‘The Prisoners’ of theatrical productions of the story asylum reform.
Van’ he describes Coldbath Fields Prison were performed at the Wells, including
– now the site of the Royal Mail’s one with a buxom woman playing the The “gloomy” hospital on Old Street
Mount Pleasant Sorting Office – as the young orphan, much to Dickens’s provided free care to the impoverished
dropping off point for ‘Emily’, who has displeasure! mentally ill, mixing benevolence with
been sentenced for six weeks plus labour, Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), “unconscious cruelty” in the treatments.
the world famous clown, was a regular Dickens was critical of the care of the
performer at Sadler’s Wells; as a boy, mentally ill in such institutions. Calling for
asylum reform, he concludes ‘A curious
dance’ with an appeal to readers, “if you
MAIDEN LANE (now York Way) in 1835 by E H Dixon. can do a little in any good direction –
Dickens walked this route in May 1836, past the tile do it.”
kilns on the right and on to Copenhagen House.
St Luke’s Hospital closed in 1916. The
Local public houses did not escape building was later acquired by the Bank
Boz’s attention. Two such hostelries of England to print bank notes until the
appear in ‘Miss Evans and the Eagle’. The early-1950s and demolished in 1963.
COLDBATH FIELDS PRISON, Clerkenwell, early- piece’s revellers sample shrub, an alcoholic
19th Century. Dickens was a frequent visitor to
prisons, campaigning for reforms in the penal system. punch, with intoxicating effect, at the SADLER’S WELLS THEATRE, 1830.
CHAPTER VII C H A PTE R VII
George Cruikshank: Cruikshank’s overweight and dozy
assistant, the appropriately named Joseph
End of a friendship
The friendship between author and
Dickens’s illustrator Sleap, was to inspire Dickens’s somnolent
Joe ‘the fat boy’ in The Pickwick Papers
(1836-7).
artist did not last; biographers suggest
that Cruikshank’s inability to satisfy
Dickens commenced the long falling-off.
Their relationship soured further when
Bentley’s Miscellany
L
Cruikshank became a fanatical teetotaller
In December 1836 the publisher in opposition to Dickens’s views of
Richard Bentley, seizing an opportunity moderation.
ONDON-BORN George
to sign up the most popular writers and
Cruikshank (1792-1878)
urban artists of the day, hired Dickens to
was a graphic artist and
edit and Cruikshank to illustrate his new
book illustrator, praised as
journal, Bentley’s Miscellany.
the ‘modern Hogarth’ during his life. By
the 1820s Cruikshank had become an From January 1837 to November
acclaimed caricaturist, social campaigner 1843, Cruikshank provided Bentley
and supporter of radical causes. In 1836 with some of his best work, including
Dickens himself was described in The images for Dickens’s The Mudfog Papers
Spectator as ‘the Cruikshank of writers’. (1837–8) and Oliver Twist (1837-9); his
depictions of characters and scenes often
Amwell Street, Pentonville influenced many dramatic renditions of
this famous story. SECTION TAKEN FROM CRUIKSHANK’S LETTER
From 1823 until 1849, George
TO THE TIMES (30 December 1871) in which he
Cruikshank lived and worked at three claims to be the ‘originator’ of Oliver Twist.
addresses in Myddelton Terrace (later
renamed Claremont Square and Amwell On 30 December 1871, eighteen-
Street). A plaque between numbers 69 months after the death of Dickens,
and 71 Amwell Street commemorates Cruikshank published a letter in The Times
his last two residences and adjoining NOS 69 AND 71 AMWELL STREET, 2011. in which he claimed credit for much of the
These addresses were two former residences and plot of Oliver Twist, ”I am the originator
Cruikshank Street (formerly Bond Street) studios of George Cruikshank, illustrator of Dickens’s
is named in his honour. early work. of Oliver Twist, and that all the principle
characters are mine…” The letter launched
Cruikshank and Dickens a fierce controversy around who created
It was on 17 November 1835 at the work but, in his preface to the 1867
his Amwell Street home and studio that edition of Twist, Dickens strenuously
George Cruikshank first met Charles denied any such claim.
Dickens to discuss illustrations for George Cruikshank died on 1
Sketches by Boz, a collected work of February 1878 in his home at 263
Dickens’s accounts of London life to be Hampstead Road, Mornington Crescent,
published the following year. after a short illness. He was temporarily
Sketches was a great success, buried in Kensal Green Cemetery and
both on account of the writer’s rising later reinterred in the crypt of St Paul’s
popularity and because Cruikshank’s Cathedral as befitting ‘the modern
work introduced dynamic graphic Hogarth’.
commentaries on the subject matter.
Their partnership blossomed and the
COMMEMORATIVE PLAQUE to George Cruikshank
situated between nos 69 and 71 Amwell Street, the
artist even acted in Dickens’s amateur
artist’s former homes. theatrical company. In addition, GEORGE CRUIKSHANK aged 44-years in 1836.
CHAPTER VIII
Dickens’s
Legacy
A final farewell Selected bibliography
Dickens gave his last public reading at 8pm on 15 March Further explore Charles Dickens and London with the
1870 at St James’s Hall, London. Dickens, in grave health, read following selection of publications.
A Christmas Carol (1843) and the ‘Trial of Pickwick’ from The
Pickwick Papers (1836-7). Dickens concluded his recital with Ackroyd, Peter Dickens’ London. Headline, 1987.
the following words: Clark, Peter Dickens’s London. Haus Publishing, 2012.
Dickens, Charles & Orford, Paul(ed.) On London. Hesperus
“...from these garish lights I vanish now for evermore, Press, 2010.
with one heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate Dickens, Monica et al The London of Charles Dickens. Proof
farewell.” Books, 2006.
Garner, Paul Kenneth A walk through Charles Dickens’ London.
Louis London Walks, 2001.
Charles John Huffam Dickens died on 9 June 1870 at
Jackson, Lee A time-travellers’ guide to Dickens’ London.
his home at Gad’s Hill, Kent, aged 58-years. Five days later
Shire, 2012.
he was buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey. The
inscription on his tomb read: Paterson, Michael Inside Dickens’ London. David and Charles,
2011.
Sanders, Andrew Charles Dickens’s London. Robert Hale,
“He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering and the 2010.
oppressed, and by his death, one of England’s greatest
Schlicke, Paul (ed.) The Oxford companion to Charles Dickens.
writers is lost to the world.”
OUP, 2011.
Tomalin, Claire Charles Dickens: a life. Viking, 2011.
Tyler, Daniel(ed.) A pocket guide to Dickens’ London. Hesperus
Islington legacy Press, 2012.
Dickens chose to read from The Pickwick Papers, his
Werner, Alex & Williams, Tony Dickens’s Victorian London.
first novel, in his farewell public performance. This is a fitting
Ebury Press, 2012.
reminder of the influence Islington had on the great writer.
Samuel Pickwick was amongst the first of a number of his
characters to reside or work in the area. The author selected
Goswell Street (now Road) in which to house Pickwick and,
subsequently, chose to return to Islington for later novels and
factual articles.
Charles Dickens’s place in the Borough’s literary heritage
is assured. Through his works, and with always a ‘Twist in the
Tale’, this great Victorian writer continues to encourage the
reader to follow his footsteps and discover the Islington that
he once knew and appreciated.
ENGRAVING SHOWING DICKENS PERFORMING AT HIS FINAL PUBLIC
READING in 1870, (Illustrated London News,19 March 1870).
CHARLES DICKENS AGED 56-YEARS. In the remaining years of his life
the writer’s health declined. During one his readings in 1869 he collapsed,
showing symptoms of a mild stroke.
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