Rambles in Dickens’ Land

The great majority of English readers claim personal acquaintance with “Samivel” Weller, Mark Tapley, Oliver Twist, and many more besides: the old companions of our schoolboy days. We cherish pleasant remembrance of the familiar “green leaves” of Dombey, David Copperfield, and the rest, as they first afforded us their monthly quota of interest and enjoyment; and have always maintained intimate relations with Captain Cuttle, Tom Pinch, Mr. Peggotty, and the more recent dramatis personæ of the works of Dickens. We sympathise with Florence, Agnes, and Esther as with sisters, and keep corners of our hearts sacred to the memory of Little Nell, Paul Dombey, and the child-wife Dora.
The creations of “bonnie Prince Charlie” have thus become veritable “household words”; part and parcel of our home associations, instinct with personality and life. We never think of them as the airy nothings of imaginative fiction, but regard them as familiar friends, having “a local habitation and a name” amongst us; with whose cheerful acquaintance we could ill afford to part, and who bear us kindly company on the hot and dusty highway of our daily lives.

Charles Dickens was essentially a Londoner, always having a fond regard for the highways and by-ways of this great Metropolis, and confessedly deriving his inspiration from the varied phases of Town life and Society. We accordingly find that the main incidents and characters of his novels have here their mise en scène.

In homage to the genius of his favourite Author, the writer of the following pages has endeavoured to localise many of the more familiar associations of the great Novelist with as much exactitude as may be possible; but it must be remembered that London has undergone considerable alteration and reconstruction, during the last fifty years.

The author of this book would submit that the attempt to preserve the memory of these localities in association with their original use by “the Master,” does not “reverse the process”; but, rightly considered, may help the reader to a better comprehension of the genius and method of Dickens. The dictum of the Rev. W. J. Dawson, given a few years since in The Young Woman (referring to a previous edition of this Work), is worth consideration: “The book casts a new light upon Dickens’s methods of work, and shows us how little he left to invention, and how much he owed to exact observation.” And in this connection there may be quoted the opinion of Sir Walter Besant, who published an appreciative article in The Queen, 9th May 1896, anent these selfsame “Rambles,” which thus concludes: “With this information in your hand, you can go down the Strand and view its streets from north to south with increased intelligence and interest. I am not certain whether peopling a street with creations of the imagination is not more useful—it is certainly more interesting—than with the real figures of the stony-hearted past.”

The writer, therefore, still believes that such a Dickensian Directory as is now prepared will be found a valuable practical guide for those who may desire to visit the haunts and homes of these old friends, whose memory we cannot “willingly let die;” and to recall the many interests connected with them by the way.

R. A.
LONDON, September 20, 1899.

Ramble 1. Charing Cross to Lincoln’s Inn Fields
Ramble 2. Lincoln’s Inn to the Mansion House
Ramble 3. Charing Cross to Thavies Inn, Holborn Circus
Ramble 4. Holborn Circus to Tottenham Court Road
Ramble 5. Bank of England to Her Majesty’s Theatre
Ramble 6. Excursion to Chatham, Rochester, and Gadshill
Ramble 7. Excursion to Canterbury and Dover
Ramble 8. Excursion to Henley-on-Thames
Ramble 9. By Great Eastern Route from London to Yarmouth
Ramble 10. London to Dorking and Portsmouth