My blog about Charles Dickens a few days ago certainly provoked a good discussion and plenty of reaction. I commented that the view and tradition at The Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury, was that the author wrote part of Pickwick Papers when he stayed there. I said in the book: It is probable that Dickens stayed at The Lion more than twice, with some saying he wrote Pickwick Papers here.”
One expert agreed that Dickens visited Shrewsbury on a number of occasions but he is adamant he didn’t write Pickwick Papers while he was in the town.
Dr David Parker, the former curator of the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street, London, said the author most probably didn’t even write a small part of the book at The Lion.
Dr Parker, who also taught English literature at the University of Sheffield, the University of Malaya and the Open University, said: “Dickens (pictured below) started writing Pickwick Papers in 1836 when he was living in chambers at Furnival's Inn, Holborn, and finished it in 1837 when he was living at 48 Doughty Street. Much of the book was written at those two addresses.
“But Dickens was still a working journalist until, probably, November 1836, so between then and February of that year, when he began the book, bits may well have been written on journalistic assignments around the country.
“However, there's no evidence of his visiting Shrewsbury (and The Lion) before November 1, 1838, a year after he had finished Pickwick, and the letter he wrote to his wife on that date suggests it was his first visit to that part of the country.”
Since 1978, Dr Parker has concentrated his research upon Charles Dickens and when he retired from the museum in 1999 be began working chiefly on books about Dickens, including one A Companion to The Pickwick Papers.
No comments:
Post a Comment