Letter from Charles Dickens

Poet’s Corner
Westminister Abbey
November 1, 2009
All Saints Day

Dear Miss Williams,
Thank you for your recent communiqué which finds me well under the circumstance. What a surprise that your Carleton College book Club is reading the novel Little Dorrit! This novel format, 859 pages is unlike the original serialization in monthly magazines. These episodes were later published in small booklets then published as a novel. How kind of you to notice my well-drawn characters. Each episode required colorful descriptions; you call that “verbose.” How else could a precise illustration be secured from those lazy illustrators. My writing was published in series thus guaranteeing my continuing family income. There were ten mouths to feed not including my wife’s dear sister, Mary. If your Carleton College book Club planned on reading Nicholas Nickleby you would be meeting twice a year. Did you find that my satirical character names provided you with a hint of their role in advancing the plot?
Little Dorrit written in 1851 is a bit too personal for me to muse over in this century. But you must know that Little Dorrit’s dad was based on my dad, John. Father lost his position as a clerk in the navy pay office thanks to reforms and cutbacks in the British Admiralty. My working at Warren’s Blacking factory long hours left little time for formal schooling. Our family was impecunious. Even I was dreaming of Karl Marx. The imprisoned Mr. Dorrit in the (read as a novel), Little Dorrit was sent to debtors prison called the Marshalsea; so was my father. Mother lived with him. Perhaps your modern day psychotherapists can analyze my limited emotional development. This was the legal system during the Victorian Era. The condition at Marshalsea was a psychological punishment that went well beyond any humane considerations. My distaste for this system was increased while manually copying documents at the Solicitor’s office. The real story in Little Dorrit is a painful contemplation that imprisoning the body also diminishes the spirit. Marshalsea was the first home that Amy Dorrit knew and she never truly left did she?
As a young reporter my travels around the country to ferret out stories for True Son, Mirror of Parliament, Morning Chronicle, Monthly Magazine and The Evening Chronicle paid only in the experience it gave me. My later writings benefited from seeing people, observing human behavior and mannerisms. Eventually money came in for “Dinner at Poplar Walk” and “Sketches by Boz.” Once the publisher of the The Evening Chronicle paid me 150pounds. And this was not because I married his daughter.
While traveling and lecturing in the United States my observations of the cruelty of slavery left me wordless. And now you have that pot boiler of mine A Christmas Carol all over the IMAX. That fella Walt really knows a “tentpole” when he sees one. His block buster is simply pulp fiction written for cash, cash, cash. You would call me a hack writer! Does Mr. Disney mention my lovely bronze statue in Clark Park, Spruce Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To think some historians call me a philanderer; my preference ---a philanthropist.
Sincerely,
Boz