Global Dickens: For Every Nation Upon Earth

Think of Charles Dickens and place, and it is England in general that springs to mind and London in particular. London is where he largely lived and worked. London provided the backdrop to many of his novels and constituted a self-replenishing source of subject matter for his journalism. But Dickens was restless and ventured far beyond his adopted city and his native land, travelling to and around Europe and North America and then drawing on those overseas adventures and experiences for his work. As he wrote in a letter in 1843: “I should unquestionably fade away from the public for a year, and enlarge my stock of description and observation by seeing countries new to me.”

His fiction is studded with scenes set in foreign lands. There is the evocative opening chapter of Little Dorrit with its vivid description of Marseilles broiling in the sun – “a fact to be strongly smelt and tasted”. Towards the end of David Copperfield, the grief-stricken hero leaves England for Switzerland and finds “sublimity and wonder in the dread heights and precipices, in the roaring torrents, and the wastes of ice and snow.” A great chunk of Martin Chuzzlewit is devoted to the protagonist’s travels in America – and his increasing disillusionment at what the Land of the Free has to offer. “Most strangers – and partick’larly Britishers – are much surprised by what they see in the U-nited States,” remarks Mrs Hominy at one point. “They have excellent reason to be so, ma’am,” Martin replies with cool restraint, before drily adding: “I was never so much surprised in all my life.” And of course A Tale of Two Cities chronicles the best of times and the worst of times in Paris as well as London.

Some of Dickens’ finest non-fiction is his travel writing. American Notes, his candid account of his first visit to the New World in 1842, comprises commentary on cities, states, and what his biographer Peter Ackroyd calls “the mournful institutions of American life” – workhouses, prisons, asylums, orphanages – together with biting criticism and condemnation of everything from slavery, to spitting, to the corrupt press. At his journey’s end, Dickens concluded that America was “not the Republic of my imagination.” His other warts-and-all travelogue, Pictures from Italy, once again describes an extended stay: individual chapters on the likes of Rome, Genoa and Venice (“this strange Dream upon the water”) read like detailed postcards, while the add-on section “A Rapid Diorama” serves up more condensed snapshots of Naples, Florence and Pompeii. Elsewhere in All the Year Around and Household Words – the weekly magazines Dickens founded – we find impressionistic sketches on journeying further afield. “Our French Watering-Place” is a charming depiction of Boulogne-sur-Mer where Dickens lived during various summers in the 1850s. “Travelling Abroad” is a zestful semi-autobiographical dispatch from his tour through Switzerland and France – and contains a startling disclosure: “Whenever I am in Paris, I am dragged by invisible force into the Morgue.”

An insightful exhibition at the Charles Dickens Museum, in London, shines a valuable light on the author’s international travels and his relationship with the world. Global Dickens: For Every Nation Upon Earth retraces his steps abroad, examines the impact of his trips on his life and writing, and explores the ways in which his stories and his ideas have been translated and adapted in different countries. Spaced out over several floors of Dickens’ London home – the Bloomsbury townhouse into which he moved with his young family in 1837 and where he wrote his early novels – the wide range of material on view is truly impressive. There is his trusty leather travelling bag which he took with him to Italy when he climbed Vesuvius; the rosewood portable writing desk, complete with ink bottles and pens, which accompanied him on his later travels; and the reading desk he used on his hugely profitable second tour of America (earnings from which made up approximately a quarter of his estate on his death in 1870). We also see a leather cigar case inscribed with a quote from Nicholas Nickleby, which was given to him as a good luck gift before he set sail for America. Similarly, there is an engraved silver cup which he received as a thank you for his participation in a play in Montreal. Whether reading to audiences abroad or acting in front of them, Dickens was clearly always performing.

The exhibited letters to friends and family reveal Dickens’ expertise in French and Italian. They also routinely showcase his opinions on places, features and events on his itineraries. Niagara Falls bowls him over: “Turner’s most imaginative drawing in his finest day, has nothing in it so ethereal, so gorgeous in fancy, so celestial.” The “Boz Ball”, held in honour of “the British Lion” in New York, is “the most splendid, gorgeous, brilliant affair.” He gushes about American railroads but relays his terror of sailing by steamer (“Oh! It is a most damnable invention out upon the wide ocean”). In one letter he discusses the ambitious prospect of a reading tour to India and Australia; in another from America he vents his frustration (“How cheerfully would I turn from this land of freedom and spittoons – of crowds, and noise, and endless rush of strangers – of everything public and nothing private”) and yearns for the simple comforts of “dear, old, hearty home”.

There are numerous diverting mementos, curiosities and souvenirs on display. More interesting, however, are the exhibits which demonstrate Dickens’ far-reaching influence: international editions of his books, French sheet music, Swedish film posters, a manga version of A Christmas Carol and a playbill for a performance of The Pickwick Papers at the famous Gorky Bolshoi Drama Theatre (the corresponding caption informing us that Dickens was regarded as a socialist hero in Russia). But perhaps the most remarkable object on show is the stained and battered copy of David Copperfield that Captain Scott and his team took to the Antarctic in 1910 on their ill-fated Terra Nova expedition. Scott’s men read a chapter every night for sixty nights to stave off boredom and boost morale while stranded in an ice cave for seven months. One member of the group, geologist Raymond E Priestley, wrote that when they finished David’s adventures they were “very sorry to part with him.”

When Dickens launched Household Words in 1850, he said that the journal would not only address the interests of Great Britain but would also speak to “every nation upon earth.” Dickens’ writing did that then and it continues to do so today. This fascinating exhibition celebrates both a seasoned traveller and a global author.

Global Dickens: For Every Nation Upon Earth is exhibited at the Charles Dickens Museum, London, until November 3.