The Juvenilia of Charles Dickens: Romance and Reality

A great deal has been written about Dickens and childhood, his and those of the famous child characters in his novels; but less critical attention has been paid to his early writings for the simple reason that very few seem to have survived, and those few have often been controversial. Dickens himself left records of his early creativity and the way his child's mind transferred the magic of favorite books like the Arabian Nights and Tales of the Genii onto the external world: Common flower-pots are full of treasure, with little earth scattered on the top; trees are for Ali Baba to hide in. (1) It only matter of time before this creative experience recorded in writing, again in imitation of the exotic eastern tales. He tells us that his first attempts at authorship were certain tragedies achieved at the mature age of eight or ten, that he then produced with other children and represented with great applause to overflowing nurseries (Kitton 1900, 194). Forster records that one of these plays, Misnar, the Sultan of India, particularly popular (Life bk. 1, ch. 1); (2) but there has been no sign of an extant manuscript of Misnar or of any other childhood plays that the young Dickens wrote for family entertainment. Over the years, however, few poems and several dramatic fragments from his late teens have come to light, and we are indebted to number of Dickens scholars who have contributed significantly to our knowledge of their location and authenticity. (3) This essay is survey of the field, designed to record, first, the romance and, secondly, the reality of Dickens's early writing--before the triumph of Sketches by Boz and The Pickwick Papers established his authorial voice and set him firmly on the path of writing career. It is part of larger research project on nineteenth-century juvenilia, in which Dickens's early writing experience will be compared and contrasted to that of his contemporaries in order to explore the imaginative life and the creative practices involved in establishing the voice and authority of the young writer. Writing to Mrs. Howitt on 7 September 1859, Dickens declared: Do you care to know that great writer at 8 years old or so--was an actor and speaker from baby--and worked many childish experiences and many young struggles, into Copperfield? (Letters 9: 119). He remembered being elevated on chairs and tables by his father at the Mitre Inn, Chatham, so he could more effectively display his story-telling or singing talents (Life bk. 1, ch. 1). (4) At eight he taken to see Joseph Grimaldi, the celebrated Prince of Pantomime, whose memoirs he later edited in 1838 (Langton 30). He fascinated at an early age by performances at the Theatre Royal in Rochester, by the toy theatre and by the theatrical interests of his young relative James Lamert. An eccentric elderly barber of another relative (his uncle Thomas Barrow) inspired the young Dickens to write comic sketch: he a very odd character who was never tired of reviewing the events of the last war, and especially of detecting Napoleon's mistakes, and re-arranging his whole life for him on plan of his own (Langton 18). It is interesting to note that although he never had the courage to show this or other sketches to anyone, he early aware of his ability to capture character and told Forster he thought himself extremely clever. About the same time, around 1822-3, he wrote second sketch of a deaf old woman who waited on them in Bayham-street, and who made delicate hashes with walnut ketchup. Forster reports (presumably from Dickens's autobiographical fragment) that he used as his model the description of the canon's housekeeper in Gil Blas, suggesting that he continued his earliest practice of superimposing his fictional world onto reality (Life bk. 1, ch. 1). In chapter 11 of David Copperfield, Dickens goes some way towards analyzing his imaginative process when he has David state: I set down this remembrance (5) here, because it is an instance to myself of the manner in which fitted my old books to my altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the character shall unconsciously develop, suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all this while. …