Equally intriguing is the display of a portion of the manuscript of Our Mutual Friend, which Dickens retrieved from the wreckage of a train car that he and his 26-year-old mistress Ellen Ternan had the misfortune to be traveling in when it derailed in Staplehurst, Kent, on June 9, 1865. Ten people were killed in the accident, but the author kept his wits about him, and after escaping the carriage car that hung perilously over a bridge — and after helping fellow passengers to escape — he realized he forgot to bring his manuscript with him; undaunted, he went back in and got the next installment (his books were published serially in magazines) of what was to be his last completed book.
That book won high praise from E.S. Dallas, a reviewer for The Times, who called its author a "genius" and marveled at his "careful and painstaking work." Dickens was touched and returned the favor. He gave Dallas the manuscript of Our Mutual Friend, writing in a letter to him in 1865: "[Y]ou could not write of my work of love in such a way, without thoroughly knowing what I would feel in reading your words. . . . But as you have divined what pains I bestowed upon the book, perhaps you might set some little value on the Manuscript, as your corroboration . . . and . . . as a token of my grateful regard." Today the Morgan is in possession of the complete manuscript, the only manuscript of a Dickens novel this side of the Atlantic.
Other highlights of this exhibit include George Cruikshank's original watercolor drawings from Oliver Twist, replicas of the 24 engraved illustrations he produced for Dickens' second novel, published serially between 1837 and 1839. Cruikshank traced the outlines of his original drawings for Frederick William Cosens, an art patron and Dickens collector. These small, highly detailed watercolors include Oliver famously asking for more at the workhouse. As the curators relate: "Cruikshank’s iconic, melodramatic illustration perfectly conveys Oliver’s timid supplication and the master’s surprise and outrage. Cruikshank augmented the force of Dickens’s narrative by adding the figure of the smallest boy tilting his head backward to finish every drop of gruel."
As we view the Cruikshank drawings of Fagin and his rogue pickpockets, we are reminded that Dickens was not immune to the prejudices of his day. Fagin was painted “a very shrivelled old Jew . . . villainous-looking and repulsive." Early editions of Twist characterized him very concisely: "the Jew." But in response to criticism of his anti-Semitic portrait, Dickens revised his text and scratched the epithet for the most part, substituting the politically correct "Fagin" for "Jew" in the new Charles Dickens Edition published in 1867.
Dickens buffs will revel in these and other choice factoids about the man, the writer and the 989 characters he imagined. For more lore, go see the show.
©2011 Val Castronovo for SeniorWomen.com
Illustrations:
1. Alfred Bryan (1852–1899). Caricature of Charles Dickens, [18--].Gift of Miss Caroline Newton. Our Mutual Friend, autograph manuscript, 1862–65. A combination of the two used by The Morgan Library and Museum for the exhibition.
2. George Cruikshank (1792–1878). Oliver Asking for More. Original watercolor drawing for Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, 1866.Mostly watercolor, over graphite, with pen and gray ink, on paper. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Photography: Graham S. Haber
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