Tribute to David Paroissien, Long-time DS Member and Former DQ Editor
Dickens Society Conference on July 26, 2019 in Salt Lake City. (Kim Raff / UVU Marketing)
Tributes and condolences for family and friends can be left by clicking the “Comment” link above, to the right of the date.
David Paroissien died peacefully, reading a book at ten in the evening on 8 September 2021, at his home in Oxford. He leaves behind his lovely wife Miriam, and his children Catherine, Edwin, and Margery, along with countless friends. He also leaves fond memories in the minds and hearts of those many fortunate enough to know him. And David leaves behind major accomplishments, having helped to transform the world of Dickens—not just the world of Dickens scholarship–making it bigger, better, and more inclusive. His legacy is an astonishing one: his gifts to all who are likely to read these words, and to countless others, are incalculable.
David taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst from 1968 to 2001, and ran the Oxford study abroad program for many years. His scholarship was solid, imaginative, lucid, and jargon-free. David edited a useful one-volume Selected Letters of Charles Dickens, and published his excellent Oliver Twist: An Annotated Bibliography (both in 1986). With Susan Shatto, David served as General Editor for the useful series of Companions for each of Dickens’s novels, writing the Oliver Twist and Great Expectations volumes himself (1992, 2000). He edited the Penguin Mystery of Edwin Drood (2002), and A Companion to Charles Dickens (2008).
A founding member of the Dickens Society, David edited Dickens Quarterly for nearly forty years, from its first issue in 1983 until 2020. David edited Dickens Studies Newsletter, the Quarterly’s forerunner, as well, from 1979 to 1983. He displayed great generosity, skill, and tact in editing: he was a wonderful collaborator, able to bring out the best in the work of contributors. He attracted contributions to the Quarterly from the most distinguished scholars in the field, and at the same time he was always eager to encourage emerging talent.
David’s work for the Dickens Society did not stop with his editorial work on the Quarterly. He cultivated trustees and officers of the Society who would lead in helpful directions, just as he worked with excellent review editors, bibliographers, and editorial staff. David took the time to ensure that the editorship of Dickens Quarterly would be in highly capable hands when he stepped down: Dickens Quarterly and the Society are both well-positioned for continuing success in the coming decades.
David’s hand was steady at the tiller, but he was always ready to listen to good new ideas, and to change course when necessary. Many of his thoughtful decisions, for which he invariably sought the support of the Society’s membership, helped put the Dickens Society on a solid financial footing, and ensured that we more effectively live up to our expressed ideals. David supported breaking the Society away from the annual MLA convention, when we inaugurated the annual Dickens Symposium in 1996. Later, David suggesting that our convivial gatherings might frequently cross the Atlantic, rather than always taking place in the United States and Canada, and he showed others how it might be done by generously hosting one such symposium himself, in Oxford.
David was always ready to help a friend, an acquaintance, or a person unknown, behind the scenes: he was generous to the many who sought his advice about Dickens matters, answering children’s basic questions about Dickens, and offering suggestions to experts and major collectors.
David was, as Sydney Carton says of Jarvis Lorry in A Tale of Two Cities, “steadily and constantly occupied; trusted, respected, and looked up to.” Kind, funny, keenly perceptive, with a humane sensitivity to injustice, David embodied the best of Dickens. We are all lucky to have been touched by his life, and our hearts go out to his family.
—Joel J. Brattin
The following picture of David and Miriam Paroissien was provided by Lillian Nayder:
The following picture of John Drew, Coro Drew-Lopez, and David Paroissien in Northampton, 2008, was provided by Catherine Waters:
The following picture of Miriam and David Paroissien from October 2020 was provided by Trey Philpotts – original inspiration from American Gothic (1930) by Grant Wood obligingly posted:
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David was a wonderful man: a superb scholar, a firm but gentle editor, a kind and generous mentor, a thoughtful friend. I didn’t know him nearly as well as those who were in the Society with him longer. But it was impossible to know him, and to spend time with him, without seeing these wonderful qualities and feeling that I was better for knowing him. How I wish he could have joined us once more next summer in London!
David, always generous, helped locate information about the Davis Family in Jamaica and England, grounding my research on Eliza Davis in hard to find archival documents. And he helped locate and verify the photograph of Eliza Davis. He was a trusted friend, a thoughtful colleague, a clear-sighted editor, already much missed these divisive times.
David was a fine scholar and editor and a very nice man. He was clearly devoted to Dickens, to the Dickens community, and to fostering the interests and efforts of others. Personally, I owe him a great deal – for his generous support in the last couple of years with Dickens Quarterly, but also much earlier in my career. There will be a tribute to David from the editorial team in the December issue of the journal.
I first met David at the memorable ‘Dickens, Victorian Culture, Italy’ conference held in 2007 at the University of Genova. When I was on study leave in the UK the following year, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham, David collected me and drove us to meet with John Drew for lunch, then in the thick of developing the Dickens Journals Online project, to which David was also a key contributor. What a day we enjoyed talking Dickens in the car and over lunch and coffee! In 2009, David was instrumental in the organisation of another fabulous Italian conference – in Verona – and I still have vivid memories of some wonderful al fresco meals shared with David and Miriam, Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano and other Dickens Society friends. Following my appointment at the University of Kent in 2009, I was fortunate to meet up with David on many more occasions and to get to know him a little better. Indeed, David, Malcolm Andrews and I co-hosted the annual Dickens Society Symposium at the University of Kent in the bicentenary year of 2012.
David was always the warmest and most generous of scholars. His superb chapter on ‘History and Change’ for ‘The Oxford Handbook of Charles Dickens’, published in 2018, is typical of his research in its meticulous attention to the significance of contemporary historiographical debates so as to provide a compelling revision of long-held critical opinions about Dickens’s attitudes towards and engagement with history. Amongst many such achievements and contributions to Dickens Studies, I think the debt that we owe to him for his masterly and generous editorship of the ‘Dickens Quarterly’ (and its predecessor) for nearly 40 years cannot be overestimated. Our loss is immense and we will miss him enormously.
In the great sadness of losing David I’ve been taking comfort in the characteristic way in which he took his leave – quietly, gently, and without suffering or struggle.
I was fortunate enough to meet him each week in term time in the Oxford English Faculty’s Graduate Victorian Studies Seminar from 2008-2010.. He and i were the most senior members, enjoying many a conversation with each other and with younger members. and visiting speakers. Opportunities for longer conversations with David, and Miriam too, came with the successive Dickens Symposia in those years. His compendious knowledge of Dickens was at everyone’s service, though never obtrusive or attention-seeking. He leaves the legacy of his publications, his foundational work for Dickens Quarterly, his meticulous editing..
David never ceased exploring. He and Miriam made a long-overdue antipodean journey in 2018 for the NSW Dickens Society Conference and were delighted with Sydney. I have a cherished memory of our last lunch together, looking out over a sunlit Harbour, talking about old times.
David was an excellent editor and scholar, a wise leader of the Dickens Society for many years, and a kind and generous friend. Like many, I feel indebted to him for his support and advice throughout my career, without which I might not even have a career. I also feel indebted to him for the regular exchanges of political outrage we shared that helped me weather the toxic climate of recent years.
As I’ve told several Dickens Society friends, I have had a recurring happy dream during the pandemic. In it I am driving a rental car at night in a foreign country (France perhaps?), and I’m trying to find the inn where the annual Dickens dinner is being held. Eventually I turn a corner and there up ahead is an old stone inn with every window ablaze with golden light. I enter, and right there by the bar are David and Miriam smiling and greeting me warmly. Behind and all around them many other friends from the Dickens Society are gathered and all seem so happy to finally be together again. I told David about the dream in one of my last emails to him this summer. I thought then it was a foreshadowing of being back together in London next summer. Sadly, that will not now be the case. But the dream is recurring, so I will see him again at that bar, chatting with our friends, and warming up to prepare a toast.
I’ll have more to say in the upcoming issue of Dickens Quarterly, but for now I wanted to echo what others have said about David’s generosity, both as a scholar and as a human being. David was particularly generous to young academics. In the very early 2000s, on my first trip to London, David gave me a personally guided walking tour of the Dickensian sights in London: Nemo’s graveyard, the ruins of the Marshalsea Prison, a coaching inn in Southwark, and the Old Bailey, among many other places. In one instance, we wandered into a closed-to-the-public courtroom in the Old Bailey and were brusquely asked to leave by one of the judges, which seemed very Dickensian to David—and very funny. As the General Editor of Dickens Quarterly for several decades, and as an important critic and scholar in his own right, David left an indelible stamp on modern Dickens studies. He was my mentor and friend, and I will greatly miss him.
I first met David as a very green and nervous PhD student at the 2004 Dickens Symposium in Edinburgh, and still remember the warmth and genuine interest with which he welcomed me into the Dickens Society fold. As others mention above, and as many more have mentioned in reminiscences elsewhere, this was typical of David. He was particularly generous to PhD candidates and early-career scholars, but this wasn’t because he singled them out for attention but rather that he just treated everyone as his equal. I was also fortunate to have David as my first editor, and to enjoy his insight, collegiality and fine company at Symposia and other Dickens gatherings over the past 15 years. The clearest, most recent memory I have of David is – I think – of the impassioned speech he gave at the board meeting during the Tuebingen Symposium. With the humane sensitivity to injustice described so eloquently above, he spoke about defining himself defiantly against the current Conservative rhetoric as a ‘Citizen of Nowhere’, and hoping that the next editor of the Quarterly might have a similar background. As a fellow ‘Citizen of Nowhere’, I will miss his company at next year’s Symposium, but we will do our best to keep his memory green then and in years to come.
I took Prof. Paroissien‘s Dickens course when I was an undergraduate at UMASS Amherst. Despite the fact that I was by no means an overachieving student, and that many of the other students were far more well-versed in Dickens, he treated me with such kindness and respect, even entering my essay about Oliver Twist into a contest. This meant so much to me, and it helped me to feel that I had a place a the table in the world of academics. I remember another time when I was confused about something in David Copperfield, and I wrote a paper that was all wrong. He took the time to commiserate about my confusion and work though its source with me. This might sound silly, but not every professor did this. He also wrote graduate school recommendations for me years after college. I am so grateful. I’ll never forget how kind he was and how he helped me to feel more confident about my abilities in literary analysis. I’m an English teacher now, and I aim to be like him in my approach to all my students.
I have just returned from abroad to hear of this sad loss. I did not know David well at all but every professional interaction I had with him revealed his warmth, his scholarly enthusiasm and his very generous spirit. He was ‘the real thing’ who loved what he did and did it for all the right reasons: a true example of How To Do It. I will miss him.
When I heard the heartbreaking news of David Paroissien’s unexpected death, I was preparing a packet of chapters to send him for the Pickwick volume in the Companion series that he and Susan Shatto have co-edited for many years. A part of the pleasure in doing so was always the anticipation of a long letter from David. Of course, I hoped he would like what I had written, and I knew I could count on his seasoned, courteous and ever-tactful editorial advice. David’s letters to me—and I suspect to many of you—have always been those things and more. In retrospect, they seem to me now like serial installments in a decades-long friendship that has unfolded in the context of the research we were each doing at the time. I was thrilled when I could occasionally identify a puzzling allusion for his Great Expectations Companion and honored when he volunteered to write the entire Eatanswill chapter for the Pickwick volume. Over many years, we have shared scholarly adventures in a most agreeable, stimulating, and companionable way.
Knowing to my great sadness that there would never be another letter from David, I’ve spent the last few days looking back over those I still have. They offer ample evidence of his busy, well-travelled life, the multiple scholarly projects he was constantly juggling, the organizational and budgetary challenges he anticipated and skillfully met, the role he played in connecting people, honoring the older generation of Dickens scholars, and offering opportunities and a warm welcome to the young. David and Miriam were open and warm in their hospitality. We visited them in Oxford and travelled with them through all the stages of the Tale of Four Cities Conference—an unforgettable journey framed by the chatty letters we exchanged beforehand and afterwards.
Miraculously, though David’s letters provide a record of his full and fast-paced social and professional life, they never seem rushed themselves. They take time to extend greetings to the family, named and remembered in the most genuine ways. They share domestic and personal news—visits to beloved children and grandchildren, sights seen in London or Greece, impromptu reviews of plays and books. They inveigh against the American political nightmare (“that vile reptilian Bounderby”) and warn of crises that threaten closer to home. The letters frequently include sketch-like vignettes in a lively Dickensian vein, most recently a witty, though despairing account of the “Boythornian battles” he was then fighting with his land-hungry neighbor, the University of Oxford.
To those of you who corresponded with David regularly (so many of us occupy a space in that expansive and welcoming network), search your inbox. You’ll find David there in letters that powerfully evoke that accomplished, generous, and humane man.
Professor Paroissien was my favorite professor at UMass, and was the reason why I attended the summer seminar in Oxford. He was so very kind and was the ultimate gentleman. I’m horribly sad to hear of his passing, and extend my deepest condolences to his friends and family.
I first met David Paroissien twenty years ago when I held a postdoctoral position in England. I always found David incredibly generous in advising and encouraging other scholars. It was invariably a great pleasure to see him and Miriam at Dickensian venues, as well as to receive news of them by e-mail, for David’s messages were never dry and business-like, but always warm and friendly, and lined with anecdotes on life in Oxford, as well as vivid impressions on the latest developments in Britain and in the US.
As the editor of The Dickens Quarterly, his incomparable expertise was very helpful to me as contributor. In the past few months, he also helped me fine-tune an essay on Dombey and Son, which was to be a part of his new edition of A Companion to Charles Dickens. As always, I appreciated David’s tactful and wonderfully judicious suggestions. Once the essay was finished, David told me that the way it had grown and evolved was instructive, and that from his editorial perspective, he could say it was one of the many rewards to working in that capacity. I realise what a privilege it has been to know and to collaborate with such an exceptional Dickensian and remarkable editor.
What unutterable loss and shock I feel at this news, now even three weeks after David’s passing. I cannot imagine the world — or Dickens — without David. Like Nancy, I keep looking for him in my email archives, where nearly fifteen years’ correspondence is thankfully saved, and will long be cherished. Those letters, with their generosity of detail, warmth of spirit, candor, precision, and incredible depth of knowledge, speak to who David was as a person: a champion of thoughtfulness, comprehensiveness, reasonableness and, above all, kindness. I can hardly believe that another message won’t be arriving shortly.
I take comfort in my memories of David, including the earliest, from 2007, when I witnessed him in dazzling conversation with Edgar Rosenberg, as we toured the streets of Montreal, and I thought to myself for the first time: what a gift to live life as a scholar. I take comfort in knowing that David can still be found in dazzling conversation everywhere in the criticism, his voice a living guide — lucid, dependable, astute — through 40 years of writing on and about Dickens. And I take comfort in the belief that David set us all on a path for continued excellence and innovation in Dickens research. David concluded one of his most recent emails to me with the following conspiratorial salute:
“Just between the two of us: what a great hunch we had about Dominic. DQ is going wonderfully well and the editorial team has a superb idea of a new cover. I trust you, Kerry and your little (growing big) girl are well and flourishing. Write a note when you have time, With love and best wishes, David”
What a wonderful human. I’m proud to have known him and to have the opportunity now to carry his memory, and his brilliant legacy, into the next chapter. My heart goes out to Miriam and to Miriam and David’s children and grandchildren.
I met David when Milan University organised a Dickens conference in Gargnano, then in Genoa, and then on many other academic conferences where I had the good luck of sharing the company of David and Miriam. A scholar of impeccable precision and insight, a careful editor, he was above all the friend with whom I shared many conversations; his comments always balanced and thoughtful; we discussed politics (see photo of David and Miriam wielding the orange brush); food and recipes (he was a very good cook: risotto con funghi porcini); gardening: a good gardener, no ground elder allowed on his lawn. During the covid there was a constant communication, short calls and photos exchanged thanks to whatsapp; a last call just a week before his death, exchanging news about the cold summer in Oxford, and the last roses. I am very close to Miriam for the painful loss of a dedicated and loving husband, and to his children.
I am so sad to hear of the passing of Professor David Paroissien. I never had the pleasure of meeting him in person, but I will always be grateful to him for helping realize a longtime dream — bringing the story of Eliza Davis, the woman who wrote to Charles Dickens, asking him to do better in his depiction of Jewish characters, to children in the form of a picture book. Professor Paroissien was an immense help and support to me with DEAR MR. DICKENS. He was encouraging, always, but exact — he did not hesitate to let me know if I was on or off target in the way I was telling the story about the correspondence that changed Charles Dickens’s heart toward the Jewish people and, because of that, changed history. He looked at the big picture and also at individual words, knowing that every word choice can say so much. He even helped me locate the one existing photograph of Eliza Davis at the University of Southampton, where I was generously granted permission to reproduce the photo in the back matter of the book. Professor Paroissien is in the acknowledgements of the book along with Dickens scholars Professor Murray Baumgarten and Professor Don Vann, who frequently wrote to me together. Professor Paroissien also generously wrote the blurb for the back of the book and he encouraged me to reach out to The Charles Dickens Museum, which has been an absolutely blissful experience. I am grateful that because of Professor Paroissien, I have been able to work with the museum’s education department, sharing the book with young students. He was kind and generous, always quick to respond to my questions through the writing process. After he finally approved each detail, I felt as if I had completed a course of study. It was a wonderful feeling! I learned so much. He had invited my husband and me to have tea with he and his wife at their home in Oxford. Because of the pandemic, I postponed until next year. Truly, we never know how much time we have. I miss being able to have met and thanked him in person. It is a comfort to see his name on the back of Dear Mr. Dickens and in the acknowledgements. I hope it’s some comfort to others, as well as to me, that he lives on, forever, for new generations of Dickens fans, in a book that his friendship and mentorship helped make possible.
I was looking up my correspondence with Professor Paroissien and I just realized he sent this two days before he passed. We were both so looking forward to meeting next year. He was so kind. As I said in my previous tribute statement, I hold on to the comfort that his name is prominent in Dear Mr. Dickens, a book that he helped make possible.
From: David Paroissien
Date: September 6, 2021 at 1:24:17 AM CDT
To: Nancy Churnin
Subject: RE: Dear Mr. Dickens
Dear Nancy,
Congratulations on all the wonderfully receptive responses to Dear Mr. Dickens. Clearly, the book is going to do well. It is a pity that you and your husband decided to postpone your trip; but I agree, in the face of the Delta variant and the inevitable risks of exposure during a long transatlantic flight, it makes sense.
Do keep in touch. All being well, we should have the chance to meet next year. Thank you so much for arranging to have a copy sent to me. It will be a great pleasure to see the finished product.
All best wishes,
David
I am so sorry to know David has died. He was a wonderful person.
I first met him during the campaign to save the Cleveland Street Workhouse, a few doors north of Dickens’s childhood/adolescent home in London. I had been invited to give a TV interview, and David had come down to London to demolish the idea that the Cleveland Street Workhouse was the one in Oliver Twist. I was a media innocent, and didn’t realise that was what he was there for. We were both ‘set up’. The cameras were ready in the King&Queen pub across the road from the Workhouse. I went first, and then he duly demolished everything I’d said. I knew while I was listening that I’d lost that round, but the interviewer’s last question to him was along the lines of “So would you be happy to see the workhouse demolished?”
David was seated looking out of the window directly facing the Workhouse, and he suddenly became silent, looking at it. … and then, suddenly, loudly, said “Er… NO!”
That was a wonderful moment, and despite what had passed immediately beforehand, I knew he was not an academic stuffed shirt. At the end of his session, I asked him if he’d like to come & see where Dickens had lived for c.five years (two between Portsmouth & Chatham, and the rest after Johnson Street) and he was very interested. So we walked down to the next block, and I explained as much as I could on the way. At that time, there was no blue plaque on the building, as there is now. Luckily the little button shop at 22 Cleveland Street was open, and I took him inside so he could see the hall interior + the stairs up to the Dickens family’s accommodation, and I introduced David to the proprietor, Maureen. He mentioned that he had heard a story that Dickens had lived there, and Maureen said “O Yes! That’s what I was told when I first came here years ago!” He looked at me very solemnly, and said – “Mmm! It’s in the folk memory!” It was that folk memory that had made me research the whole street, work which provided the proof that Dickens had not only lived there as a young adult (several consecutive applications for his Reader’s Ticket at the British Museum came from that address) but had drawn on the regime of that particular workhouse for elements of the one delineated in Oliver Twist.
I walked back with David up past the Workhouse after the visit, and he completely grasped how close the two buildings were. We stood talking on the next corner for a long time before he went off towards Paddington Station, and I made my way to the British Library to keep on with the research. When I got home that night, I checked how many new signatories we’d gained on our petition to save the place from demolition, and saw to my delight that David had signed it almost as soon as he’d got home.
He was pleased to publish Dickens’s first calling card, which bears that address, by permission of its current owner Dan Calinescu of Toronto. And he was really delighted when I later told him that I had found that a shop right opposite the Workhouse had belonged to a man called William Sykes.
David was open-minded enough to change his mind, a loveable, witty, kind man, who knew how to foster others less confident than himself, and who had a sense of wanting to put things right thoroughly worthy of Mr Dickens.
He recruited me to the Dickens Society, and was also a wonderful editor of papers I submitted: demanding, and as Nancy says above, exact, but always encouraging me to write more. I really regret not having finished one I had meant to submit before he retired from editing DQ. Having him for a reader/editor made me work to my top pitch.
My heartfelt condolences to Miriam and his family. How I love that American Gothic spoof above! I laughed aloud when I saw it.
The Dickens world will not be the same without his kindly light. Yet his influence will certainly persist, and we will keep his memory green. A very special man.
David kindly published a piece I sent to the Dickens Quarterly on “Unflattening” Mrs Micawber. He then reached out and said, “why don’t you write the new chapter on Edwin Drood for a reedition of Wiley’s Companion to Dickens? The invitation filled me with joy, even more so when the contribution, completed, was accepted warmly. Throughout these exchanges, all the beautiful things people have said about David Paroissien were amply evident. It is a comfort to know that he passed away quietly with a book in his hands! Deep condolences to his wife and children.
Unfortunately I did not know David Paroissien but what I have read about him, particularly the messages of condolence and Tributes, one can only conclude that he was a very hard-working and passionate member of the Society and an accomplished Scholar on Dickens.
Rest in peace David. The work you and the society has achieved is undoubtedly far reaching and significant in ways we don’t yet know. Thank you for highlighting a well rounded view of Dickens’ work and ideals, including his very human nature and eccentricities. In doing so you have inspired many to further their learning and see their potential xx
How sad to hear of David’s death and to think of how lonely Miriam will be–and all Dickens scholars as well as my wife JoAnne and me. The two of us met David and usually Miriam at various annual meetings of the Dickens Society and quickly developed an admiration of both. I remember one conference in particular where the four of us had rooms in a hotel whose cafe faced the outfield of the local minor league baseball team. We would gather for drinks in the evening and watch the games with great enthusiasm. David was my replacement as editor of the “Dickens Studies Newsletter” and did a superb job expanding it into the “Dickens Quarterly.” David wrote excellent reviews of books, particularly of my bibliography series. In recent years we exchanged always liberal political commentary by e-mail. I remember assuring him in 20 16 that there was no way Donald Trump would become President of the United States. How wrong could one be! But he forgave me for that, I think. Rest in Peace David. There will be no one like you for a long time.
It’s been nine months since David died. I believe I sent something to the family immediately afterwards. But it’ taken me all this time to overcome my sorrow enough to write my recollections. I met him after visiting my daughter at Mount Holyoke College. We gathered in his kitchen, which I think had a fireplace and was filled with children and pets and great smells of food. And that location is a key to all our interactions thereafter. For as many tributes have said so movingly, David and Miriam were superlative hosts and conversationalists, and Miriam’s scrapbooks provided prompts for many memories.
He succeed me as editor of a little “time sensitive” newsletter, Bob Partlow’s idea of a companion of Dickens Studies Annual. He turned it into an authoritative, rich compendium of international scholarship, indispensable to Dickens and Print History studies. We drove to France together for one of the exhibitions in 2012–and what a party that was. Fine lodgings, good food and conversation, enthusiastic appreciation of the exhibition staged to honor Dickens’s cross-channel. connexions. When he and Miriam settled in Oxford and we could take a flat for a week or so, we were their guests midweek, and they were ours on the last night. That meant they got all the useful contents of our refrigerator to take home. Still small pickings compared to the salmon feasts and other delights of their hosting.
And oh the conversation with them both, about everything from minute points about Dickens to Oxford gossip and complications with the house and pool and
co-owners. Our world just centered on that place and those friendships when we were together.
His work is impeccable. His generosity to others is legendary. His anxiety about keeping DQ up to his high standards never ceased. And when he asked for something, one felt as if one had a chance to pay down 1% of one’s debt to all he gives. On the last night one year he confessed to concern over whether a special issue would get filled. I spent four months trying to write something in case the gap eventuated. In the end the issue was overfilled but I squeezed in. And feel that “Dickens Wills” was really the product of Dickens AND David willing me to pay attention to something overlooked.
One always wanted to try to live up to David’s standard.