This post was con­tributed by Pratib­ha Rai, an in­ter­discip­lina­ry graduate from the Uni­vers­ity of Ox­ford. Her re­search area is in the visu­al world of lit­era­ture and the ways in which aut­hors apply materi­al ob­jects, il­lustra­tion, and their own aesthetic sen­sibilit­ies to shape mean­ing in nar­ratives. She has writt­en on Jane Aus­ten’s di­alogue with the visu­al theo­ry of ‘the pic­tures­que’ and Van Gogh’s li­felong pass­ion for Char­les Di­ckens’s il­lustrated works. Pratib­ha can be rea­ched on Twitt­er @TibhaWrites

Luke Fil­des’ haunt­ing en­grav­ing The Empty Chair (1870) honours Char­les Di­ckens’s desk and evokes the sor­row of the aut­hor’s sudd­en death through the melancho­ly medium of still life. The per­spec­tive creates the sense that we have just en­tered a fresh­ly ab­an­doned study, the chair an­gled as though anti­cipat­ing its owner’s re­turn. For me, the most eye-catching fea­ture of the en­grav­ing has al­ways been the mis­cel­lany of minia­ture ob­jects on his writ­ing desk; an area of his study that can often be mis­sed in the shadow of heavi­er items. Fil­des him­self was struck by these tri­nkets when he was in­vited to Kent after the Westminst­er funer­al in be­lated ful­fill­ment of the aut­hor’s wish and was taken aback by the un­usu­al as­sort­ment of cheris­hed ob­jects on Di­ckens’s desk.

Per­haps in re­spon­se to his li­ve­ly in­terest and want­ing to en­courage the young art­ist whose care­er might have been ad­verse­ly af­fected by the ter­mina­tion of Drood, Di­ckens’s sister-in-law Geor­gina Hogarth gave him a quill pen, mem­oran­dum slate, and a piece of blue statione­ry from the col­lec­tion to keep. Geor­gina was be­queat­hed the desk ob­jects in Di­ckens’s Will, han­d­ing to her, “my per­son­al jewel­lery…and all the lit­tle familiar ob­jects from my writing-table and my room, and she will know what to do with those th­ings” (Char­les Di­ckens’s Last Will and Co­dicil, 12 May 1869 and 2 June 1970). It is un­clear wheth­er Geor­gina knew what to do with the “lit­tle familiar ob­jects” be­cause she was in­struc­ted in ad­vance or was trus­ted to act on her own in­itiative, know­ing their per­son­al value to the aut­hor. Non­et­heless, we know that she pre­ser­ved them and a selec­tion of his desk-world of familiar ob­jects is kept in the Char­les Di­ckens Museum, Lon­don.

Alan Watts de­scribes the humor­ous knick-knacks that de­corated the aut­hor’s writ­ing space in his book Di­ckens at Gad’s Hill: “On top of the desk were vari­ous ob­jects Di­ckens en­joyed hav­ing in front of him when he was writ­ing – the two fat toads fenc­ing, the lit­tle mon­key wear­ing a pill-box cap, the statuet­te of a dog-fancier with lit­tle dogs under his arms and peep­ing out of his poc­kets, the gilt leaf on which a rab­bit was sitting…”(36-37). The “two fat toads fenc­ing” im­mediate­ly re­calls an epi­sode in Chapt­er VII of Our Mutu­al Friend, when Silas Wegg walks through Cler­kenwell and stops at Mr. Venus’s taxider­my shop. As Wegg peers through the dark win­dow, he ob­ser­ves “a muddle of ob­jects vague­ly re­sembl­ing pieces of leath­er and dry stick, but among which noth­ing is re­solv­able into an­yth­ing dis­tinct, save…two pre­ser­ved frogs fight­ing a small-sword duel.” There is evi­d­ence to sug­gest that the pre­ser­ved frogs were in­deed modeled on the duell­ing toads on Di­ckens’s writ­ing desk. In Fil­des’s The Empty Chair, we can see Di­ckens’s fight­ing toads at the left-hand side of the desk in a pose that striking­ly re­sembles the fight­ing frogs in Mar­cus Stone’s ac­company­ing il­lustra­tion to Chapt­er VII, “Mr. Venus sur­roun­ded by the Tro­phies of his Art.”

Di­ckens’s friend and em­inent lit­era­ry critic, John Forst­er states that Mar­cus Stone dis­covered the origin­al Mr. Venus’s shop in St Giles and took Di­ckens to visit it (Dean 22). The aut­hor might then have in­troduced the idea of the duel­ing frogs into the novel after the figures on his desk, lead­ing Stone to use the figures in his il­lustra­tion of the comic-grotesque shop. Through this col­labora­tion, it is not­able that Di­ckens’s desk ob­jects were not sol­e­ly curiosit­ies for his private amuse­ment but added tex­ture to the lit­era­ry world which he in­vites his audi­ence to enter in both text and il­lustra­tion.

John Forst­er adds in his bi­og­ra­phy of Di­ckens that the fenc­ing toads were a French bron­ze group and the statuet­te of the dog-fancier was also a French bron­ze figure full of comic sug­ges­tion, “such a one as you used to see on the brid­ges or quays of Paris, with a pro­fus­ion of lit­tle dogs stuck under his arms and into his poc­kets” (212). Con­tinu­ing with the French theme, the Di­ckens Museum also show­cases a 1840s French ceramic jug with a blue glaze and de­corative olives that can be traced back to Les Baines in Eas­tern Fran­ce and thus, was li­ke­ly bought as a souvenir dur­ing one of his many trips to Fran­ce. Through this quaint ob­ject, one can im­agine the aut­hor being trans­por­ted to souvenirs of his travels, re­veal­ing his en­joy­ment of sur­round­ing him­self with items from his ad­ven­tures and re­in­forc­ing his uni­que af­fec­tion for small ob­jects. Forst­er also men­tions that his desk had a “lit­tle fresh cup or­namen­ted with the leaves and blos­soms of the co­wslip, in which a few fresh flow­ers were al­ways placed every morn­ing – for Di­ckens in­variab­ly wor­ked with flow­ers on his writing-table” (212). It is not­able that this ob­ject, similar to Di­ckens’s own de­scrip­tion of his desk or­na­ments, is charac­terised as “lit­tle” – di­minutive ob­jects in par­ticular oc­cupied a privileged and per­manent place on his writ­ing desk.

The value of lit­tle ob­jects is strik­ing when jux­taposed with, what Di­ckens calls in Our Mutu­al Friend, the “Hide­ous sol­id­ity” of Vic­torian materi­al cul­ture where, “[e]­veryth­ing was made to look as heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as pos­sible” (Ch. 11, Book 1). Against this im­pos­ing sol­id­ity, di­minutive ob­jects were vul­ner­able to moc­ke­ry as we see in The Mys­te­ry of Edwin Drood when the heroine of the novel, Rosa, runs away to Lon­don and packs “a few quite useless ar­ticles into a very lit­tle bag” (Ch. 20). The bag’s small­ness amuses Mr Grew­gi­ous who asks, “’Is that a bag?…and is it your pro­per­ty, my dear?’” (Ch. 20). The pat­ronis­ing tone con­veys how the di­minutive could be dis­mis­sed as in­sig­nificant and be the sub­ject of comic treat­ment. Di­ckens howev­er did not snub small­ness; he high­ly prized lit­tle ob­jects and they held his im­agina­tion dur­ing the co­ur­se of writ­ing, as Forst­er re­lays, “Ran­ged in front of, and round about him, were al­ways a variety of ob­jects for his eye to rest on in the in­terv­als of ac­tu­al writ­ing, and any one of which he would have in­stant­ly mis­sed had it been re­moved” (185). It is clear that he was at­tached to these de­corative ob­jects as they mys­terious­ly aided his writ­ing pro­cess but also in a sen­timent­al fash­ion, “mis­sed” them as though they were in­dividu­als.

In this way, they are re­minis­cent of the sen­timent­al “per­son­al pro­per­ty” that ap­pears in his works. In Great Ex­pec­ta­tions, Wem­mick col­lects curiosit­ies and ac­cepts any ob­ject from his clients, re­gardless of how ab­surd or tri­fl­ing they might be, on the grounds that “’they’re pro­per­ty and port­able’” and he en­courages Pip to “’Get hold of port­able pro­per­ty’” (Ch. 24). This is fin­an­ci­al ad­vice for young Pip as “port­able” ob­jects can be rea­di­ly ex­chan­ged for cash. Howev­er, the value of these small ob­jects such as his col­lec­tion of mourn­ing rings and brooc­hes is not sol­e­ly moneta­ry, they are materi­al mem­en­tos of his de­par­ted clients’ un­told his­to­ries; re­liqua­ries that have an end­ur­ing value be­cause of their link to in­dividu­al his­to­ries. By pos­sess­ing these gifts, Wem­mick is “quite laden with re­membran­ces of de­par­ted friends” (Ch. 22) and thus, these small ob­jects are en­tangled with his soci­al con­nec­tions.

The fact that small ob­jects were en­mes­hed with soci­al re­la­tions is ex­ploited to comic ef­fect in Nic­holas Nickleby when Miss Led­rook ar­rives at a wedd­ing wear­ing, “the minia­ture of some field-officer un­known, which she had purchased, a great bar­gain, not very long be­fore” (Ch. 25). Through the per­for­mance of in­tima­cy by pos­sess­ing “port­able pro­per­ty” in the Great Ex­pec­ta­tions sense, Miss Led­rook can amusing­ly lay claim to a li­aison with a dash­ing field-officer while know­ing noth­ing of the his­toric gentleman re­presen­ted. The en­tangle­ment of small ob­jects with Di­ckens’s own soci­al re­la­tions is visib­ly seen on his desk. His el­dest daught­er Mamie re­calls how, “On the shelf of his writ­ing table were many dain­ty and use­ful or­na­ments, gifts from his friends or mem­b­ers of his fami­ly” (My Fath­er as I Re­call Him, 1896). One such “dain­ty and use­ful” gift that he kept on his desk was a Wedgwood pot­te­ry match con­tain­er gif­ted to him at Brighton in gratitude for han­dl­ing his landlord’s ment­al col­lap­se. In the event­ful epi­sode ca.1850, Di­ckens was stay­ing in re­nted ac­commoda­tion when he and his group were driv­en out owing to the landlord and his daught­er being re­moved and taken to a psyc­hiat­ric in­stitu­tion by doc­tors. The match hold­er pre­sent must have been valu­able to him as it fea­tures in Fil­des’s The Empty Chair, show­ing how he kept it on his desk until his death.

Pon­der­ing the fate of his desk or­na­ments when he wrote his will, Di­ckens might have been acute­ly aware of the im­men­se vul­nerabil­ity of port­able pro­per­ty. In David Co­pper­field, Traddles shows David the household items he has stored up for his fu­ture mar­ried life with Sophy: “’two pieces of fur­ni­ture to com­m­ence with. This flower-pot and stand, she bought her­self. You put that in a par­lor win­dow,’ said Traddles, fall­ing a lit­tle back from it to sur­vey it with the great­er ad­mira­tion, ‘with a plant in it, and—and there you are! This lit­tle round table with the marble top (it’s two feet ten in cir­cum­fer­ence), I bought’” (Ch. 27). Traddles speaks gleeful­ly of these “lit­tle” ob­jects and it is clear that their sig­nifican­ce lies not in their economic value but in their re­presen­ta­tion of the co­u­ples’ mutu­al com­mit­ment as they have each bought an item from their means in their hopes of li­v­ing togeth­er. Howev­er, the flower­pot and small marble-top table are al­most dis­astrous­ly lost after Traddles acts as Mr. Micaw­ber’s guaran­tor. No doubt that los­ing these ob­jects would be akin to los­ing treasures. Traddles and Sophy are able to fin­al­ly marry toward the close of the novel and the table and flower­pot in­deed fur­nish their rooms. These ob­jects therefore tell a nar­rative of the hope, pati­ence, and de­dica­tion re­quired to secure a com­fort­able fu­ture – thus, it is the sto­ries and peo­ple at­tached to the items that allow the Traddles’ apart­ment to feel like home.

In a similar way, Di­ckens’s desk-world of or­na­ments was in­tegr­al to creat­ing an at­mosphere of home. Though these small ob­jects were vul­ner­able to being dis­mis­sed amid the heavi­ness of Vic­torian materi­al cul­ture, they held a pro­found im­por­tance for Di­ckens – they were port­able and travel­led with him, set the stage for his writ­ing, and were not only “quite laden with re­membran­ces” (Great Ex­pec­ta­tions, Ch. 22) of his soci­al re­la­tions but also uni­que­ly func­tioned as com­pan­ions them­selves in Di­ckens’s lived ex­peri­ence.

Works Cited

Ackroyd, Peter. Di­ckens, New York, 1990.

Char­les Di­ckens’s Last Will and Co­dicil, 12 May 1869 and 2 June 1970.

Dean, F R. THE FIGHT­ING FROGS, Di­cken­sian; Lon­don Vol. 45, Janua­ry 1, 1949: 22.

Di­ckens, Char­les. David Co­pper­field, Uni­ted Kingdom, Col­lec­tor’s Li­bra­ry, 2004.

… Great Ex­pec­ta­tions, Pen­guin Clas­sics, 1985.

…Nic­holas Nickleby. Uni­ted States, Co­simo Clas­sics, 2009.

…Our Mutu­al Friend, Uni­ted Kingdom, Chap­man & Hall, Li­mited, 1892.

…The Mys­te­ry of Edwin Drood, Pen­guin Clas­sics, 2002.

Di­ckens, Mamie. My Fath­er as I Re­call Him, Pro­ject Guten­berg, 1896, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27234/27234-h/27234-h.htm.

Forst­er, John. The Life of Char­les Di­ckens, Ger­many, Tauchnitz, 1874.

Watts, Alan. Di­ckens at Gad’s Hill, El­vendon Press, Be­rkshire, 1989.