Results 181 - 200 of 423 Article Index

This article is a classic example of the kind known today, thanks to Private Eye, as a 'Why, Oh, Why?' piece, in other words, the sort of column written by a journalist who, having no particular topic on hand but needing to fill his column, proceeds to a semi-humorous listing of apparently foolish or meaningless things in contemporary everyday life that exasperate him or her.

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Sending the following piece to Wills on 20 April, Dickens described it as 'a capital paper, with an odd and novel idea in it', and asked Wills to alter the number 'so as to make it the first article; or some of the points of which it treats, will get out of date' (Pilgrim, Vol. VIII, p. 93).

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Dickens had not intended writing anything else for HW quite so soon after the previous article but he was, he wrote to Wills from Paris on 24 April, 'so very much disheartened' by the 26 April number of the journal ('a mere hash-up of most indifferent magazine papers at chance-medley [i.e. collected together in a random fashion]') that he determined to 'go to work again' and write another article for the issue to follow the one in which 'proposals' appeared (see Pilgrim, Vol. VIII, p. 98).

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The great sensation of the early summer of 1856 was the twelve-day trial at the Old Bailey of William Palmer, a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, for poisoning John Cook, a racing chum with whom Palmer was financially involved.

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Returning home to London ahead of the rest of the family, after their sojourn in Paris, Dickens stopped for three days (29 April-2 May) at the Ship Hotel in Dover, perhaps intending to make a start on the eighth monthly number of Little Dorrit.

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For the satirical device used in this article Dickens returns to the first idea he had had for the title of Little Dorrit, 'Nobody's Fault', and an idea for a leading character that he had, a man who 'should bring about all the mischief in [the story], lay it all on Providence, and say at every fresh calamity, "Well, it's a mercy, however, nobody was to blame, you know!"' (Forster, Book 8, Ch. 1).

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William Dove of Leeds was found guilty at the York Assizes on 21 July 1856 of murdering his wife by strychnine poisoning.

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