Titled 'Travelling Abroad' in collected editions of the series
The 'German chariot' which conveys the narrator on his dreamy journey is modelled on the coach in which Dickens and his household made their trips to Italy (1844–45), Switzerland and France (1846–47). In May 1844 Dickens related to Forster how he hoped to find 'some good old shabby devil of a coach – one of those vast phantoms that hide themselves in a corner of the Pantechnicon' and how he had bought such a one for £45. 'As for comfort...' he continued, 'it is about the size of your library; with night-lamps and day-lamps and pockets and imperials and leathern cellars, and the most extraordinary contrivances'; sitting inside it, he felt 'a perfect Sentimental Traveller' (Pilgrim, IV, p. 127&n.). In Pictures from Italy this same carriage is described as 'an English travelling carriage of considerable proportions, fresh from the shady halls of the Pantechnicon' (1846; 'Going through France'). As in the travel book, Dickens here displays a tendency to give comically literal translations of common French expressions ('ordinary wine'; 'It is well'); 'the British Boaxe' appears to be an imitation of how the concept of boxing might be rendered in a French accent.
Read more...
