Dickensland: The Curious History of Dickens’s London
Lee Jackson (Yale, £20)
CHARLES DICKENS has long been a favourite of literary pilgrims. It was once said that his descriptions of places were so exact that they had an almost photographic likeness. Within a decade of his death in 1870, Dickens-centred tourism was booming. ‘Dickensland’ was a word used by writers to describe locations around the country that appeared in his novels. However, Lee Jackson, an expert on Victorian London and the author of Dirty Old London (Yale, 2014), has confined his examination to the capital, the streets, alleys, wharves and bridges of which inspired some of Dickens’s most memorable descriptive prose.
Much of London’s Dickensland had gone by the end of the 19th century or was on the way out. Articles observing the fact struck a nostalgic tone, although the more pragmatic opined that ‘we have to sacrifice a good deal in sentimental association for the benefit of national prosperity’. Kingsgate Street, already, was destroyed when the area was cleared to make way for Kingsway and Aldwych avenues at the beginning of the 20th century.
