Author: Kayra Guven

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The Many Londons in Dombey and Son

The world is ever-changing, and London in the 1840s was changing more rapidly than most places in most time periods. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens is a novel trying to come to terms with this change. It is a novel with one foot in the past and the other in the present, exploring post-industrial life with its new technology, new business, and new society. There is an element of uncertainty that comes with change, and Dickens examines the effects of these uncertainties through his multigenerational account of the Dombey family. Professor of Victorian Literature Catherine Waters notes, “Dombey and Son marks the beginning of Dickens’s engagement with the family as a complex cultural construct, exploring the connections between familial and economic relations” (127-8). As a result, the family is a reflection of the society in which it lives and likewise constantly changing, because in Dombey and Son, London is defined by change.

Trains and railways mark the death of an earlier London in Dombey and Son and also function as markers for significant changes for the life of the Dombeys. Professor of English and founding director of The Dickens Project Murray Baumgarten writes, “Dickens understood that his was a world in transition, and that it was defined not just by the modern habits it was moving toward but the traditional habits it was leaving behind” (111). Perhaps no passage exemplifies this transition as vividly as the description of Camden Town early in the novel when Polly Toodle is taking Paul, Florence, and Susan with her to visit her home.* “The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre” (Dickens 63). Dickens has not yet revealed what is causing this commotion, but whatever it might be is clearly unsettling and devastating, like an earthquake. Before the reader has the opportunity to find their bearings, the setting is introduced by recounting how the ground feels—shaking—followed by the horrifying visual companion: “Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and stopped…Here, a chaos of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the bottom of a steep unnatural hill” (Dickens 63). The moment that is supposed to be a homecoming for Polly is interrupted by chaos—she cannot return to the Camden that she knew—and suspense is built as the description continues. The reader does not know what has happened here, but it is worse than an earthquake, because this is an “unnatural” and intentional disaster.

That the damage is a by-product of construction work is particularly jarring due to the juxtaposition of the detailed description of destruction with the curt reveal. “In short, the yet unfinished and unopened railroad was in progress; and, from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly away, upon its mighty course of civilization and improvement” (Dickens 63). This one sentence is a paragraph onto itself following the longest paragraph in the chapter with its lofty sentences dedicated to unpacking the specific consequences of industrialization in a community. The sudden change in tone matches the visual contrast on the page. Dickens is mocking the idea of linear progress. He does not think continuing to build suspense is worth the mundane reveal, which creates an impatient and dismissive tone. “In short,” the reader surely knows what is going on: the railways are championing modernity; they are the vanguard of progress. Dickens is playing with the common image of industrialization as “mighty” and an unambiguous sign of “civilization and improvement” by showing the “dire disorder” that the railway leaves behind.

There is implicit class critique in Dickens’s portrayal given that the construction affects the neighbourhood of little Paul Dombey’s nurse. It is almost impossible to imagine a similar situation occurring near Mr. Dombey’s mansion “on the shady side of a tall, dark, dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland Place and Bryanstone Square” (Dickens 24). Camden is in contrast with the quieter, wealthier Dombey neighbourhood, and this dichotomy is played up to an extreme level later when Florence is separated from Susan and the rest of her group because of a mad bull. What is more, Polly is as shocked by the railway as the rest of her group, highlighting the fact that she has been away from her family and home due to the demands of her job. It is almost as if she moved to a different city and not a different place within the same city. The text does not let the reader forget Polly’s job by referring to her as “Richards,” the name given to Polly by Mr. Dombey (Dickens 63). Professor of English John Mullan observes, “The renaming is so wonderfully unnecessary—such a foolish assertion of power” (135). In addition, the renaming further distances Polly from her family. The railway, like Polly’s new work name marks change.

Another critical moment in the plot that both signifies a change for the Dombey family and London is Mr. Dombey’s train ride to Birmingham. Little Paul—the Son in Dombey and Son—is dead, and the train is leading Mr. Dombey to his soon-to-be second wife, Edith. Understandably, the tone is much more morbid than the description of the construction at Camden. Mr. Dombey “found no pleasure or relief in the journey,” because he is grieving, and the train comes to symbolize death (Dickens 261). Even though Dickens had already written about the damage caused by the construction, his tone was slightly more playful then. Now, “the very speed at which the train was whirled along, mocked the swift course of the young life that had been borne away so steadily and so inexorably to its foredoomed end” (Dickens 261). Dickens is serious, angry even, because Mr. Dombey’s emotions overshadow all else. The train is a death machine “that forced itself upon its iron way—its own—defiant of all paths and roads, piercing through the heart of every obstacle, and dragging living creatures of all classes, ages and degrees behind it” (Dickens 261). It is interesting that the accessibility of mass transportation is brought up as an additional reason for disdaining the train in Mr. Dombey’s mind. Earlier in the novel, he had sent Florence and Paul to Brighton with a carriage and had also used a carriage himself when visiting them. His use of the train is a shift away from the past. Not only is London and his family changing, but so is the way Mr. Dombey goes in and out of London.

The train transforms from a metaphorical death machine to a literal one with James Carker’s accident. When Mr. Dombey was on his way to Birmingham, the train was defined as a “monster,” a “remorseless” and “indomitable monster, Death!” (Dickens 261-2). Dickens’s tone in the passage leading up to Carker’s accidental death is much more sinister. If the train was an obvious iron death machine in the Birmingham passage, now it is a sly murderer, a predator quietly biding its time: “Death was on [Carker]. He was marked off from the living world, and going down into his grave” (Dickens 718). This change in the portrayal of death is partially to do with whose death is associated with the train. Paul’s death was tragic, while Carker’s death is not given the same courtesy. Carker is the biggest villain in the novel, and his death is described in the same, grim detail that one comes to expect from Dickens for his villains. Ironically, his last words in-text are, “Take away the candle. There’s day enough for me” (Dickens 717). Dickens accepts the ubiquity of industrial machinery; however, he does not welcome it with open arms. On the contrary, the gruesome death scene is almost a warning to remember the power of the new technology in the world. Carker’s death changes London by changing the Dombey family. Carker is responsible for a lot of misfortunes in the lives of the other characters, whether it be the downfall of Mr. Dombey’s firm, which eventually goes bankrupt “and the great House [is] down”; the deception of Captain Cuttle; or the mistreatment of Edith (Dickens 748). As a result, Dickens is able to highlight the significance of just one person in the makeup of London.

Change can be big or small. London changes with each railroad, and with each person. A huge change that is not as tangible in Dombey and Son is societal. Dickens constantly questions gender roles in Victorian England, most notably through the characters of Florence and Edith. Mr. Dombey treats the women in his life as inconsequential at best and often as though they were property. In the very first chapter while Paul is just a few minutes old, the reader is told the Dombeys “had been married ten years, and until this present day…he had no issue—To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some six years before” (Dickens 6-7). Florence is an afterthought for Mr. Dombey; while son is always written with a capital “s,” girl is lowercase.

Mr. Dombey’s treatment of Edith is just as bad, and Edith knows this will be so before they get married. The night before her marriage to Mr. Dombey, she says to her mother, “You know he has bought me. Or that he will, tomorrow. He has considered of his bargain; he has shown it to his friend; he is even rather proud of it; he thinks that it will suit him, and may be had sufficiently cheap; and he will buy tomorrow” (Dickens 365). Edith knows she is a commodity in Mr. Dombey’s eyes and refers to herself as “it.” She criticizes the marriage market that denies women any agency, and later she decides to finally run away from her loveless marriage to Dijon, France with Carker. Dickens unequivocally takes Edith’s side. He shows his affection for Edith and her decisions, which is made evident by the fact that Edith loves Florence. Within the novel, the characters we are meant to root for all have a positive relationship with Florence. This is the case for Sol Gills, Captain Cuttle, Walter, and also for Edith. Another way Dickens favours Edith’s point of view is by going out of his way to mention that Edith did not have a relationship with Carker outside of her marriage so as to make sure she would remain sympathetic to a Victorian audience. This is additionally significant, because Edith’s decision to run away with Carker highlights the different opportunities for men and women to migrate within the text.

Edith has no say over her migration to London as she is essentially sold off to Mr. Dombey to be an obedient wife—the perfect angel in the house—and she is only able to leave by running away. Florence, likewise, tends to migrate with people. Firstly, she moves to Brighton with her brother, because her father wants her to. She is later left alone in the Dombey house and goes to China with Walter after they are married. The last case is when she has the most say over where she will live as her marriage is one based on mutual love.

Change begets change. In a city with so many people from so many different backgrounds and reasons to be there, it is no surprise that the one constant is that there is continuous change. In fact, Dickens’s London is defined by change; however, the way the city changes for different characters is affected by their gender and class.

 

*The trip to Camden is additionally the inciting incident for Florence to meet Walter Gay and is critical for the development of the subplot between the two characters.

 

Works Cited

Baumgarten, Murray. “Fictions of the City.” The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens, edited by John O. Jordan, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 106-119.

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Wordsworth, 1995.

Mullan, John. The Artful Dickens. Bloomsbury, 2020.

Waters, Catherine. “Gender, Family, and Domestic Ideology.” The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens, edited by John O. Jordan, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 120-  135.

 

This paper represents my own work in accordance with University regulations.

/s/ Kayra Guven

 

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Charles Dickens: A Literary Life

“Dickens’s commercial success allowed him to evolve increasingly complex and formally ambitious fiction” (Introduction to The Artful Dickens by John Mullan).

Charles Dickens is one of the most influential literary figures of all time. He was an internationally bestselling author even while he was alive. He has written fourteen completed novels, a myriad of short stories, and even more newspaper articles. His works, imbued with social commentary, have raised awareness for socioeconomic injustices in Victorian Britain that were exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution. However, Dickens did not start off with the intention to become an author.

Before turning into the literary giant he is now known as, Dickens wanted to be an actor. He changed his mind, nonetheless, since he gained immense popularity very early in his writing career. His debut novel, The Pickwick Papers, which first issued in 1836, was a hit from the get-go. English professor John Mullan notes, “With Pickwick Papers, Dickens more or less invented the novel of monthly parts” (Introduction, The Artful Dickens).

The financial success of his serialized novels is particularly important, because Dickens grew up in a family that was constantly in financial trouble. His father, John Dickens, was sent to debtors’ prison when Charles was just twelve, leading him to work at a blacking factory as a child. This undoubtedly shaped Dickens’ attitude towards financial security. Dickens’ writing career, in turn, is both a result and a reflection of his experiences.

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Charles Dickens Image Gallery

Entrance to the Charles Dickens Museum in London. This used to be Dickens’ home when he was writing his earlier novels, like The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist.
Published between 1833 and 1836, Sketches by Boz was a collection of short stories that Dickens created under the pseudonym “Boz.” Dickens adopted the name from a character called Moses in Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield.
Dickens’ copy of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. 1834. Professor of English John Mullan writes, “It is telling that, Shakespeare apart, the English literary work to which Dickens refers most often is Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, a novel that, in the mid-nineteenth century, was on the dubious border between literature and popular entertainment” (Introduction, The Artful Dickens).
Dickens the Great Magician (c.1880s) by Joseph Clayton Clarke Kyd. Dickens loved being an entertainer, which also translated to an interest in performing magic tricks.
Charles Dickens giving a public reading of the chapter from Oliver Twist where Bill murders Nancy. 16 March, 1870. The intersection of literary Dickens and popular entertainer Dickens.
Dombey and Son worksheet, recto. From the very first outlines of the plot, we can already see Dickens has a relatively clear idea of where the story might lead him.
Untitled frontispiece for Dombey and Son; published along with the last issue on April, 1848.
Staplehurst rail crash; 9 June, 1865. Dickens was a passenger on the train along with Ellen Ternan, and in this image he is depicted helping the other injured passengers. Dickens never fully recovered from this accident.
Dickens in America. Dickens traveled to North America in 1842, during which time he wrote American Notes for General Circulation. Historian David Olusoga points out, “That Victorian capacity for being passionately committed to anti-slavery as both a moral principle and an article of British national identity while at the same time holding old racial ideas and dabbling in new ones can be seen in the writings of one of the most famous men of the age, Charles Dickens…Dickens’ vivid heartfelt denunciation of American slavery exists on the same pages as his highly derogatory racialized descriptions of the black people he encountered…There is no question that Dickens’ revulsion at slavery was real and that it stayed with him in later life, but so did his dislike of black people and their physical appearance” (Chapter 7, Black and British).
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Peter Walsh’s Flashback: Memory, Austen, and Tradition in Mrs. Dalloway

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, pp. 60-61 (Penguin, 2012 edition):

“He sat down beside her, and couldn’t speak. Everything seemed to race past him; he just sat there, eating. And then half-way through dinner he made himself look across at Clarissa for the first time. She was talking to a young man on her right. He had a sudden revelation. ‘She will marry that man,’ he said to himself. He didn’t even know his name.

For of course it was that afternoon, that very afternoon, that Dalloway had come over; and Clarissa called him ‘Wickham’; that was the beginning of it all. Somebody had brought him over; and Clarissa got his name wrong. She introduced him to everybody as Wickham. At last he said ‘My name is Dalloway!’—that was his first view of Richard—a fair young man, rather awkward, sitting on a deck-chair, and blurting out ‘My name is Dalloway!’ Sally got hold of it; always after that she called him ‘My name is Dalloway!’

He was a prey to revelations at that time. This one—that she would marry Dalloway—was blinding—overwhelming at the moment. There was a sort of—how could he put it?—a sort of ease in her manner to him; something maternal; something gentle. They were talking about politics. All through dinner he tried to hear what they were saying.”

Through using free indirect discourse in Peter’s recollection of the day Clarissa met Richard Dalloway, Virginia Woolf’s language mimics the pace and nature of Peter’s thoughts, allowing the reader to peek into his point of view despite the third person narration. From the perspective of someone who was at Bourton that day and did not have access to Peter’s mind, he appears to not care much for his environment as he barely moves and does not speak; however, since Woolf shows us Peter’s line of thought, we know that this expressionless exterior is a result of his inner conflict. This mute and immobile state is reflected in the punctuation. In the first sentence of the passage, there is a comma before “and couldn’t speak,” causing the reader to pause like Peter. Most of the sentences in the passage are fragmented by semicolons, dashes, and commas. Peter is nervous, because he is not aware of everything that is happening and is too afraid to do anything at that moment, and the punctuation emulates his emotions. It is almost as if he is trying to stop—or at the very least slow down—time through semicolons and dashes; however, he only manages to speed his perception of the passage of time by trying to slow down while everyone else is moving at normal speed. As a result, “everything seemed to race past him.” The rest of the first paragraph in the passage has no pauses within sentences as Peter is rushing to make up for lost time. The following two paragraphs, however, revert to using increasingly fragmented sentences as Peter gets more and more nervous. The inconsistent pacing from sentence to sentence is disorienting, and the reader is able to feel Peter’s discomfort.

Peter’s anxiety comes from his limited viewpoint. He “sa[ys] to himself” that Clarissa will marry Richard, but he does not talk to Clarissa about this fear. When the narrator confirms Peter “didn’t even know [Richard’s] name,” we also understand from the use of the word “even” that this lack of knowledge frustrates Peter. He seems disappointed at how little he really knows Clarissa’s life. Here is this man who Clarissa will one day marry, and Peter does not even know his name. It is clear that Clarissa does not know Richard at this point either; however, Peter has a fatalistic tone that suggests he pinpoints the end of his potential relationship with Clarissa to this event. Despite being in the room, Peter is an outsider to Clarissa and Richard’s meeting. “All through dinner he tried to hear what they were saying,” meaning he was not actually able to listen. Again, there is that nervous tone exacerbated by the five dashes, two semicolons, and question mark used in the sentences leading up to this line. It makes sense that Peter cannot hear anybody else as he is too distracted by his own thoughts, leading to a myopic recounting of events.

The fragility of memory further complicates Peter’s recollection of the events of that day, making Peter an unreliable narrator. Peter superimposes his current thoughts into the past “for of course it was that afternoon, that very afternoon, that Dalloway had come over.” The addition of “of course” is Peter’s current thought. At the time, Richard was just some guy. However, Peter is having a hard time believing his luck in what he is recounting, which explains the desire to pretend all of his regrets were predestined. The incredulous tone is evident in the repetition of “that afternoon” with the addition of “very” for emphasis the second time around.

Peter’s relative insignificance to Clarissa is explored in Woolf’s allusion to Pride and Prejudice. Clarissa accidentally calls Richard “Wickham,” the charming yet deceitful soldier in Austen’s novel. In that case, is Clarissa Lydia? Or is she Elizabeth, disillusioned with Wickham’s character? Since she will eventually marry Richard Dalloway, it is tempting to say Clarissa is Lydia; however, Richard refuses his identity as Wickham by “blurting out ‘My name is Dalloway!’” He is described as “awkward,” and he shares Mr. Darcy’s pride and wealth. Nonetheless, it does not feel appropriate to compare Clarissa’s marriage to that of Lizzy’s, because there does not appear to be that similar happiness. Here, we see Woolf’s twist. In Mrs. Dalloway, Darcy is split into two characters: Richard and Sally. Pride and Prejudice makes it abundantly clear that Elizabeth Bennet is interested in Darcy because he makes her happy, but also because he is wealthy, and “to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!” (P&P, ch.43). Austen does not make her protagonist choose between security and happiness in the end. Woolf does. Clarissa’s kiss with Sally Seton is the happiest moment in all of her life, but Richard Dalloway provides a certain security that Sally could never. This leaves Peter as Mr. Collins. Earlier in the novel, Clarissa thinks to herself that she made the right choice marrying Richard as being in a relationship with Peter would have never worked, which parallels the relationship between Elizabeth and Mr. Collins.

In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf talks about the importance of tradition and the want of a “common sentence ready for [women authors]” (ch.4). In Mrs. Dalloway, there is a deliberate evocation of women authors past, especially Austen (Woolf not only explicitly mentions Austen’s characters but also develops Austen’s frequent use of free indirect discourse in her own writing); this is a novel steeped in tradition. At the same time, there is a reinvention of tradition. In addition to Austen, Woolf is also reinventing the themes and styles of contemporary authors—most notably Joyce and Proust. The novel takes place over one day in June, like Joyce’s Ulysses. In addition, there are two protagonists, one of whom could be seen as a semi-autobiographical Woolf, akin to the relationship between Stephen Dedalus and Joyce. What is more, both novels depict the ordinary moments of life as beautiful and worthy of the same examination and reflection as the actions in epics. In this veneration for the daily, Mrs. Dalloway is also taking elements from Proust’s body of work. However, especially in this passage, Proust’s influence is most visible in the representation of memory as both fragile and sometimes involuntary. As a result of this simultaneous reinvention and preservation of tradition, Mrs. Dalloway becomes a bridge between the past and the present.

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Bridewell and Surroundings: Antiquities of London (1791-1800)

London constantly reinvents itself; John Thomas Smith’s Antiquities of London goes back in time to the first invention and builds the city back up from its relics and ruins. Within the confines of Bridewell and the surrounding area, this guidebook is able to highlight just how critical this place has consistently been for the city at large.

“Engravings of King Lud and his Sons [in the Bone-House of St. Dunstan’s Parish (Fleet Street)]”
The engraving depicting the oldest piece of history in this section of the map is about King Lud and his sons. In the caption to the engraving, it is mentioned that King Lud lived around the same time as Julius Caesar, and the phonetic degradation of Lud’s Town is what gave London its name. The king’s legacy is not just present in the name of the city, but Ludgate Hill and Street are also named after him. Importantly, Smith notes that the intended place for the statues was currently occupied by a statue of Elizabeth I, and since there is not enough space for three statues even if they replaced Queen Elizabeth’s statue with King Lud’s, Elizabeth’s statue would be staying where it was. There is a transition from the old to the new, from past monarchies to a more current one that follows the broader idea of reinvention. Nonetheless, there still remains a tradition of sorts within the reinvention. The monarchical family changes, but the area associated with the monarchy and the monarchy itself do not.

“London Wall, Ludgate Hill”

Smith’s engravings preserve previous versions of the city, but they also are a reminder that each reinvention of the city carries traces from past selves. At the end of the 18th century when he is making these engravings, the ruins of the London Wall—which were a part of the ancient city wall—are still there. Despite a devastating fire that burnt down nearly the whole city in 1666, Mr. Holden’s family vault in St. Bride’s Churchyard is still there.

 

“Entrance to Mr. Holden’s family vault in St. Bride’s Churchyard”
“Mrs. Salmon’s, Fleet Street No. 17”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a great attention to conveying the historical meaning of an engraved structure; therefore, when there is a certain engraving which misses this key trait, there are more questions raised by it than there are answered. One such engraving is the one of Mrs. Salmon’s Wax Work. The building appears to have been damaged given the fading, cracked paint on the top floor, and the fact that the building is not completely straight. Rather, it looks like certain components of the building that ought to be parallel are not because of some historical event or another. Smith’s guide, by documenting the remnants of the city’s past underlines the fragility and impermanence of the city at any one point in time as no moment in antiquity can be replicated entirely. This representation of the City of London, and Bridewell and the surrounding areas in particular shows the fleeting nature of a map of Bridewell.

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The Humans of Bridewell and Surroundings

The area around Bridewell brings together people from all walks of life as one might expect from a place with a garden, two prisons, multiple churches, countless wharves, and a royal history. In addition, the small houses cramped together in the spaces left in between the various institutions suggests that the area was probably relatively densely populated. This makes sense as everyone might have a different reason for living there.

“A Whistling Shop. Tom & Jerry visiting Logic ‘on board the Fleet'” from Pierce Egan’s Life in London (1821)

Someone could be in Fleet Prison because they are in debt; another might be working at the prison. The drawing of the inside of a whistling shop from Egan’s Life in London shows the range of people who are living here. Within the same room, there is a man in tattered clothes warming himself by the fire, a woman with children, some card players, and almost everyone is drinking. The clothes of the people—especially the colours and cuts of their clothing, and the types of hats they are wearing—implies that most of these people are not from the same socioeconomic class; however, it is also clear that no one is from the upper-upper class, and there are very few from the lower-upper class, if indeed there are any. How much would things have changed in, say, fifteen years from the time this drawing was made in 1821?

“The Warden’s Room,” Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, image from chapter 41.

Charles Dickens could help us see that the answer is not that much. In his earliest novel, The Pickwick Papers, Mr. Pickwick ends up in Fleet Prison, and Dickens’s description wouldn’t appear strange to someone familiar with the prison from Horwood’s Plan.

Charlotte Brontë references another prison in this area during a game of charades in Jane Eyre: Bridewell. This prison starts off as a Tudor palace and is later converted into a hospital and prison during the reign of Edward VI. While the purpose of this building has changed over time, the various structures surrounding Bridewell are a reminder of its history through names like King Edward Street, St. Bride’s Church Yard, St. Bride’s Wharf, Crown Court, Tudor Street, Bride Lane, Bride Court…

“Poor Sweep, Blackfriars Bridge” from Mapping Modern London (1804)

Bridewell during the late 18th and early 19th century has significantly changed since its days as a royal palace. The Pass-Room from Ackermann’s Microcosm of London shows a Bridewell where women are sleeping on hay because there are not enough beds. It is probable that some of these women are single mothers since there are children in the middle of the drawing.

In addition to the prisons and people who live in the area because they are in some way connected to the prison system, another demographic to keep in mind is children working to survive. We see Blackfriars Bridge as a spot where crossing sweepers work in Modern London. This suggests there are also middle class people who are coming in and out of this part of the City of London since someone must be paying for this service provided by children. Bridewell and its surroundings is a point of entry into the district, and therefore it makes sense that the place be populous and host people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

“Poor Sweep, Blackfriars Bridge” from Mapping Modern London (1804)
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Bridewell and Surroundings: The Importance of Nature

The seam joining the Thames with the rest of the City of London is the wharves: just within the area surrounding Bridewell there are over fifteen of varying sizes. This abundance makes sense with the context given in Fores’s list that London harbours over ten thousand boats. As a result, however, the boundary between the natural and built environment is blurred even more than it already was; after all, where does the river end and the district begin if the boats are part of the city?

Blackfriars Bridge as depicted in Malton’s Picturesque Tour (1792-1801)

The natural environment—most notably the Thames—influences the built environment both in terms of the types of structures that need to exist to make this district the heart of the larger city, and in terms of the names of these structures. In addition to the wharves, a point of contact between this part of the City of London and the river is Blackfriars Bridge. Without the bridge and the wharves, not only would access to the area be far more limited, but this shift away from being a hub would fundamentally change the area’s identity since multiple structures have names referring to this symbiotic relationship between the natural and the built. The two most prominent streets that connect other smaller streets together are aptly named Fleet Street and New Bridge Street. The prison located right next to the intersection of these streets is also called Fleet Prison. There are numerous other smaller streets that highlight this Thames-based identity such as Little Bridge Street and Water Street.

Another important meeting point between the natural and the built environments is the Temple Gardens. The natural body of water directly next to the garden plays into the style of English gardens that contrasted from the jardin à la française. As can be seen in the image of Temple Gardens from 1809, the artificially created nature is still meant to look realistic to an extent. This is a heightened form of nature, but is, nonetheless, reminiscent of undisturbed nature. There is a deliberate attempt to work with nature—unlike the symmetrical and perfectly trimmed topiary common in French gardens—that makes this garden stand out as quintessentially English.

Temple Gardens, 1809
The gardens of Versailles; an example of a French garden for reference

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bridge Street, Blackfriars from Papworth’s Select Views (1816)

When we look at changes between Horwood’s Plan and Faden’s 1819 revision, we see there is a new and much smaller garden that is built right next to Bridewell. In addition to the garden, Bridewell also has a new chapel in its premises. Another change is the obelisk located in the intersection between Fleet Street and New Bridge Street. The obelisk must have been there since 1816 at the latest given the image of Bridge Street from Papworth’s Select Views includes the obelisk. The most substantial change in the area that alludes to technological developments of the time is the replacement of the New River Office and Yard with the Gas Light Company. The existence of the company suggests that using gas light must have been popular enough to sustain a business as early as 1819.

Bridewell Hospital and surrounding area in Horwood’s Plan (1792-9)
Bridewell Hospital and surrounding area in Faden’s 1819 revision. Orange highlights refer to places that have changed since Horwood’s original map. Green highlights refer to places mentioned in the current and following posts that have not changed between the two editions of the map.

 

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Istanbul

The longer I’ve lived in different cities, the more I understand there is a common thread that connects them: a cosmopolitan crowd, a constant cacophony of all the life around you, the phantom of history echoing from the buildings—this city, whichever one it may be, was a Muse for many before me and it will continue to be long after I’m gone. What transforms a city from just another one to a favourite, a city you’d want to write about for a test post, then must be memories. My favourite city is Istanbul; my fondest memories are in Istanbul.

I remember walking on my own for the first time, waiting for the metro, having a city open up its secrets to me as I walked. I remember the first time I’d gone on the red tramway, a centennial by that point in its career, groaning at the labour of ceaselessly carrying all that weight for years. I remember the first time I’d heard the Eine Kleine because the busker playing the piece knew it was bound to attract audiences. I remember, perhaps most vividly and longingly, however, the ferry.

Unless it is cold enough that I cannot feel my toes, I will do my best to sit on the top of the ferry, where the wind cradles you as you hear the waves lapping, creating a foam such that Aphrodite might emerge at any moment inside her shell, the smell of iodine is gently making its way to your nose. Swaddled by the sounds of conversations melding into one gentle lullaby, you think you must have found Time’s pocket and there you can find shelter until the ferry’s horn breaks the spell and the journey is over for now.