Free Library Blog - Posts by Janine P.

A celebration of the Victorian conviviality of Charles Dickens

Janine P. — 2012-12-10T10:10:00-05:00

By Edward G. Pettit

The conviviality of the Dickensian world is nowhere more apparent than in Dickens’s Christmas books and stories. From Mr Pickwick celebrating at Dingley Dell to Scrooge offering Bob Cratchit a talk over a bowl of smoking bishop, Dickens knew that Christmas “was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness.” Dickens himself always celebrated the holiday with feasting, games and a brimming bowl of wassail punch. Join us as we ring out the Bicentenary Year of Dickens by toasting the Inimitable Boz at his favorite time of the year at our final Drinking with Dickens event.

Years before the Cratchit Family was hip-hip hooraying their Christmas goose and pudding, Dickens had written about the Christmas that Mr Pickwick and his friends celebrated at Dingley Dell. They feasted and danced and told stories and drank many a bowl of punch. From Chapter 28 of The Pickwick Papers:

'This,' said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him, 'this is, indeed, comfort.' 'Our invariable custom,' replied Mr. Wardle. 'Everybody sits down with us on Christmas Eve, as you see them now—servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, rake up the fire.'

Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred. The deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the farthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face.

'Come,' said Wardle, 'a song—a Christmas song! I'll give you one, in default of a better.'

'Bravo!' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Fill up,' cried Wardle. 'It will be two hours, good, before you see the bottom of the bowl through the deep rich colour of the wassail; fill up all round, and now for the song.'

Thus saying, the merry old gentleman, in a good, round, sturdy voice, commenced without more ado—

My song I troll out, for Christmas Stout,

The hearty, the true, and the bold;

A bumper I drain, and with might and main

Give three cheers for this Christmas old!

We'll usher him in with a merry din

That shall gladden his joyous heart,

And we'll keep him up, while there's bite or sup,

And in fellowship good, we'll part.

In his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide

One jot of his hard-weather scars;

They're no disgrace, for there's much the same trace

On the cheeks of our bravest tars.

Then again I sing till the roof doth ring

And it echoes from wall to wall—

To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night,

As the King of the Seasons all!'

This song was tumultuously applauded—for friends and dependents make a capital audience—and the poor relations, especially, were in perfect ecstasies of rapture. Again was the fire replenished, and again went the wassail round.

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all. May you never be boiled in your own puddings with a stake of holly through your hearts!

Edward Pettit is the Charles Dickens Ambassador for FLP’s Year of Dickens and writes about his adventures in Dickens at http://readingcharlesdickens.com/

Empty Chairs

Janine P. — 2012-04-23T08:59:00-05:00

By Edward Pettit

The Vincent Van Gogh exhibition, Van Gogh Up Close, now open at the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been receiving lots of attention. The exhibition focuses on Van Gogh’s paintings of nature and one can see the vibrancy in color and texture of our everyday world that the artist illuminates. Van Gogh also brought this same urgency, this same blazing brilliance to mundane objects like chairs.

And one chair that inspired him was an engraving by Luke Fildes of “The Empty Chair” of Charles Dickens. Fildes had been illustrating Dickens’s last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, when the author died. As a tribute, Fildes painted a watercolor of Dickens’s work space: the writing desk in his study and the now empty chair, prominently displayed, never to be filled again. Fildes’s watercolor is on permanent display (along with Dickens’s writing desk) in the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

An engraving of Fildes’s “Empty Chair” was published in the journal Graphic (as well as many other magazines). Van Gogh was an ardent admirer of illustrated journals (including Graphic), especially in their dedication to social realism in art. Van Gogh greatly admired Fildes’s painting (and may have first seen it in Graphic) and even owned a copy of the engraving. For Van Gogh, the empty chair symbolized the coming absence of the artist. He wrote “Empty chairs—there are many of them, there will be even more and sooner or later there will be nothing but empty chairs.”

But for me, this kind of melancholic fatalism doesn’t come across in Van Gogh’s chairs. His chairs have a pipe, flowers, books, a candle perched on their seats. These mundane objects are hopeful in a way, placeholders waiting for the eventual return of a sitter. And maybe that can serve as a blithe reminder for Fildes’s mournful chair. Maybe the Empty Chair is welcoming, inviting us to have a seat in Dickens’s imagination and enjoy the works he created while seated there.

Join us all year as we metaphorically sit in Dickens’s chair.

http://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/calbydateDickens.cfm

Edward Pettit is the Charles Dickens Ambassador for FLP’s Year of Dickens and writes about his adventures in Dickens at http://readingcharlesdickens.com/

An Unsolved Mystery

Janine P. — 2012-03-15T10:27:00-05:00

by Edward Pettit

Tonight our Dickens Literary Salon will be discussing the author’s final, incomplete mystery novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. SPOILERS AHEAD

When Edwin Drood goes missing it is assumed that he has been murdered. Edwin’s uncle and guardian, John Jasper, is the choirmaster of the Cloisterham Cathedral, but Jasper is also secretly in love with Edwin’s fiancée, Rosa Bud. To cast further suspicion on Jasper, he is also an opium addict, often visiting the squalid opium den of Princess Puffer. However, many of the other characters in the novel are unaware of Jasper’s secret lives, and when Jasper casts aspersions on Neville Landless as the killer of Edwin, some readily believe it. Enter into the town of Cloisterham, one Dick Datchery, a white haired, eccentric newcomer to the town, who seems to be investigating the disappearance of Edwin. Unfortunately, at this point in the novel, Dickens died, leaving his readers with just half the novel complete and all the mystery still to solve.

For more than 140 years, various authors and critics have tried to solve the mystery. At our Dickens Literary Salon, we’ll do the same. But just over forty years after Dickens death, some readers assumed Jasper must have murdered Drood, so they put him on trial. On January 7, 1914, The Trial of John Jasper, with eminent writer and Dickens critic G.K. Chesterton as judge, George Bernard Shaw as foreman of a jury that included such writers as W.W. Jacobs and Hilaire Belloc, was held at King’s Hall, Covent Garden. The proceedings were published and you can read the transcript of the trial here: http://www.archive.org/details/trialofjohnjaspe00jasprich.

The participants in this mock trial agreed beforehand that Mr. Grewgious could not be called as witness by either side (lucky for the defense) and that hearsay evidence would be allowed. Opening statements were read and witnesses called: Durdles, Crisparkle, Helena Landless, Princess Puffer, Bazzard (who in this trial is assumed to have been Datchery in disguise).

At the close of the trial (after four hours and twenty minutes), the jury revealed that they had already come up with their verdict during the luncheon period: Jasper is guilty of Manslaughter, but not murder because no body had been found. I love the way it all ends:

The Prosecutor: I should like to urge that the Jury be discharged for not having performed their duties in the proper spirit of the law. We have heard from the Foreman that the verdict was arranged in advance, and I decline to accept that verdict, and ask for your Lordship's ruling.

The Foreman (GB Shaw): The Jury, like all British Juries, will be only too delighted to be discharged at the earliest moment: the sooner the better.

Mr. Chesterton: I want to associate myself with my learned friend.

Judge: My decision is that everybody here, except myself, be committed for Contempt of Court. Off you all go to prison without any trial whatever!

Just a few months later, the Philadelphia Branch of the Dickens Fellowship decided to hold their own trial of Jasper at the Academy of Music on Apr 29, 1914, as a charity benefit for various hospitals This trial was presided over by an actual judge, PA Supreme Court Justice John P. Elkin. The Attorney General of Pennsylvania and another judge were prosecutors and a congressman represented the defense. George W. Elkins (the father of William McIntire Elkins, whose library is preserved in the Rare Book Dept of the FLP) was a member of the jury.

You can read it here: http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013472489. The book also contains photographs of the participants.

The Philadelphia trial acknowledges the British trial adjudged by Chesterton, however Jasper had since escaped to America where he was caught and will now be retried in an American court of law. Also, according to the introduction of the published transcript, the British trial of Jasper “instead of satisfying the public, only left confusion more confounded and added to the uncertainty already existing. Not only did the English people declare that the verdict meant nothing, but the entire Dickensian world protested that Jasper should have been convicted of murder, or else acquitted. He was guilty, or not guilty, and a verdict in the Pickwickian sense would never do, even if Bernard Shaw were foreman of the jury which rendered such a verdict.”

The Philadelphia trial began with the choosing of the jury. Some prominent literary Philadelphians not chosen from the pool were Ellis Paxson Oberholzer, A.S.W. Rosenbach, and Charles Sessler.

The very funny proceedings are rife with in-jokes for those familiar with the novel. When the first witness, Canon Crisparkle, is called by Mr. Bell, the Prosecutor, Mr. Sapsea objects:

I protest against the Canon taking the stand, sir. I am the first citizen of Cloisterham.

Mr. Bell: Do you insist upon your prerogative, sir?

Mayor Sapsea: I do, most positively.

Mr. Bell: All right, Dogberry, take the stand.

(Mayor Sapsea takes the witness stand.)

Mr. Bell: What quadruped in the animal kingdom do you and Dogberry typify?

Sapsea: Not a jackass, like counsel.

After a five-hour trial the jury retired three times to deliberate: 6-6 tie, 9-3 for acquittal, and finally 11-1 for acquittal. After all, no body had ever been discovered. The American jury did not believe Jasper could be convicted without first proving that Drood was really dead.

Tonight, at our Drood Literary Salon, we won’t hold a trial (I have to agree with the Philadelphians: where’s the body?), but we will, Datchery-like, tramp the streets of Cloisterham to discover what happened to Edwin Drood. Was he murdered? Who could have done it? Join us as we investigate (and solve?) the mystery of Edwin Drood.

Edward Pettit writes about his adventures in Dickens at http://readingcharlesdickens.com/

Boz Bicentenary Speaker Series - Matthew Pearl

Janine P. — 2012-03-02T09:36:00-05:00

When Charles Dickens died suddenly of stroke in 1870 he had written half of a novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Dickens published all of his novels in serial format and wrote the chapters sometimes just weeks before they were published. So when he died with Drood only half written, it really was just that, only half written. Any half-finished novel by Dickens would have long fascinated readers, but Drood was a murder mystery, and the questions of the half-finished mystery have long tantalized readers and writers to know whodunit. Who murdered Edwin? Was Edwin even murdered? Many books have been published over the years, some attempting to finish the novel and some laying out the facts of the case.

Matthew Pearl’s The Last Dickens is not a continuation of Drood, but rather a fictionalized account of an investigation by Dickens’s American publisher James Ripley Osgood. Osgood attempts to discover Dickens’s intentions for finishing Drood, but becomes involved in a much more dangerous conspiracy involving opium smugglers, publishing pirates and murder.

The Last Dickens, like all of Pearl’s novels (The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow and the brand new The Technologists), is also a finely researched work of literary history. We walk the streets with 19^th Century writers and publishers and see their world as they saw it. Pearl’s novels are like literary time-machines, showing us the moments of creation of the greatest literary works and giving us an insight to what it was like for the first readers of those works.

On Tuesday night March 6, Matthew Pearl will be visiting the Free Library of Philadelphia to talk about Dickens and Drood and how he recreated this moment of literary history. Hope you’ll join us. http://bozpearl.eventbrite.com/

And the following week, on March 15, our Dickens Literary Salon will be discussing The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Do you think Edwin was murdered? Who do you think did it? Come join us for a lively discussion in the beautiful Elkins Room in the Rare Book Department. http://flpedwindrood.eventbrite.com/

-Edward Pettit

Happy 200th Birthday Charles Dickens!

Janine P. — 2012-02-07T10:04:00-05:00

Today marks the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, and the Free Library joins the global celebration honoring the life and legacy of the world's first literary superstar.

Philadelphia is home to what for a long time was the world's only statue of Charles Dickens. Find out more about the statue in our digital collection. Each year a ceremony, hosted by the Friends of Clark Park, is held at the much beloved statue. The celebration is detailed in an article from yesterday's Inquirer.

The party continues this weekend. Join us Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Parkway Central Children's Department for readings, crafts, and some surprises - possibly an appearance by the man himself. Additionally, the Rare Book Department will be open from 1-5 p.m. for viewing our exhibition "From the Desk of Charles Dickens." While you're here, be sure to check out our lively and colorful exhibition on the first floor "Character Sketches from the World of Charles Dickens." And - you spoke and we listened - beginning on Saturday, February 18th the Rare Book Department will be open Saturdays from 9 a.m.to 5 p.m.

Events are scheduled all year long to explore the lasting impact of the Immortal Boz. Check our calendar frequently for events happening all over the area. On the third Thursday of each month we'll be holding a literary salon in the Elkins Room to discuss one of Dickens's novels. Next Thursday covers Oliver Twist. You can register for these free events on Eventbrite.

The salons are led by Edward Pettit, best known as the "Philly Poe Guy" who argued for Philadelphia as the true home of Edgar Allan Poe's literary legacy. As our Dickens Ambassador he has been helping to plan events for our Year of Dickens and he will give you a Dickens novel if you ask! Pettit has also undertaken the reading of all of Dickens's works this year, including the novels, plays, and journalism. You can follow his adventures on his Reading Charles Dickens website.

Celebrations are taking place all over the world, especially in Great Britain. A Dickens 2012 website chronicles the year-long worldwide schedule of events, exhibitions, and performances. This morning a ceremony was held at Westminster Abbey, attended by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. Ralph Fiennes read a touching passage from Bleak House as Prince Charles laid a wreath on the author's grave in Poet's Corner.

Finally, even Google is on board with a 200th birthday doodle!

For more information on the Free Library's Year of Dickens visit http://libwww.freelibrary.org/dickens/.

Character Sketches from the World of Charles Dickens

Janine P. — 2011-12-28T09:18:00-05:00

A vibrant and colorful exhibition at the Parkway Central Library highlights one of the most enduring legacies of Charles Dickens's genius: the unforgettable characters he brought to life. By some estimates there are 989 named characters in his works, with names like Toodle, Tappertit, and Tattycoram; Buzfuz, Bumble, and Bucket.

Each of Dickens’s novels is populated with a profusion of unique personalities who are animated by the extraordinary power the author had of seeing his characters and making us see them. Driven by a fascination with human behavior and fueled by his gift for precise recall, Dickens often remarked that his characters and stories “took possession” of him.

The writer G. K. Chesterton said that “The whole of Dickens’s genius consisted of taking hints and turning them into human beings.” In putting pen to paper Dickens interwove satire and sentimentalism to create some of the most bizarre and eccentric characters in fiction. Of Sairey Gamp, the befuddled, sadistic midwife of The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens writes, “The face of Mrs. Gamp – the nose in particular – was somewhat red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her society without becoming conscious of a smell of spirits.” Of the immortal Samuel Pickwick he remarks: "To those who knew that the gigantic brain of Pickwick was working beneath that forehead, and that the beaming eyes of Pickwick were twinkling behind those glasses, the sight was indeed an interesting one.”

To aid his creativity Dickens made lists of odd names, gleaned from church registers, tombstones, and a resource called Bowditch's Surnames. According to biographer Peter Ackroyd, Dickens's characters did not exist until he had named them and "it is that, which like a spell, brings forth their appearance and behaviour in the world." Facsimiles of original and published illustrations, set against a backdrop of London Street scenes from the collections of the Rare Book Department, Theatre, and Print and Picture Collections bring these characters to life in a vivid and imaginative way.

The exhibition will be on view in the West Gallery on the first floor until March 23rd, 2012 and can be seen during Parkway Central's normal hours of operation: 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Friday; 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Saturday; 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. Sunday. For more information on the Free Library's Year of Dickens, including a full calendar of events, visit freelibrary.org/dickens.

Eliza Poe

Janine P. — 2011-12-09T13:36:00-05:00

Yesterday marked 200 years since the death of Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe (1787–1811), mother of Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar was just 2 years-old when his mother died.

Born in England, Eliza Poe was the daughter of two actors. She made her stage debut at the age of nine as a character named Biddy Bellair in David Garrick’s farce Miss in Her Teens. Coming to America with her mother in 1795, Eliza performed in a number of successful productions. She married fellow actor Charles Hopkins at the age of 15, and six months after his death in 1806 married David Poe, Jr. Eliza had three children with David: William Henry Leonard in 1807, Edgar in 1809, and daughter Rosalie in 1810.

The Rare Book Department is home to two extraordinary mementos of Poe's mother. The first is a copy of Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson, signed "E. Poe Born Arnold. 1807." In 1807 Eliza was 20, already widowed and recently remarried. Susanna Rowson was not only a novelist but an actress who performed in the same circuit as Poe's mother. Their paths crossed in both Alexandria, Virginia and Boston.

The other item is a miniature portrait on ivory. According to biographer Kenneth Silverman, Poe carried this miniature with him on his final trip to Richmond in 1849, and must have had it in his possession at his death, although what happened to it immediately following is anybody’s guess. The miniature was used by John Ingram in his biography (1880), then lost, but subsequently recovered by an American, Ivan Katz, at a Paris flea market in 1955. It is the only known portrait of Poe’s mother. This precious object, together with a small, empty jewel case, was long thought to constitute Edgar’s entire inheritance from his parents, who both died when he was two years old.

From the Desk of Charles Dickens

Janine P. — 2011-11-28T09:48:00-05:00

Today marks the opening of the eagerly anticipated Rare Book Department exhibition on the life and work of Charles Dickens. "From the Desk of Charles Dickens: Celebrating the Great Writer at 200" brings together printed works, correspondence, autograph manuscripts, and original drawings, as well as objects Dickens used throughout his life.

From the tip of his quill pen Dickens conducted his life—conscious and in control of all the moving parts. He took such an interest in so many things: art-directing his publications, producing amateur theatricals, raising money for the less fortunate, planning outings and holidays with his family and friends, and expressing gentle and sometimes not-so-gentle concern for their well-being.

Dickens was an exceptional correspondent; many of his letters are every bit as engaging as his published works. Letters to close friends where he jokes and teases them affectionately, instructions to the artists who were illustrating his works, correspondence explaining his worldview and his reasons for writing what he did illuminate the way Dickens lived and worked.

The exhibition shows the works that were the product of the author’s creative genius and places them in the context of the life of a man for whom no detail was too small and who wielded the power of his celebrity for the causes he believed in and for the good of those he cared about.

The Free Library is home to one of the finest Charles Dickens collections in the world, mostly owing to the generosity of two distinguished benefactors. William McIntire Elkins, a Philadelphian and a trustee of the Free Library, bequeathed the Library a complete record of Dickens’s literary and public career. D. Jacques Benoliel, a Philadelphia industrialist, focused his collecting on Dickens's lifelong passion for the theatre. His collection of autograph letters and playbills was donated to the Free Library by his family after his death in 1954 and has been extensively augmented from an endowment set up by the family in Mr. Benoliel’s memory.

The exhibition runs through May 25, 2012 and can be viewed Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the Rare Book Department on the 3rd floor of the Parkway Central Library. Tours of the general collection are conducted at 11:00 a.m. To learn more about the Free Library's Charles Dickens Collection or for more information on events related to our Year of Dickens visit freelibrary.org/dickens.

The First Folios

Janine P. — 2011-08-11T09:34:00-05:00

With the opening of the newly refurbished Shakespeare Park directly across the street from Parkway Central, it seems fitting to highlight the Library's holdings related to the man himself. The Rare Book Department is home to the first four folios of Shakespeare, the gift of P.A.B. Widener and his sister Mrs. Josephine Widener Wichfield, in memory of their father Joseph E. Widener [This P.A.B. Widener is the grandson of the P.A.B. Widener who presented the library with his Copinger collection of Incunabula in 1899].

The First Folio was published in 1623 and contains Shakespeare’s collected plays, compiled by fellow actors John Hemmings and Henry Condell. They include the comedies, histories and tagedies. As was pointed out in a recent New York Times article about an exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library, without this book we would have never known such plays as "The Tempest," "Julius Caesar," "Macbeth," "Twelfth Night," "As You Like It" or "The Winter’s Tale.”

The publishing history of the First Folio, printed by booksellers Edward Blount and father and son William and Isaac Jaggard, has become one of the foundations for the study of analytical bibliography. By comparing the extant copies of the folio in minute detail, bibliographers have been able to identify individual typesetters through their spelling habits and their use of worn and broken types.

The Widener gift of the first four folios was arranged by Philadelphia bookseller A.S.W. Rosenbach, who in his career handled six First Folios and even owned two boats, named "First Folio" and "First Folio II." There are thought to be only 232 copies of the First Folio in existence and the Free Library is fortunate to have one, which we believe to be in its original binding.

For more information, check out the British Library’s page on the first folio: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/landprint/shakespeare/index.html and the University of Victoria's digital facsimile: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/overview/book/F1.html.