Herfst 2007 no.61
ing picture of life between 1880 and 1932. A
pleasant buffet lunch was included, and the
weather was splendid, enabling everyone to
have an immensely enjoyable day out.
The Banquet was held that evening in a most
elegant room at Hotel the Grand, formerly the
Town Hall, and it was a dignified and highly
successful occasion, with a very good meal,
convivial company and speeches kept to a sen
sible length. Professor Jan Kabel (University
of Amsterdam) and Mrs Thelma Grove both
referred to the fifty years of the Haarlem
Branch, commending its consistent enthusi
asm, and Mr Gerald Dickens, President of the
Fellowship, in addition to proposing the
Honorary Secretaries, gave a short tribute to
the late, greatly missed Cedric Dickens. In his
speech to the Immortal Memory, Professor
Jan Lokin (University of Groningen, and a
past President of the Fellowship) ingeniously
linked Plato, Pythagoras and Pickwick with
Cedric Dickens, who had also founded a club,
at the George and Vulture, namely the
Dickens Pickwick Club; and he too spoke
affectionately about Cedric, delivering a very
effective and well-received eulogy. He con
cluded by reminding us that Charles Dickens,
the Inimitable, had founded more than a Club
- a cosmos of his own!
Professor Robert Googins, President of the
Connecticut Branch, made an excellent
Toastmaster, ensuring that the evening ended
promptly, and the meal was enhanced by the
lovely menu cards designed by Marian
Andriessen, one of the longest-serving mem
bers of the Haarlem Branch.
Sunday 30 July was an exceptionally full day.
In the first of four lectures, "Rising like a
Rocket", Dr Paul Schlicke considered the
immense success of Sketches by Boz, in estab
lishing Dickens's reputation, despite his later
apologetic attitude towards them as expressed
in his prefaces. The sketches appeared in a
staggering 140 publications in the first few
years, either complete or abridged, and
inspired numerous imitations, all reminding
readers of the original works. Dr Schlicke
explained some of the key reasons for the pop
ularity of these early works: Macrone's inno
vation in pairing a contemporary writer with a
highly reputable illustrator, George
Cruikshank; reviewers finding the work
extractable, and the extracts demonstrating
the range of Dickens's writing; despite a few
reservations, the vast majority of reviews
being positive, most frequently praising the
sketches' acuteness of observation, their moral
and insU active nature, and the innovation of
taking ordinary people seriously. G. H. Lewes,
commenting on "the astonishing popularity"
of Dickens's work, compared his success with
Byron's overnight fame. We look forward to
Dr Schlicke's forthcoming edition.
Professor Jan Lokin surveyed attitudes
towards Dickens expressed by Dutch literary
critics, with particular reference to Busken
Huet, Frans Coenen, Vestdijk, Bomans and
Bloem, suggesting that in Dutch criticism
"real" and "reality" are key words, but that the
concept of reality has, not surprisingly evolved
since then, and the almost totally negative
assessment of Dickens by Busken Huet and
his contemporaries now seems strikingly
imperceptive. Moral, Romantic, psychological
and mythical reality were discussed as
Professo. Lokin considered the development
of Dickens criticism in the Netherlands, his
conclusion being that all those realities are
present in Dickens's writings to a greater or
lesser extent, so it is not a case of one critic
being right and the others wrong!
For a writer so famous for his "Englishness" to
have had such an extensive connection with
continental Europe might seem surprising,
and to elucidate some aspects of Dickens's
relationship with, and attitudes towards,
Europe was the purpose of Dr Tony Williams's
most interesting lecture. An informative hand
out was provided, listing chronologically
Dickens's visits to Europe, and there were also
several useful illustrations. Starting with an
account of the Staplehurst railway accident,
Dr Williams drew attention to the discomfort
and danger of travel, before going on to list
the various reasons for Dickens's journeys: to
take up residence with his family wherever his
humour took him, and in the later part of his
life with Ellen Ternan; business purposes; cli
mate; the relative lack of industrialisation;
The Dutch Dickensian Vol
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