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consent many without it. But he loved it and he went to most of them. In 1858 he
writes to Forster that in his opinion every writer should have to write for the stage.
He was his own director in the famous rounds of performances of doing his own
novels on the stage.
The stage adaptations of his novels are still played, especially in December. Next to
Shakespeare Dickens is played second most in Great Britain. And of course there
are the very popular the television adaptations of his novels.
Professor Tony Pointon: 'Dickens Debt'.
In Trevelyan's Illustrated English Social History in four volumes only a very small
part is devoted on the theme of debt. And yet it is and was a very common thing to
have debts and to cope with them especially for women. They had to cope with
everyday life and money was scarce at the end of the week. In the two prints of a
pawnbroker shop we see mostly women: The pawnbroker shop in the Sketches 7:2;
in Martin Chuzzlewit 3:4. Many a time we meet debtors but also pawnbrokers in
Dickens novels: Pleasant Riderhood as a part time unlicensed pawnbroker; Ralph
Nickleby in the case of Mantallini; Mrs Micawber who also sends David to the
pawnbroker shop; to name a few cases. Debt was not really accepted. The Lamml's
who went for a way of life based on debts, were the exception, it was not done to
have debts and for most of the people it was a dishonour not been able to pay one's
debts. But in the novels as well as in his daily life debt was a common thing for
Dickens. His father made debts for he was sure his famous son would pay them.
Dickens did not like that at all so in the forties he published an advertisement to tell
all and sundry that he accepted no longer any responsibility for the debts of anybody
with the name of Dickens. Also other novelists used the theme of debt. As W.M.
Thackeray in Vanity fair where the life of Becky Sharp and her husband are entirely
based on debts.
Dr. Joanne Eysell: 'The Ghost of Familiar Things Past'.
Most of the time we do not realize how household life, public health and sanitation
have changed since Dickens times. Perhaps time travellers from the 19th century
would be surprised by the smell of petrol in our cities but we, in the other way
around, would be sick by the stench of any larger city. Lack of a sewer system, the
excrement's of thousands of dogs horses; slums with the filth of ages in and
around them, no bathing facilities for most of the people, the sulphured smoke of
cheap fuel like peat and brown-coal and that all together made an unbearable stench.
In London the situation was worse then elsewhere on account of the Thames. The
Thames is a tidal river so high tide brought back all the filth that low tide would
have swept to the sea, the filth produced by a city of more then 3 million people was
too much for the tides being washed away to the sea. The smog was a special
product of London: the city lies in a kind of natural bowl with the Thames as bottom
and the houses as sides. Lack of sanitation, overfull cesspits, dense smoke of cheap
fuel, excrement's of thousands of beasts produced a kind of black fog that only a
very strong wind could blow away. In the spring of 1858 the stench was so heavy
that Parliament was unable to meet, the buildings too near the Thames. The
orientation of the Thames is more or less East-West so the east wind brought the
stench back to the city: the bad East wind in Bleakhouse!
