The Dickens Country — Text and Context

paring a map of England that should indicate, by means of a tint, those portions especially associated with Charles Dickens and his writings. This map makes manifest the fact that the country thus most intimately connected with the novelist is the south-eastern portion of England, having London as the centre and Rochester as the “literary capital,” and including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, and Warwickshire, with an offshoot extending to the northern boundary of Yorkshire.

All literary pilgrims, and particularly the devotees of Charles Dickens, regard as foremost among literary shrines inviting special homage the scene of the nativity of “Immortal Boz.” Like the birthplaces of many an eminent personage who first saw the light in the midst of a humble environment, the dwelling in which Dickens was born is unpretentious enough, and remains unaltered. The modest abode rented shortly after marriage by John Dickens (the future novelist’s father), from June, 1809, to June, 1812, stands in Commercial Road, Portsmouth, the number of the house having been recently changed from 387 to 393. The district was then known as Landport, in the Island of Portsea, but is now incorporated with Portsmouth; a comparatively rural locality at that time, it has since developed into a densely populated neighbourhood, covered with houses and bisected by the main line of the municipal tramways.[1] It is, however, yet within the memory of middle-aged people when this area of brick and mortar consisted of pasture land in which trees flourished and afforded nesting-places for innumerable birds—a condition of things recalled by the names bestowed upon some of the streets hereabouts, such as Cherry Garden Lane and Elm Road—but now “only children flourish where once the daisies sprang.”

The birthplace of Charles Dickens, which less than half a century ago overlooked green fields, is an interesting survival of those days of arboreal delights; and the broad road, on the west side of which it is situated, leads to Cosham and the picturesque ruin of Porchester Castle. In 1809 John Dickens was transferred from Somerset House to the Navy Pay-Office at Portsmouth Dockyard, and, with his young wife, made his home here, in which were born their first child (Frances Elizabeth) in 1810, and Charles on February 7, 1812. This domicile is a plain, red-brick building containing four rooms of moderate size and two attics, with domestic offices; in front there is a small garden, separated from the public roadway by an iron palisading; and a few steps, with a hand-rail, lead from the forecourt to the hooded doorway of the principal entrance. The front bedroom is believed to be the room in which Dickens was born. From the apartments in the rear there is still a pleasant prospect, overlooking a long garden, where flourishes an eminently fine specimen of the tree-mallow. On the death of Mrs. Sarah Pearce, the owner and occupier (and last surviving daughter of John Dickens’s landlord), the house was offered for sale by public auction on Michaelmas Day, 1903, when, much to the delight of the townspeople as well as of all lovers of the great novelist, it was purchased by the Portsmouth Town Council for preservation as a Dickens memorial, and with the intention of adapting it for the purposes of a Dickens Museum. The purchase price was £1,125, a sum exceeding by five hundred pounds the amount realized on the same occasion by the adjoining freehold residence (No. 395), which is identical in character—an interesting and significant testimony as to the sentimental value attaching to the birthplace of “Boz.”