The works of Charles Dickens are synonymous with visions of Victorian London. We talk to Dr Lee Jackson about the author’s love of the capital, and the locations that most inspired him
Q: How has Charles Dickens become so intrinsically linked with London?
A:Dickens is theLondon writer. He was described by one critic in the mid-19th century as “a special correspondent for posterity”. He writes in such detail, and he walked through the city looking for locations for his books in the same way that people might scout for film locations today.
He’s an intensely visual writer. He goes from the biggest panoramas of London life – like fog sweeping across the River Thames – to the smallest possible details. We think of his world in very visual terms, and I think that draws people in.
Q: Why do you think Dickens’s London has captured people’s imaginations?
A:Dickens lived at the cusp of modernity, in a city that was both ancient and rapidly changing. He picks on aspects of Old London in his works – the city churchyards, the inns of court, the law courts – at a time when new bridges, new roads, and even new sewer networks were starting to appear. He was fascinated seeing the old city disappearing and the new coming in. I think that also chimes with our experience of London over the past two centuries.
My latest book, Dickensland: The Curious History of Dickens’s London, is all about Dickens tourism, and we’ve got this remarkable history of 150 years of people going back to Dickens and trying to find the places in his books [see pages 32–35]. That quest obviously has great appeal, and I suppose I’ve been trying to fathom what that appeal is.
Q: What sort of places was he most inspired by?
A: Dickens was very interested in pubs and shops – in shared, public places that had a sense of history. Indeed, there’s a great piece in Sketches by Boz[a collection of short pieces that Dickens published in various newspapers and magazines between 1833–36], in which he traces the history of a London shop through six or seven different iterations. He talks about its decay and how it ends; it’s a school at one point, then it becomes a shop, and then a private house. He loved seeing these buildings change through history. He also thought quaint places, like old inns, stirred the imagination.
One of the places I’m particularl
