ISBN: HB: 9780300266207
August 2023
288 pp.
23,4x15,3 cm
24 black&white illus.
HB:
20.00 GBP
QTY:
Dickensland
The Curious History of Dickens' London
The intriguing history of Dickens's London, showing how tourists have reimagined and reinvented the Dickensian metropolis for more than 150 years.
Tourists have sought out the landmarks, streets, and alleys of Charles Dickens's London ever since the death of the world-renowned author. Late Victorians and Edwardians were obsessed with tracking down the locations – dubbed "Dickensland" – that famously featured in his novels. But his fans were faced with a city that was undergoing rapid redevelopment, where literary shrines were far from sacred. Over the following century, sites connected with Dickens were demolished, relocated, and reimagined.
Lee Jackson traces the fascinating history of Dickensian tourism, exploring both real Victorian London and a fictional city shaped by fandom, tourism, and heritage entrepreneurs. Beginning with the late nineteenth century, Jackson investigates key sites of literary pilgrimage and their relationship with Dickens and his work, revealing hidden, reinvented, and even faked locations. From vanishing coaching inns to submerged riverside stairs, hidden burial grounds to apocryphal shops, "Dickensland" charts the curious history of an imaginary world.
Tourists have sought out the landmarks, streets, and alleys of Charles Dickens's London ever since the death of the world-renowned author. Late Victorians and Edwardians were obsessed with tracking down the locations – dubbed "Dickensland" – that famously featured in his novels. But his fans were faced with a city that was undergoing rapid redevelopment, where literary shrines were far from sacred. Over the following century, sites connected with Dickens were demolished, relocated, and reimagined.
Lee Jackson traces the fascinating history of Dickensian tourism, exploring both real Victorian London and a fictional city shaped by fandom, tourism, and heritage entrepreneurs. Beginning with the late nineteenth century, Jackson investigates key sites of literary pilgrimage and their relationship with Dickens and his work, revealing hidden, reinvented, and even faked locations. From vanishing coaching inns to submerged riverside stairs, hidden burial grounds to apocryphal shops, "Dickensland" charts the curious history of an imaginary world.
About the author
A well-known Victorianist, Lee Jackson is the author of "Walking Dickens' London", "Victorian London", editor of "A Dictionary of Victorian London", and a number of historical crime novels; and creator of the preeminent website on Victorian London www.victorianlondon.org. He lives in London.