| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Book Reviews |
April 2006 |
Mrs Lirriper
by Charles Dickens, Hesperus Classics, hardcover, 258 pages,
$29.95, ISBN 1-84391-131-0;
Mugby Junction
by Charles Dickens, Hesperus Classics, paperback,
$16.95, ISBN 1-84391-129-9.
By Alidė Kohlhaas
What does Charles Dickens invoke in our minds? Neglected orphans, London slums, cruel masters, thieves, corruption! Yet, into all of these elements, he has always woven smiles because of his great gift to create characters with the oddest names and shapes in English literature. His wit, his satire all help to bring some light to his mostly dark novels that beautifully described the social, cultural and natural scenes of English life in his time. So, it comes as a surprise to read Mrs Lirriper. This book is not a novel, but a series of short stories that describe the goings-on in the lady's lodging house at 'number eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand' , located midway between the City (of London) and St. James's. This is not a book of bleak and worrisome nature. Quite the opposite!
The publication in 1863 of the first stories in this series, then entitled Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings, happened when Dickens felt happy and highly productive. Dickens edited the journal, All The Year Round, which offered him the opportunity to publish his own stories as well as those of a number of then well-known writers, though most of them are now unfamiliar to us. In the case of Mrs. Lirriper, he began her story and that of her lodgers, then passed the pen on to other writers to continue her tale. These writers mean little to us now but Elizabeth Gasksell, Andrew Halliday, Edmund Yates, Amelia Edwards, Charles Collins (brother of Wilkie), Rosa Mulholland, Henry Spicer, and Hesba Stretton were popular in their time.
Dickens then completed the tale with his own conclusion. So popular proved these Lirriper stories . . .
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