You remember Master Humphrey's Clock, that rather strange brainchild of Charles Dickens's? The publication that was in effect a weekly magazine containing a miscellany of stories and snippets? And you remember how (not succeeding that well in its original guise) it morphed into The Old Curiosity Shop?

Well, the issue of Master Humphrey's Clock that's dated Saturday 6 February 1841 contained "Chapter the Last" of The Old Curiosity Shop, plus an interlude called Master Humphrey From his Clock-Side in the Chimney-Corner. And the final paragraph of that segment, after the members of Mr Weller's Watch have been invited to join the party, goes like this:

"Then, the lamp being trimmed, the fire well-stirred and burning brightly, the hearth clean swept, the curtains closely drawn, the clock wound up, we entered on our new story -- Barnaby Rudge."

And sure enough, the 13 February 1841 issue gives us the first instalment of Barnaby Rudge, which ran until 27 November of that year.


Saturday 6 March 1841: A few weeks into the story


The adverts from that week

I was all for reading this one in the way I'd read both Clock and Shop, namely, two chapters at a time, as it would have first appeared. I hunted out the original schedule, and more or less kept up with it until a week or so ago, when I decided I just had too many long reads on the go (Rudge, plus War and Peace, plus The Brothers Karamazov, plus Dracula...), and felt I really needed to convert this one into something I could finish.

So, instead of wrapping it up on the last Saturday of November 2026, 185 years after the publication of the last instalment of the original, I finished it this week... Finished listening, to be more accurate, because I chose the audio-version, which Jason Watkins reads superbly.

You can see the original last edition here. At the beginning there's a Preface from Dickens, explaining some of the problems of the 52-issues-per-year format, and announcing that he's not only returning to a monthly publication schedule, but also proposing a trip to America, and therefore won't be starting anything for a year. The rest of the publication brings us the final chapters of Barnaby Rudge, and the usual adverts for (inter alia) "eight-keyed cocoa flutes"; "balsam of roses for preserving and promoting the growth of the hair"; and German umbrellas (21 shillings each). "Beaufroy's instant cure for the toothache" still has its regular slot...

And this (as far as I can tell) is the end of the serialization.

But the publication of a three-volume version of Master Humphrey's Clock was also completed in 1841. This comprises Clock, Shop, and Rudge, and at the close, we have the final contribution from our original convenor: Master Humphrey From his Clock-Side in the Chimney-Corner. Last of all, there's that rather poignant section reporting Master Humphrey's death: The Deaf Gentleman From his Own Apartment.

***



So, Barnaby Rudge... the fifth of Dickens's serializations, the first of only two historical novels (the other was A Tale of Two Cities), and -- or so many argue -- his "forgotten novel".

The subtitle is A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. As the London Museum explains: "For one week in 1780, London was gripped by anti-Catholic, anti-authority destruction. The Gordon Riots were among the worst disorder the city has ever seen, and it took thousands of soldiers to end it."

It all started as a protest against a law intended to give Catholics more rights (which would allow them, for example, to own land or join the British Army). Politician George Gordon led a big crowd to Parliament to voice their opposition. Then, the mobs, with chants of "No Popery", started by targeting Catholics and their property, but gradually expanded their scope to any representatives of authority. They burnt down Newgate Prison; they attacked other gaols; they mounted an onslaught on the Bank of England. By the time the disturbances had been brought under control, 300 rioters had been killed by soldiers and militia; and dozens more were injured. Before the end of June that year, 326 rioters had been tried, and 26 of them hanged in public.

This is the story that forms the backdrop to the second half of the novel, and bit by bit engulfs all our characters. Possibly, it's Dickens's response to the (reform-focused) Chartist agitations of the late 1830s: "As he would later do in A Tale of Two Cities, he used a tale of riot and revolution set some decades in the past to warn of the potential for Britain to collapse into anarchy and mob rule, a fear that was widely shared by the upper and middle classes at the time."

The riot scenes in Barnaby Rudge -- showing how people get sucked into political violence, and how aggression begets further aggression, and how powerful people manipulate the violence for their own ends, and how totally terrifying it is to be on the receiving end of mob brutality -- are very powerful.

Dickens gives the Catholic-Protestant clash a human element in the thwarted love of Edward Chester (Protestant) and Emma Haredale (Catholic). Their respective guardians are implacably opposed to the young people's relationship for various reasons, but religion is definitely one.


The very beautiful cover of the three-volume publication

***

But there's plenty else going on in Barnaby Rudge. We open with a very creepy and atmospheric scene, as the patrons of the Maypole (presided over by its dull and obstinate landlord, John Willet) discuss a double murder that took place in the locality 22 years previously. Among other things, the book is a murder mystery (this element is highly convoluted, and wrapped in layers of obfuscation, but it wasn't too puzzling for Edgar Allen Poe, who published a "solution" after reading only a few instalments...). And Barnaby Rudge is also a ghost story ("populated," says John P. McGowan, "by characters who... now can be understood only by seeing the ghosts which haunt them").

It's also a novel about fathers, McGowan continues -- fathers who "are characterized by their continual effort to deny their paternity..., [and] deny their place in a genealogy". Barnaby's father is presumed dead, but stalks the novel's shadows, attempting to coerce all those he encounters; the doltish John Willet seems incapable of recognizing that his son is a child no longer; Sir John Chester denies his abandoned and miscreant son Hugh completely, and counts on his son Edward to marry a wealthy woman, and thus provide him with financial support. The violence of the riots is required "to set things right since the fathers are so firmly entrenched in their positions of authority". And true, all these failing fathers get their come-uppance in various ways.

There's a second romantic thread, too. Joe Willet, John's unfortunate son, and Dolly, the initially somewhat flighty daughter of honest Gabriel Varden (a henpecked but worthy locksmith), also suffer the thwarting of their inclinations. Joe, unable to take any more of his father's bullying nonsense, enlists as a soldier, and although Dolly is too proud and coquettish to seem bothered, of course she is really (and lives to repent in one of the more squirm-inducing parts of the narrative)...

Also awfully keen on Dolly is Gabriel's apprentice, Simon Tappertit, who's a leading light in a rather unsavoury organization called the Prentice Knights. They're a nasty, vengeful lot, who go in for Gothic accoutrements and plenty of vitriol. This whole thread offers interesting parallels to the kinds of misogynistic, violence-prone groups that still thrive in our day (now, of course, enflamed by social media). One "ill-looking, one-sided, shambling lad" demands, for example, that the secret society burn down the house of his employer, "or beat him as he comes home from his club at night, or help me to carry off his daughter, and marry her at the Fleet, whether she gave consent or no --"



The misogynistic element reappears in the abduction scene, when Emma and Dolly are carried off by some of the mob members we have already met (including the wild Hugh, who started out as the servant/ward of John Willet; and Ned Dennis, who previously plied his trade as a hangman). In a profoundly unsettling scene, the women are ogled and harassed and terrified:

"[Hugh] stared into the chaise like an ogre into his larder.
"'Ha ha ha! and did you scratch, and pinch, and struggle, pretty mistress?' he cried, as he grasped a little hand that sought in vain to free itself from his grip: 'you, so bright-eyed, and cherry-lipped, and daintily made? But I love you better for it, mistress. Ay, I do. You should stab me and welcome, so that it pleased you, and you had to cure me afterwards. I love to see you proud and scornful. It makes you handsomer than ever; and who so handsome as you at any time, my pretty one!'"

This is all pretty revolting, and it gets horribly worse, as the narrative voice continues:

"Poor Dolly! Do what she would, she only looked the better for it, and tempted them the more... When, forgetful for a moment of herself, as she was now, she fell on her knees beside her friend, and bent over her, and laid her cheek to hers, and put her arms about her, what mortal eyes could have avoided wandering to the delicate bodice, the streaming hair, the neglected dress, the perfect abandonment and unconsciousness of the blooming little beauty?"

This really does sound a bit pervy, Mr Dickens... (Natalie McKnight argues that Barnaby Rudge is "the most erotic Dickens novel", and illustrates how the author specifically presents Dolly in eroticized terms. An initial encounter between Dolly and Hugh, "the two most sexually charged characters in the novel -- perhaps anywhere in Dickens", has the characteristics of "bodice-ripper romances, although the diction is finer, of course".)

It has be said, though, that Hugh and Mr Dennis (as he's usually referred to) are powerful characters (both wonderfully rendered by Jason Watkins's narration). Early lack of parental love has turned Hugh into a devil-may-care figure who thrives on intimidation, violence, and mayhem. But he exercises a fascination for the reader. Mr Dennis is full of lugubrious tales of folks he has "worked off" in the prosecution of his trade. (Dickens turns him into a grovelling coward at the end, though, which I thought was a pity.)

***



I haven't yet mentioned our titular hero (whom Watkins also voices magnificently). He's referred to, according to the parlance of the time, as an "idiot", which jars on modern ears, of course. But Dickens actually paints a very sympathetic portrait of his neurodivergent hero. Barnaby, who is always accompanied by Grip, a talking raven, is a blithe spirit, an almost otherworldly character. Fantasizing about the whirling, plunging things on the washing line, for example, he's incredulous when he's told they're only clothes:

"Why, how much better to be silly, than as wise as you! You don’t see shadowy people there, like those that live in sleep -- not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, nor swift ghosts when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see men stalking in the sky -- not you! I lead a merrier life than you, with all your cleverness. You’re the dull men. We’re the bright ones. Ha! ha! I’ll not change with you, clever as you are, -- not I!'"

Barnaby is also kind, brave, and loyal. So we're horrified when he's unscrupulously lured onto the side of the rioters, and we really fear he might be hanged at the end.


Barnaby and "his phantom-haunted dreams"

But it is Dickens, after all, and eventually good old Joe and Edward (having been super-brave in the rescuing of innocents) are united with their respective love-interests; the bad guys receive their just rewards; and Barnaby is back with Grip and his devoted mother.

It has its faults, this novel, but it tells a rollicking good story...

***

To close, here's a quick sample of some of the critical pieces that I found interesting:

-- Iain McCalman examines the real-life figures who lurk behind Dickens's characters (George Gordon, Robert Watson, Ned Dennis, Thomas Taplin, Lord Shelburne...), and charts some of the criticism the book has encountered (initial beefs accused it of straying too far from the historical record; more recent criticism claims it is "a crudely polemical and counter-revolutionary attack on the Chartist movement").

-- Valerie Pedlar considers Barnaby Rudge's foregrounding of madness: In the mental shortcomings of Barnaby; and "in the insistence on the madness of the mob in the riot scenes surrounding the historical figure of the 'half-crazy' Lord George Gordon".

-- McKnight comments on the interest the character of Dolly Varden inspired in the 19th century: "A much-edited version of the novel came out around 1870 called Dolly Varden: The Little Coquette, and there was a Dolly Varden vogue in fashions in the 1870s... The fashion in turn inspired a host of Dolly Varden comic songs." McKnight also maintains that there's a kind of fuzziness in the relationship between Dolly and her father, arguing that Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), a noted illustrator of Dickens's work, and "always quick to pick up on cues from Dickens, underscores the erotic connection between father and daughter in two illustrations". I don't know how much to make of that, but it's certainly interesting. I veer between wondering whether we try too hard to impose our own age on Victorian work, or whether the Victorians would despise us for poor fools because we don't notice half the innuendo that's so plain for them...


Dolly and Emma have just been rescued, and delivered into the arms of their respective parent/guardian. Edward and Joe, their deliverers, hover in the background looking a bit de trop

-- Jerome H. Buckley not only runs through some of the classic critiques of Rudge (Poe, Wilkie Collins, and G.K. Chesterton were not impressed; Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and George Gissing were), but also analyses the role of Grip, the raven, who -- he says -- is part of the novel's "primitive animism", ascribing "human qualities not only to Grip but to a whole world of sometimes benign but more often threatening material objects".