{"id":1426,"date":"2016-11-30T17:08:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T17:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2021-06-15T16:32:57","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T15:32:57","slug":"dickens-and-kent-did-scrooge-visit-the-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/dickens-and-kent-did-scrooge-visit-the-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Dickens and Kent: did Scrooge visit the county?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Ahead of the annual Dickensian Christmas Festival 2016, Professor Carolyn Oulton, Director of the<\/strong><\/em><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.canterbury.ac.uk\/arts-and-humanities\/school-of-humanities\/research\/victorian-women-writers\/centre-for-victorian-women-writers.aspx\">International Centre for Victorian Women Writers (ICVWW)<\/a> discusses Dickens\u2019s Kent roots.<\/strong><\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>David Copperfield stumbling footsore and hungry down the Dover Road to find his aunt Betsy Trotwood (it\u2019s worth reminding the sat nav that there are now two parallel A-roads, imaginatively called the Old Dover Road and the New Dover Road respectively). Estella staring superciliously across the garden of Satis House in Rochester. And who could forget Scrooge wandering about in his nightshirt with the <em>Ghost of Christmas Past<\/em>, on a visit to what can only be rural Kent, \u2018\u201dGood Heaven!&#8221; said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. \u201cI was bred in this place. I was a boy here!&#8221;\u2019?<\/p>\n<p>Since the nineteenth century avid readers have been retracing the steps of Dickens\u2019s fictional characters, perhaps like David Copperfield himself putting themselves in all the good parts and their own Mr Murdstones in all the bad ones. But it is worth remembering that if Dickens\u2019s books are now considered \u2018classics\u2019, the Kent he wrote about was often raffish, even dangerous. His fascinated observation moves from the female lion tamer in Broadstairs \u2018in something that shines very much, and is exceedingly scaley\u2019 to the marshes where a terrified Pip first meets the criminal Magwitch.<\/p>\n<p>In 1897 when Francis Burnand and Phil May of Punch published <em>The Zig-Zag Guide Round<\/em> and <em>About the Bold and Beautiful Kentish Coast<\/em> they introduced themselves as tour guides \u2018in Dickensian phraseology as \u201cT\u2019otherest\u201d and \u201cT\u2019other Guvnor\u201d\u2019 (from Dickens\u2019s darkest novel <em>Our Mutual Friend<\/em>). Their guide enjoys a brief laugh at the misadventures of the Tuggses from <em>Sketches by Boz<\/em>, who \u2018still come down to Ramsgate\u2019 around sixty years after losing their money and their self-respect to sharpers. We may prefer to remember the triumphant rise to fame of David Copperfield. But we all know what happens to Pip when he becomes \u2018ashamed of home\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rochesterdickensfestival.org.uk\/news.htm\">Find out more<\/a> about the Rochester Dickensian Christmas Festival 2016. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ahead of the annual Dickensian Christmas Festival 2016, Professor Carolyn Oulton, Director of the\u00a0International Centre for Victorian Women Writers (ICVWW) discusses Dickens\u2019s Kent roots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":1429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[393,3902],"tags":[1214,242,1230,1218,1226,1222],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-research","tag-charles-dickens","tag-christmas","tag-david-cooperfield","tag-dickensian","tag-ghost-of-christmas-past","tag-scrooge"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"holly finch","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/437\/2016\/11\/Dickens\u2019-and-Kent-did-Scrooge-visit-the-county.jpg","postExcerpt":"Ahead of the annual Dickensian Christmas Festival 2016, Professor Carolyn Oulton, Director of the\u00a0International Centre for Victorian Women Writers (ICVWW) discusses Dickens\u2019s Kent roots.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7553,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/7553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}