The Pilgrimage Series
THE DICKENS COUNTRY
IN THE SAME SERIES
THE SCOTT COUNTRY
BY W. S. CROCKETT
Minister of Tweedsmuir
THE THACKERAY COUNTRY
BY LEWIS MELVILLE
THE INGOLDSBY COUNTRY
BY CHAS. G. HARPER
THE BURNS COUNTRY
BY C. S. DOUGALL
THE HARDY COUNTRY
BY CHAS. G. HARPER
THE BLACKMORE COUNTRY
BY F. J. SNELL
PUBLISHED BY
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON
CHARLES DICKENS IN 1857.
From a hitherto unpublished photograph by Mason.
THE DICKENS COUNTRY
BY
FREDERIC G. KITTON
AUTHOR OF
“CHARLES DICKENS BY PEN AND PENCIL,” “DICKENS AND HIS ILLUSTRATORS,” “CHARLES DICKENS: HIS LIFE, WRITINGS, AND PERSONALITY,” “DICKENSIANA,” ETC.
WITH
FORTY-EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
MOSTLY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BY T. W. TYRRELL
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1911
First published February, 1905
Reprinted September, 1911
INTRODUCTION
It seems but a week or two ago that Frederic Kitton first mentionedto me the preparation of the volume to which I have nowthe melancholy privilege of prefixing a few words of introductionand valediction. It was in my office in Covent Garden, wherehe used often to drop in of an afternoon and talk, for a sparehalf-hour at the end of the day, of Dickens and Dickensian interests.We were speaking of a book which had just been published, somewhatsimilar in scope to the volume now in the reader’s hand, andKitton, with that thoroughly genial sympathy which always markedhis references to other men’s work, praised warmly and heartily thegood qualities which he had found in its composition. Then, quitequietly, and as though he were alluding to some entirely unimportantside-issue, he added: “I have a book rather on the same lineson the stocks myself, but I don’t know when it will get finished.”That was a little more than a year ago, and in the interval howmuch has happened! The book has, indeed, “got finished” in thepressure of that indefatigable industry which his friends knew sowell, but its author was never to see it in type. Almost before ithad received his finishing touches, the bright, kindly, humanespirit of Frederic Kitton was “at rest and forever.” He died onSaturday, September 10, 1904, and left the world appreciably poorerby the loss of a sincere and zealous student, a true and generousman.
As I turned over the pages of the book in proof, and recalled thispassing conversation, it seemed to me that the whole character ofits author was displayed, as under a sudden light, in that quiteunconscious attitude of his towards the two books—th