“Dickens's Dream”.
Artist: Robert William Buss (1804–1875)
Photo credit: Charles Dickens Museum, London.
Text and Illustration from ART UK
This painting by Robert William Buss, an enthusiastic admirer of Charles Dickens’s writings, was painted five years after the author’s death in 1870.
The posthumous painting of Dickens celebrates his vivid imagination and illustrates characters from all his books, spanning 'Pickwick Papers' to 'Edwin Drood', surrounding Dickens in his Library at Gad’s Hill, Rochester, Kent, England.
The setting was modelled on Luke Filde's engraving, 'The Empty Chair', and the figure of Dickens was copied from a well-known photograph by John Watkins (from 1863).
Zephyrinus has visited Dickens's home, Gad's Hill, Rochester, Kent, and has stood in Dickens's Library (see picture, above). He can vouch that the picture exactly captures how the Library was, in Dickens's time, and how it is, today.
Listen to one of Charles Dickens's greatest stories, “Oliver Twist”, HERE
The Charles Dickens Museum Web-Site can be found HERE
It is very interesting that to pifital and influential writers though in different fields or both in London at roughly the same time, Karl Marx (1849–1883), and Dickens (most of the years, from 1829–1860, when he then took up residence at Gads Hill). Yet clearly, Dickens’ humanitarian concern for the poor and downtrodden and in general for his fellow man was evidently sincere, in contrast to the pervasive bitterness and darkness of Marx.
ReplyDeleteZephyrinus probably knows Of Dickens humanitarian role in the “Staplehurst Railway Crash” of June 1865. Dickens’ passenger car was one of the few that was not derailed. However, immediately, Dickens attended to the wounded and injured from the other cars, giving them brandy from his personal flask and even bringing water to them from a nearby stream in his hat. He was credited with helping to save many of the injured until medical help arrived.
Indeed, Dante Peregrinus, Dickens's humanitarian concern was self-evident in many of his actions. I aim to visit Gads Hill (Dickens's home) in the near future and to visit his Study (as depicted in the picture at the top of the Article), which remains, today, exactly as depicted in the picture.
DeleteNow, I fear recounting the story of Charles Dickens and the Staplehurst Rail Crash will motivate Perkins to require Zephyrinus to allow Perkins to carry a significant amount of portable Brandy in a flask (cask?) henceforth. Of course, for potential “emergency first aid purposes.”
ReplyDeleteDear Dante Peregrinus. You are correct, of course. Perkins has already acquired a huge cask of Brandy and insists on keeping it on the latest Charabanc. As you say, “for emergency first-aid purposes !!!”.
DeleteI smell a rat !!!