In this Book

Dickens's London: Perception, Subjectivity and Phenomenal Urban Multiplicity

Book
Julian Wolfreys
2012
Published by: Edinburgh University Press
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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Taking Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project as an inspiration, Dickens's London offers an exciting and original project that opens a dialogue between phenomenology, philosophy and the Dickensian representation of the city in all its forms. Julian Wolfreys suggests that in their representations of London - its streets, buildings, public institutions, domestic residences, rooms and phenomena that constitute such space - Dickens's novels and journalism can be seen as forerunners of urban and material phenomenology. While also addressing those aspects of the urban that are developed from Dickens's interpretations of other literary forms, styles and genres, Dickens's London presents in twenty-six episodes (from Banking and Breakfast via the Insolvent Court, Melancholy and Poverty, to Todgers and Time, Voice and Waking) a radical reorientation to London in the nineteenth century, the development of Dickens as a writer, and the ways in which readers today receive and perceive both.

Table of Contents

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Cover

Half Title, Series Titles, Title Page, Copyright

Contents

pp. v-vi

List of Illustrations and Maps

pp. vii

Series Editor’s Preface

pp. vii-ix

Abbreviations

pp. x-xi

Advertisement

pp. xii-xiv

Acknowledgements

pp. xv

Preface

pp. xvi-xx

Dickens’s London

pp. 1-2

Arrivals (and Returns)

pp. 3-31

Banking and Breakfast • Gray’s Inn Square, Temple Bar, Strand Lane

pp. 32-47

Chambers • Holborn, Staple Inn, Furnival’s Inn

pp. 48-55

Dismal • Little Britain, Smithfield, Saint Paul’s Cathedral

pp. 56-59

Exteriors • Golden Square, Portland Place, Bryanstone Square

pp. 60-62

Faded Gentility • Camden Town

pp. 63-66

Gothic • Seven Dials, Walworth, Covent Garden, India House, Aldgate Pump, Whitechapel Church, Commercial Road, Wapping Old Stairs, St George’s in the East, Snow Hill, Newgate

pp. 67-96

Heart • St Paul’s Cathedral

pp. 97-99

Insolvent Court • Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn, Houndsditch, Tyburn, Whitechapel, St George’s Fields, Southwark

pp. 100-108

Jaggers’s House • Gerrard Street, Soho

pp. 109-113

Krook’s • by Lincoln’s Inn

pp. 114-119

Life and Death • Snow Hill, the Saracen’s Head, Smithfield, Saint James’s Parish, Saint Sepulchre’s Church

pp. 120-121

Melancholy • Leadenhall Street, Newgate, Lant Street, Borough, St George the Martyr

pp. 122-128

Nocturnal • Millbank

pp. 129-130

Obstructive • Tower Street Ward

pp. 131

Poverty • Angel, Islington, St John’s Road, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Exmouth Street, Coppice Row, Hockley-in-the-Hole, Saffron Hill, Field Lane

pp. 132-136

Quiet • Soho Square, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Old Square

pp. 137-146

Resignation • Todgers’s, somewhere adjacent to the Monument

pp. 147-172

Spring Evenings • London

pp. 173-181

Time • The City, Coram’s Fields

pp. 182-186

Unfi nished • Stagg’s Gardens, Camden Town

pp. 187

Voice • Brentford, the Borough

pp. 188-191

Walking • St Martin’s Court, Covent Garden

pp. 192-194

X Marks the Spot • St Mary Axe

pp. 195-200

Dickens, Our Contemporary

pp. 201-233

Notes

pp. 234-243

Bibliography

pp. 244-249

Index of Proper Names

pp. 250-252
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