Charles Dickens' Australia: Selected Essays from Household Words 1850-1859: Book Five: Maritime Conditions

Description

Charles Dickens is little celebrated as a journalist, yet his career spanned nearly 40 years. Starting as a court reporter, parliamentary newspaper columnist and theatre critic, he developed an instinct for injustice, humbug and charade. For 20 years he edited his own weekly journal, Household Words, later known as All the Year Round, publishing articles and stories designed to be interesting, entertaining, and educational. Dickens had a keen interest in Australia and fortuitously began publishing the periodical at a transitional moment, just before the heady days of the 1850s gold rush set the world ablaze. The discovery of gold drove a period of mass immigration, expansion into the hinterlands, and caused radical economic and social changes in an emerging nation. Of the nearly 3000 articles published in Household Words, some 100 related to Australia and have been collected in this anthology. Dickens saw Australia offering opportunities for England's poor and downtrodden to make a new start and a brighter future for themselves; optimism reflected in many of the articles. The stories have been grouped into five volumes: Convict Stories, Immigration, Frontier Stories, Mining and Gold and Maritime Conditions. Book Five: Maritime Conditions This volume has stories about the unsafe, damp and cramped living conditions at sea endured by emigrants and sailors alike. The articles highlight the need to improve the desperate conditions and the need for a faster route for ships to travel. There is also a whaling story that paints a vivid picture of a whale chase in the hazardous waters south of Hobart.

Margaret Mendelawitz is a graduate in history and anthropology from the University of Western Australia.

'It is a genuinely fascinating piece of Australiana that has been edited and collated by Margaret Mendelawitz. Many pieces demonstrate Dickens' enduring commitment to social change and moral uplift.' Sydney Morning Herald, 2-3 July 2011