Ohio History Journal

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CHARLES DICKENS IN OHIO IN 1842

CHARLES DICKENS IN OHIO IN 1842.

 

 

BY HEWSON L. PEEKE.

In his work "Charles Dickens in America" by W. Glyde

Wilkins the author says:

"Dickens' opinion of the American newspapers was fully expressed

in one of his letters to Forster in which he wrote: 'of course I can do

nothing but in some shape or other it gets into the newspapers. All

manner of lies get there and occasionally a truth so twisted or distorted

that it has as much resemblance to the real fact as Quilp's leg to Tag-

lioni's.' This was hardly true of the papers of Cincinnati, as they pub-

lished nothing of his doings except the bare fact of his arrival, as shown

by the following-

"Mr. Dickens and his lady have, we are informed, arrived in the

city."-Daily Chronicle, April 4th, 1842.

"'Mr. Dickens and lady arrived in our city yesterday morning and

have taken rooms at the Broadway Hotel. We understand they will be

at home today from 11 o'clock until three o'clock'-Daily Republican,

April 5th, 1842.

"'Charles Dickens. This gentleman reached our city yesterday and

took lodgings at the Broadway Hotel.'-Cincinnati Gazette, April 5th,

1842.

"There were certainly no lies in these three items, and a careful

search of succeeding issues of these newspapers fails to show that they

even made any mention of his doings in the city, or of his leaving the

city on the following Wednesday morning."-Charles Dickens in America,

by W. Glyde Wilkins, Page 206.

 

Nor when he made the return trip to Cincinnati arriving

April 21st, 1842, did the newspapers make any mention of the

fact.

There are two letters from Cincinnati in Forster's life of

Dickens. In the first dated April 4th, 1842, he thus describes

the city:

"I have walked to the window since I turned this page to see what

aspect the town wears. We are in a wide street: paved in the way with

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