The Metropolis

Museum of London asks: was Charles Dickens full of crap?

Mike Pollitt | Wednesday 18 April, 2012 11:45

I paraphrase. Their language is more restrained.

“Taking these images into consideration, do you think the portrayal of Victorian London by Dickens and his contemporaries was realistic?”

I do like a blog post that ends with an essay question. The Museum of London peeps have come up with a nice one here to promote an event next week in which renowned establishment figure Iain Sinclair, among others, will interrogate Dickens and no doubt decide he was an unreliable good for nothing who was making it all up anyway.

Or perhaps not, you’ll have to go along to find out.

The pictures selected on the blog are fascinating. It’s almost impossible to look at images or read stories of Victorian life without romanticising the period, but that impulse should be resisted. For the vast majority of people, surely, life was much like Dennis Wise – dirty, hard and short.

Tickets for the event, on Wed 25 April at 1900, are available here from £6. I’m going, so if you come along Tweet me up.

Image: Copyright Museum of London, used with permission

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