Charles Dickens and Georgina Hogarth: A Curious and Enduring Relationship by Christine Skelton (review)

IF 0.7 1区 文学 0 LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES
Lillian Nayder
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In her engaging book on the relationship between Georgina and her famous brother-in-law, Christine Skelton uses this phrase to underscore the anomalous and evolving position of Miss Hogarth within the novelist's family, its members lodged in temporary quarters at the time. More precisely, the phrase registers Georgina's oddly \"reduced\" position in the 1861 household (133), nearly three years after Catherine, the original Miss Hogarth, had been pressured to leave the family home by Dickens, and Georgina stayed behind. Having been the \"little pet\" of the novelist when she first moved in with the couple in 1842 (47) and, in the later 1840s and the 1850s, the novelist's vivacious and attractive companion and assistant, Georgina now appeared a figure who seemed to emerge from \"below stairs\" (134). Her servant-like status points to the complexities and contradictions of her \"favored\" position as the alleged surrogate of her older sister, long the mistress of the house, and it underscores the price she paid for what her father considered her \"mistaken sense of duty\" to the novelist (Nayder 261, qtd. Skelton 124).</p> <p>As Skelton repeatedly shows us, Georgina's service to Dickens as well as the tone in which he sometimes issued his \"edicts\" to her (160), make the tag of \"servant housekeeper\" seem apt: \"In the middle drawer of my wardrobe are a dress coat and a pair of dress trousers,\" the novelist wrote her in January 1867. \"Will you with the end of a clean towel and Eau de Cologne from my scent case – cleanse them, <em>by daylight</em>, where they are splashed\" (<em>Letters</em> 11: 296–97; qtd. Skelton 161). Skelton provides a telling list of such duties and instructions, as Dickens increasingly curtailed what had once been Georgina's greater autonomy, subjecting her to criticism and surveillance.</p> <p>Skelton prepares readers for her analysis of this \"curious\" and lasting relationship with an opening chapter on the first years of the Dickenses' marriage, and then another focused largely on the writer's flirtatious behavior <strong>[End Page 271]</strong> toward young women other than his wife. Arranged in chronological order, seven of the eight chapters that follow cover specific (and presumably distinct) periods in Georgina's life with (and finally without) Dickens, the number of years that each covers varying widely: from the two years (1857–58) examined in chapter 6, on the separation of Charles and Catherine and Georgina's desire to forestall it, to the nearly fifty years considered in chapter 9, between Dickens's death in 1870 and Georgina's in 1917. A final chapter, \"Aftermath,\" discusses Georgina's \"impugned\" reputation in the twentieth century (218), persistent beliefs about her being the novelist's mistress, and \"polarized opinions\" of her character (220).</p> <p>Skelton's division of time into chapters gives structural support to her stated aims, since she is primarily interested in the relationship between Georgina and Dickens, not in Georgina as a stand-alone figure. Having moved in with her married sister at the age of fifteen, Georgina lived in the novelist's household for twenty-eight years – and then survived him by another forty-seven. Skelton compresses more than half of Georgina's long life into a single (albeit lengthy) chapter.</p> <p>One of the most interesting aspects of Skelton's book is the way it charts, in detail, the shifting roles that Georgina performed in the novelist's household, as she grew into womanhood and middle age. In the process, Skelton not only illuminates Georgina's adaptability to changing circumstances but also Dickens's evolving needs, which his sister-in-law sought to meet to win his approbation. In her teens and twenties, Georgina flourished, meeting writers and...</p> </p>","PeriodicalId":41747,"journal":{"name":"DICKENS QUARTERLY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"DICKENS QUARTERLY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/dqt.2024.a929049","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • Charles Dickens and Georgina Hogarth: A Curious and Enduring Relationship by Christine Skelton
  • Lillian Nayder (bio)
Christine Skelton. Charles Dickens and Georgina Hogarth: A Curious and Enduring Relationship. Manchester UP, 2023. Pp. xiv + 298. £20.00. ISBN: 978-1-5261-6608-1 (hb).

"Servant housekeeper": with these two words, Georgina Hogarth – a younger sister of Catherine Dickens and the sister-in-law of Catherine's estranged husband – is identified on the 1861 census returns for 3, Hanover Terrace, Marylebone, presumably by Charles Dickens himself (133). In her engaging book on the relationship between Georgina and her famous brother-in-law, Christine Skelton uses this phrase to underscore the anomalous and evolving position of Miss Hogarth within the novelist's family, its members lodged in temporary quarters at the time. More precisely, the phrase registers Georgina's oddly "reduced" position in the 1861 household (133), nearly three years after Catherine, the original Miss Hogarth, had been pressured to leave the family home by Dickens, and Georgina stayed behind. Having been the "little pet" of the novelist when she first moved in with the couple in 1842 (47) and, in the later 1840s and the 1850s, the novelist's vivacious and attractive companion and assistant, Georgina now appeared a figure who seemed to emerge from "below stairs" (134). Her servant-like status points to the complexities and contradictions of her "favored" position as the alleged surrogate of her older sister, long the mistress of the house, and it underscores the price she paid for what her father considered her "mistaken sense of duty" to the novelist (Nayder 261, qtd. Skelton 124).

As Skelton repeatedly shows us, Georgina's service to Dickens as well as the tone in which he sometimes issued his "edicts" to her (160), make the tag of "servant housekeeper" seem apt: "In the middle drawer of my wardrobe are a dress coat and a pair of dress trousers," the novelist wrote her in January 1867. "Will you with the end of a clean towel and Eau de Cologne from my scent case – cleanse them, by daylight, where they are splashed" (Letters 11: 296–97; qtd. Skelton 161). Skelton provides a telling list of such duties and instructions, as Dickens increasingly curtailed what had once been Georgina's greater autonomy, subjecting her to criticism and surveillance.

Skelton prepares readers for her analysis of this "curious" and lasting relationship with an opening chapter on the first years of the Dickenses' marriage, and then another focused largely on the writer's flirtatious behavior [End Page 271] toward young women other than his wife. Arranged in chronological order, seven of the eight chapters that follow cover specific (and presumably distinct) periods in Georgina's life with (and finally without) Dickens, the number of years that each covers varying widely: from the two years (1857–58) examined in chapter 6, on the separation of Charles and Catherine and Georgina's desire to forestall it, to the nearly fifty years considered in chapter 9, between Dickens's death in 1870 and Georgina's in 1917. A final chapter, "Aftermath," discusses Georgina's "impugned" reputation in the twentieth century (218), persistent beliefs about her being the novelist's mistress, and "polarized opinions" of her character (220).

Skelton's division of time into chapters gives structural support to her stated aims, since she is primarily interested in the relationship between Georgina and Dickens, not in Georgina as a stand-alone figure. Having moved in with her married sister at the age of fifteen, Georgina lived in the novelist's household for twenty-eight years – and then survived him by another forty-seven. Skelton compresses more than half of Georgina's long life into a single (albeit lengthy) chapter.

One of the most interesting aspects of Skelton's book is the way it charts, in detail, the shifting roles that Georgina performed in the novelist's household, as she grew into womanhood and middle age. In the process, Skelton not only illuminates Georgina's adaptability to changing circumstances but also Dickens's evolving needs, which his sister-in-law sought to meet to win his approbation. In her teens and twenties, Georgina flourished, meeting writers and...

查尔斯-狄更斯和乔治娜-霍加斯:克里斯蒂娜-斯凯尔顿(Christine Skelton)所著的《奇妙而持久的关系》(评论
以下是内容的简要摘录,以代替摘要:评论者: 查尔斯-狄更斯和乔治娜-霍加斯:克里斯汀-斯凯尔顿(Christine Skelton)著,《奇妙而持久的关系》(A Curious and Enduring Relationship),莉莲-奈德(Lillian Nayder)(简历)克里斯汀-斯凯尔顿(Christine Skelton)著。查尔斯-狄更斯和乔治娜-霍加斯:奇妙而持久的关系》。曼彻斯特大学,2023 年。第 xiv + 298 页。£20.00.ISBN: 978-1-5261-6608-1 (hb)."仆人管家":1861 年人口普查中,乔治娜-霍加斯(Georgina Hogarth)--凯瑟琳-狄更斯(Catherine Dickens)的妹妹、凯瑟琳疏远的丈夫的小姨子--在玛丽伯恩汉诺威台 3 号的人口普查表中被确认为这两个词的主人公,据推测是查尔斯-狄更斯本人(133)。克里斯汀-斯凯尔顿(Christine Skelton)在其关于乔治娜与其著名姐夫之间关系的引人入胜的著作中,使用了这个短语来强调霍加斯小姐在小说家家庭中的异常和不断变化的地位,其家庭成员当时住在临时住所。更确切地说,这个短语反映了乔治娜在 1861 年家庭中 "被削弱 "的地位(133),而在这之前将近三年,原霍加斯小姐凯瑟琳迫于狄更斯的压力离开了这个家庭,乔治娜则留在了家中。乔治娜在 1842 年第一次搬进狄更斯夫妇家时是小说家的 "小宠物"(47),在 19 世纪 40 年代后期和 50 年代又是小说家活泼迷人的伴侣和助手,而现在她似乎是从 "楼梯下面"(134)走出来的。她仆人般的身份表明了她作为姐姐(长期以来的女主人)的代言人这一 "受宠 "地位的复杂性和矛盾性,也强调了她为父亲认为她对小说家 "错误的责任感 "所付出的代价(Nayder 261,转引自 Skelton 124)。正如斯凯尔顿反复向我们展示的那样,乔治娜为狄更斯提供的服务以及狄更斯有时向她发布 "命令 "的语气(160),让 "仆人管家 "这个标签显得恰如其分:"小说家在 1867 年 1 月给她写道:"我衣柜中间的抽屉里有一件礼服外套和一条礼服裤子。"你能不能用干净毛巾的一端和我香水盒里的古龙水,在白天把它们擦干净,就在它们被溅到的地方"(《书信》11:296-97;转引自《斯凯尔顿》161)。随着狄更斯越来越多地限制乔治娜曾经拥有的更大的自主权,使她受到批评和监视,斯凯尔顿提供了一份很有说服力的职责和指示清单。斯凯尔顿为读者分析这段 "奇特 "而持久的关系做了准备,开篇介绍了狄更斯夫妇最初几年的婚姻生活,随后的另一章则主要介绍了作家对妻子以外的年轻女性的调情行为 [第271页完]。接下来的八章中,有七章按照时间顺序排列,涵盖了乔治娜与狄更斯(最后没有狄更斯)生活中的特定(大概也是不同)时期,每章所涵盖的年数差别很大:从第六章探讨的查尔斯和凯瑟琳分居的两年(1857-58 年)以及乔治娜希望阻止分居的愿望,到第九章探讨的狄更斯 1870 年去世到乔治娜 1917 年去世之间的近五十年。最后一章 "后遗症 "讨论了乔治娜在 20 世纪 "受到指责 "的声誉(218)、关于她是小说家情妇的顽固看法以及对她性格的 "两极化观点"(220)。斯凯尔顿将时间划分为若干章节,从结构上支持了她的既定目标,因为她主要关注的是乔治娜与狄更斯之间的关系,而不是作为独立人物的乔治娜。乔治娜 15 岁时搬到已婚姐姐家,在小说家狄更斯家生活了 28 年,之后又在他身边生活了 47 年。斯凯尔顿将乔治娜一半以上的漫长人生压缩在一个章节中(尽管篇幅很长)。斯凯尔顿这本书最有趣的一点是,它详细描绘了乔治娜在小说家的家庭中,随着她长大成人和步入中年,所扮演的角色的转变。在这一过程中,斯凯尔顿不仅揭示了乔治娜对环境变化的适应能力,也揭示了狄更斯不断变化的需求,而他的嫂子为了赢得狄更斯的认可,一直在努力满足这些需求。在十几岁和二十几岁时,乔治娜的事业蒸蒸日上,她结识了许多作家和...
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DICKENS QUARTERLY
DICKENS QUARTERLY LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES-
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