Mapping Domesticity "At Home" and Abroad in the Travel Writing of Dickens's Household Words and All the Year Round

Abstract:This essay investigates several instances of travel writing in the Dickens weekly magazines, Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1859–1895), that make use of the common Victorian phrase "At Home" in their titles, particularly "At Home at Tehran" (1862), "At Home in Siam" (1857), "Mrs. Mohammed Bey 'at Home'" (1862), and "The Japanese at Home" (1862). Some of these articles illustrate the British making themselves "at home" in the world, while others purport to provide an exotic glimpse into the domestic lives of others abroad. The variety of these articles' topics and settings offer to map the imperial world for the armchair reader "at home" in Britain, yet the articles themselves are limited by Dickens's editorial preferences for collective authorship and a humorous tone, which flatten the very cultural distinctions that the travel writing genre promises to illuminate. It is argued that the periodicals' emphasis on Dickensian humor often results in the ridicule of other countries' domestic behavior, thereby contributing to the popular Victorian perception of British domesticity as superior to that of the rest of the world.