February 7th, 1812

To this day Dickens' influence is a recognized impediment to the job options of the poor.  Families with but one meagre income are still not allowed freely to send their children up chimneys, into factories in need of small dextrous fingers, onto street corners hawking, thieving, being (simply put) contributors.

The author's tales of societal woe were based on life, for the most part, in working class London - in the East End, north and south of the Thames, stretching out towards Rochester in Kent.

The stories were popular here, too.  It always cheers the soul to follow those with troubles greater than one's own.  Often written in serial form, episodes would arrive by ship to crowds waiting dockside.  Unusually, Dickens' installments were written one by one instead of being taken from an already completed novel.  This gave them a certain cliffhanger feel - nobody, not even the author, truly knew what might happen next.

Dickens immortalized many from real life: caregivers, employers, loves, and friends.  There is a story that he visited Eliza Jumel in her northern Manhattan house (http://www.morrisjumel.org)  Having advanced from the world's oldest profession, Eliza married into a fortune with her first husband, wine merchant Stephen Jumel, and into America's power elite with her second, Aaron Burr, the one-time Vice President of the U.S. who shot Hamilton.  In spite of this intimacy with the rich and powerful, Eliza was never able to break into any of the more meaningful ranks of High Society.  She tried.  She invited various members of the Great and Good to a sumptuous dinner party and ..... nobody showed up!  She left the table, complete with crockery, cutlery, burnt out candles, and food right where they were.

Compare Dickens' Miss Haversham.

For the next few days you can catch Charles Dickens at 200 at The Morgan Library (http://www.themorgan.org).  After the Victoria and Albert in London, they have the largest collection of his manuscripts (and letters) in the world.

By the way, another highly popular chronicler of other people's woes with a New York connection, was one Susanna Rowson and her "Charlotte Temple, A Tale of Truth."  A young girl is seduced and left pregnant.  An abetting friend to the seducer is given money by him to help her and the child.  But guess what?  Yup, that!  Dastardly behavior leads to the girl's eventual demise (in a very Victorian way, all the bad characters also get their comeuppance) although the child, Lucy, survives.

As the last episode arrived in New York and the public learned of Charlotte's death, they swarmed in their thousands to Trinity Church where she was buried.  You can spot her tombstone today near Broadway on the north side of the church - 'though nearly all the heartless uptown folk have now forgotten.  My daughter remembers hearing the story at age 5 of "the grave of the girl who never lived."