The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Hello Curiosities.

This is the first time I have read “No Thoroughfare.” I’m excited to share the experience with you. Just as Dickens and Collins collaborated on “No Thoroughfare” let’s collaborate in the discovery of this novel. One general focus you may want to ask yourself is this conundrum: Is No Thoroughfare more a novel masquerading as a play, or play masquerading as a novel? And with that puzzle, away we go …



The Overture

An overture is a prelude, an introduction to something larger. Thus, the overture that begins this novel must be an introduction which will probably give the reader hints as to what will occur in the future. What can we learn from these first few pages?

First, did you notice the precision concerning the time and place? We are given the specific date which is November 30, 1835. We are told that the time is 10 p.m. by no less an authority than the bells of St Paul's Cathedral. The opening paragraphs then narrow the focus to a location. We are on a muddy street, and placed without the walls of the Hospital for Foundling Children. The focus narrows even further to describe the pacing of a veiled lady. This lady is waiting for someone. A second lady leaves the Foundling Hospital and is followed by the first lady. Can you recall such a succinct and precise establishment of a scene anywhere else in Dickens? What might the purpose be?

Money is offered for help and information concerning a child by the veiled lady but is refused by the woman named Sally from the Foundling Hospital. We then learn that the veiled lady is a mother of a recently born child and she wants to know only one thing from Sally. What is the name that was given to a newly arrived baby at the Foundling Hospital. After some persuasion the veiled lady convinces Sally to give her the name of the child. The child’s name is Walter Wilding. Sally requests that the veiled lady promise that the name will be the only words she will ever convey about the child. She receives a yes, a promise. Before parting, the veiled lady has one request of Sally. It is the wish that Sally “kiss him for me.”

A Foundling Hospital is an institution where an unwanted baby could be taken by its mother to be given up for care. Here we see Dickens and Collins working on the trope of the orphan, the unwanted child, the foundling. In this Overture the reader is given both numerous specifics of the child and yet kept in the shadows. Who is the mother, who is the father, what are the specific details and reasons why the child is being abandoned to a Foundling Hospital and, equally puzzling, what will Dickens and Collins be up to as the plot advances?

The Prelude then jumps to another specific time and date. We read that on the first Sunday of October, 1847, at 1:30 in the afternoon - the time again established by the bells of Saint Paul’s Cathedral - we find ourselves viewing the dinner hour of the foundling’s children. On this day there is a veiled lady who is observing the children at lunch. This lady appears to be somewhat nervous and tenuous in her movements, but she does manage to make it to the tables where the male children are eating. This mysterious lady asks a few seemingly innocuous questions to an old matron. Then, the mysterious lady asks specifically the location of a boy named Walter Wilding. Are we surprised?

The matron then moves towards the boys and rests her hand on one lad. Shortly thereafter the veiled lady approaches the boy who was indicated by the elderly matron and asks him his age. We learn that the boy is twelve. The lady then lifts her veil and looks at the boy. She touches the boy’s forehead with her forehead and her hair. She then lowers her veil and leaves the room without looking back. And so ends the Prelude.


Thoughts

In the Prelude the writing style is direct and unembellished. How might this style make our study of the story differ from the novels of Collins and Dickens?

Looking back on the question above, do you think this section was written by Wilkie Collins or Dickens? Why?

Do you think there is any significance to the focus and emphasis on time in the story?

Veiled ladies. Mysterious actions. An orphaned child. What is your early response to the story as it is introduced through the prologue?

The title of the novel is No Thoroughfare. The titles of both Collins and Dickens novels often are very suggestive. As we enter the book what do you think the significance of the title might be? I will ask the same question at the end of the book.

Act One

“The Curtain Rises” — “Enter the Housekeeper”

The story begins in a courtyard in London where a company called Wilder & Co., Wine Merchants is found. The merchant’s location is near the river and the courtyard is called Cripple Corner and the stairs to the river are named Break-Neck Stairs. These two toponyms are rather ominous. I wonder if they will factor into the story in any major way? The name Wilder tells us that that some years have passed and the child from the foundling hospital appears to have enjoyed some success in life. The year is 1861. Within a few succinct sentences we have obtained much information. Do any hints exist within these opening paragraphs that may help us as we move further into the story? What words, phrases, or coincidences might be important to consider?

As a young adult, Walter Wilding appears to be a healthy and considerate man, one who is on the stout side with curly hair and blue eyes. He is a man who is both content and grateful in his life. Walter’s solicitor is a Mr Bintrey who has just informed Walter that a partner has been secured for the firm.

What follows is a rather uninspired bit of writing where the reader learns how deeply Walter loved his mother and that Mr Bintrey has arranged for a series of prospective housekeepers to be interviewed by Walter. During their conversation, Walter recounts that his mother had been betrayed but she never betrayed her betrayer. Now, what is this betrayal? It seems that Bintrey knows more than he is willing to reveal. We do learn from Walter that his mother had articled him into the wine business and after that set him up in the wine trade. We learn that it is Walter's intent to get a housekeeper and then create a family of employees who will both live and work with Walter in the wine trade. After these pronouncements Walter feels a bit giddy and has a “singing” in his head. Bintrey takes him to a pump where Walter’s head and hands are doused with water. OK. This is all getting to be a bit too much for me. Where is the Dickens of Bleak House or the Collins of The Woman in White? Can it be that if their individual talents merge what results is a rather flat and somnolent beginning to a story?

We meet a longtime employee of the business by the name of Joey Ladle. We learn that Joey thinks Wilder has made a mistake by changing the firm’s original name from Pebbleson Nephew to its present name of Wilder and Co. Ladle believes that Walter should have followed the luck of the original name rather changing it to his own name. Now, that comment I do find interesting. Is it a comment, a warning, foreshadowing, or some other deep, dark, and yet to be revealed event in the story? Changing a name. Have we encountered in previous Dickens novels what a change in name may lead to?

Thoughts

Dickens generally begins his novels with a description or an action that immediately grabs a reader’s attention. To what extent did you find the mysterious veiled lady at the foundling hospital was intriguing?


Enter the Housekeeper

This section begins with a comprehensive description of the place Walter inherited from Pebbleson Nephew. The room where Walter is about to conduct his interviews is old, stately, and a touch threadbare. In the common room hangs a portrait of Walter’s mother at the age of 25. In the seclusion of his own chamber we learn there hangs her portrait at 50 years of age.

Walter sets about interviewing many applicants for the job of housekeeper and settles on a lady of some 50 years of age. She is placid, composed, and dignified. Her name is Sarah Goldstraw. As the interview progresses Wilding begins to feel he has been in Mrs Goldstream’s presence before.

Thoughts

The titles of these two sections of the story are “The Curtain Rises” and “Enter the Housekeeper.” What else of what we have read so far is suggestive of the structure and presentation of a theatrical production?

I am also looking forward to discovering this novel with you Curiosities, because unlike most other texts we are reading here, No Thoroughfare is an unknown country to me. I was rather intrigued with the Overture and the mystery it presents. Unlike most of Dickens's mysteries, however, this one seems rather clear. I'd say that the veiled lady is the mother to the Walter Wilding we get to know and that in the second part of the Overture we see her on the point of identifying her own child. I'd also say that it is the same mother and son we meet in the First Act. The only question that is still open to me is, Why did the veiled lady give her son away? Was she betrayed by a treacherous lover so that she gave birth to an illegitimate child and had to get the child out of the way in order not to lose her own position in society? Then, why did she not fend for her child? Or did she in ways we don't know yet?

The first two chapters of the First Act seemed very clumsily written to me. Everything was put on rather thick, for example the way in which Walter adores his mother and sings her praise, over and over again. It did not just make the lawyer cringe, but also me because it was embarrassing and made me form the impression that Walter was a little bit on the simple side of things. Similarly, his plan to make the persons who work for him live under his roof like a family, with him as the benevolent father, sounded puerile. I can understand that Mr. Ladle wanted nothing to do with it. On the other hand, Wilding has spent a long time of his infancy in an orphanage and maybe the feeling of family life is something that he wants to catch up on?

Still, all in all, during these first two chapters I had the impression of watching a clumsy play written and performed by an amateur dramatic society. It seems that when two great authors club their ideas and talents together, the outcome is not always on the plus side.

Good morning! I finished this segment a couple of weeks ago, so am grateful for Peter's summation.

I'm quite enjoying "No Thoroughfare" so far. Perhaps after Hard Times, its shortcomings aren't quite as obvious as they might have been directly following Bleak House. I appreciate the theatrical aspect - my brain doesn't have to work so hard to imagine the settings and action. :-)

When I flew into London a few years ago, looking out the window of the plane and seeing St. Paul's and the Thames gave me such a feeling of warmth and coming home, even more so than Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. This setting in the story gave me that feeling once again. London, its geography and archetecture, is one "character" in Dickens that lives on and gives us a touchstone to his world. I felt that here in "No Thoroughfare" more than in some of his other works.

Like Tristram (and probably most readers), I assume the veiled ladies in the Overture are one and the same: Walter's mother. What I wonder is if this same lady is the one who adopted him? If so, we have quite a mystery as to her background, why she gave him up, and how she came to be able to adopt him again, years later. Dickens refers to both as "ladies" - did the Victorians ever use that word synonymously with "women" as we tend to do today? Or was this woman obviously of a higher class?

When she initially removes her veil, she's described thus:

A face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with sorrow.

The word "refined" makes me think she was, indeed, a lady who got herself into trouble. Or perhaps she could be a lady's maid, inquiring for her employer.

The veil certainly makes things seem all the more mysterious, doesn't it?

Act One --

Well, whoever it was that adopted Walter, she seemed to do a fine job of raising him to be a good man. I think Tristram's correct that his younger years as a foundling (a term I find much more romantic than "orphan") have contributed to his wanting to have a work family, misguided as the idea may be.

Breakneck Stairs and Cripple Corner seem like heavy-handed foreshadowing to me. If so, is it Walter who will end up in a wheel chair before the final curtain?

If my math is correct, Walter is 26 or 27 years old in this chapter. Sarah Goldstraw (interesting name, but I don't quite know what to make of it), is said to be around the age of 50 and, as noted before, has an air of familiarity to Walter. So here we have another candidate for his mother. Was she one or both of the veiled ladies?

I enjoy the names Joey Ladle and Pebbleson Nephew. And I enjoy Joey's character, as well. A bit of a curmudgeon, who's not afraid to speak his mind.

Does anyone know about the collaborative process Dickens and Collins used? Did they write their own passages separately, or did they work together and edit one another's work? I've only read The Lady in White, and that was several years ago, so I have no confidence in my ability to recognize Collins' style.

I'm quite looking forward to seeing what happens next. The introduction of the housekeeper makes the mystery of Walter's past seem a little less predictable, and I'm anxious to see if we are introduced to an antagonist who will meet his end on Breakneck Stairs, or if, instead, the Dynamic Duo delve into a more maudlin storyline (like that of Stephen Blackpool or poor Mrs. Pegler) and have Walter or his mother, whoever she may be, end up crippled. Or is it a false lead? Whatever the case, I can't wait to find out.

Perhaps Peter is right and it's harder to see this play's faults after HT. Still, it felt more Dickens than that book did already, even when it's a collaboration. I think the overture might have been from Collins and what we read from the first act form Dickens, because I think Dickens would have described 'a figure' that clearly was a lady based on her appearance, face and the way she'd talk I think, instead of immediately naming her as a lady. While on the other hand, while the Breakneck Stairs and Cripple Corner sound quite Dickensian to me. I didn't look it up, so I'm not sure.

A very interesting beginning with many possibilities. My first impression was not of Walter being adopted but of his mother having revealed herself to him at some point. I guess that would be too easy and also how could she do that without revealing more to society than would be desired? I am looking forward to finding out more.

Tristram wrote: "I am also looking forward to discovering this novel with you Curiosities, because unlike most other texts we are reading here, No Thoroughfare is an unknown country to me. I was rather intrigued wi..."

Tristram

You raise some interesting questions. I think we are in for a prime example of a melodrama. Whether it will follow a dramatic form of melodrama or a prose format remains to be seen.

Mary Lou wrote: "Good morning! I finished this segment a couple of weeks ago, so am grateful for Peter's summation.

I'm quite enjoying "No Thoroughfare" so far. Perhaps after Hard Times, its shortcomings aren't q..."

Hi Mary Lou

We do seem to have stubbed our toes on Hard Times. I’m still wondering what exactly to make of it.

There are indeed many theatrical bits already appearing in the prose story of No Thoroughfare. There is certainly a “feeling” one gets whenever we find ourselves in London. I enjoyed the constantly narrowing of focus at the beginning. Closer and closer the focus gets. And the sound of the bells of St Paul’s. That’s atmosphere!

Dickens does give us some good names in these beginning pages that might be a prelude to what might come later.

I know next to nothing about the collaborative process of Collins and Dickens. I will poke around and see what else I can dig up. I cannot recall ever seeing much about it but I’m sure there are many articles on it somewhere. As a fantasy though, just imagine Collins and Dickens sitting around a table with a bottle of wine, sherry, grog - or maybe all three - sharing ideas, reading each other’s bits and plotting the story. It was written in 1867 so they were very good friends at the time.

Jantine wrote: "Perhaps Peter is right and it's harder to see this play's faults after HT. Still, it felt more Dickens than that book did already, even when it's a collaboration. I think the overture might have be..."

Hi Jantine

Your logic makes sense to me. I am going to do a bit of hunting down more specifics of who did what.

Bobbie wrote: "A very interesting beginning with many possibilities. My first impression was not of Walter being adopted but of his mother having revealed herself to him at some point. I guess that would be too e..."

Bobbie

There are more twists and surprises coming soon.

I find it very hard to figure out how two really experienced authors like Dickens and Collins went about when collaborating on a story. When I was younger and had no cares on me, I dabbled in writing a bit and all I needed was a pot of tea, a cigar and peace and quiet. The beginning was always very difficult, but after a while I got so immersed into the story that the writing, strange as it may sound, almost did itself. It was also very advisable never to stop to search for a word but to go on until that flow experience would ebb out, and then do amendments and changes later - in a more rational state of mind. If someone had spoken to me then, I would have resented it. Finding ideas before and figuring out which way the story would take, was another matter. Here, I found it helpful to talk things over with a friend of mine. I guess that Dickens and Collins might have done the same: They concocted the plot together and talked about individual chapters, which each of them was to write on his own. The travelogue we read a couple of years before was clearly written that way: Collins and Dickens were responsible for individual chapters. I don't know, however, if they adopted the same strategy for this novel.

I also find that while Dickens's style is very easy to identify, Collins's is not so much. One thing that I find typical of Collins is the use of interesting female characters, young women who show a certain amount of pluck and are not merely damsels in distress. Collins's descriptive passages are also less imaginative than Dickens's in that Dickens often uses personification to give a place a certain atmosphere. Dickens is like Mozart in a way: Even if you have never heard the piece before, you'll be able to tell it was composed by Mozart if it was composed by Mozart.

I have searched through Ackroyd’s “Dickens” and Ian Slater’s “Charles Dickens” to find out who wrote what parts in “No Thoroughfare.” I found the Slater more detailed. Basically, here’s what I was able to dig up.

Dickens wrote the Overture and the first two sections of Act 1.
Collins wrote “The Housekeeper Speaks.”
Dickens introduced the characters of Vendale, Obenreizer, and Marguerite.
Thereafter they “continued to alternate as authors.” Collins wrote Act 11, Dickens Act 111, Collins Act IV. Evidently, bits of Acts 1 and IV were collaborations as each author tinkered with the other’s work. To help the reader out (or further confuse us) Slater states that Dickens uses “richly descriptive prose, playful imagery and love of detail” whereas Collins can be identified because of his “plainer, more functional style.”

Slater also makes use of comparisons to Little Dorrit as an early source for material that appears in the later No Thoroughfare.

Peter wrote: "I have searched through Ackroyd’s “Dickens” and Ian Slater’s “Charles Dickens” to find out who wrote what parts in “No Thoroughfare.” ..."

Thank you for your research, Peter. I'll keep it in mind, and see if I can pinpoint authorship as we go forward. It does make me want to read The Moonstone to be able to differentiate better, but there's just never enough time, and too many books.

I would have guessed that Dickens introduced Obenreizer and the two ladies, and next week I'll tell you why. I was rather surprised, however, to learn that the first two chapters of Act 1 were Dickens, because frankly speaking, some of the writing seemed quite lacklustre and Walter Wilding's simplicity is quite enervating, isn't it?

I had the same, Tristram.