NEW Dickens readalong Dombey and Son - the 2025 Dombeyalong!

I’ve still got 4 chapters to go so might be a little late with my comments. I blame family members wanting to hold actual conversation with me over the weekend and not just leaving me alone with Dickens.

I'm done and dusted and ready for discussion from tomorrow.
I badly want to be friends with Cousin Feenix.

So far it's the best part of it :)

I have four chapters left to read. I'm just after reading the part where the maid put 'Cleopatra' away for the night. The conversation between mother and daughter was brilliant.

I have caught up with you all. Not much to add to the discussion already.
I'm really enjoying this Dickens so far. Hoping Florence becomes central to it and proves she's not worthless at some point. Poor Florence!

The spoiler is what I alluded to when joining the thread, it's the reason why although I think this is my favourite Dickens book I haven't re-read it in 30 years - too unbearably sad.

It came as such a shock to me when I read the book for the first time. When, after finishing it, I eventually read the foreward (I was supposed to be writing an essay and was looking for any help i could get) it stated that it was completely obvious from the start of the book what was going to happen. Erm well not to me it wasn't !! Bloody book's called Dombey and Son!

And the railway passages were tremendous. That’s another thing it’s difficult for us to get our heads round - how extraordinary it must have been to have this crazy new form of high-speed transport upending everyone’s lives at a time when the fastest you could ever go previously was on a galloping horse for a short period. And most people just would hardly have travelled further than the next village or district, if even that.

I too really enjoyed this section of the book. So much happened! I have to confess I like the major character, which surprises me 😆 but I think it’s because he is deliberately there to lighten the mood and Mrs Skewton is a great addition. I do love how Dickens builds up the characters. Mr Carker is definitely the villain here and is a scary man and I fear for Florence …

That's a brilliant illustration! Thanks Chessie.

She looks like Judy from Punch & Judy! Paul looks rather adorable though in his skirt and Mary Janes.

My copy also has the Phiz illustrations - they’re great aren’t they? Here’s one of Paul and Mrs Pipchin which makes her look rather terrifying!

Definitely don’t flatten out that precious book Terpichore, those are wonderful illustrations, thank you for posting them.

Thanks Terpsichore!

‘The Wooden Midshipman on the Look-out’

and the front cover of each instalment, which I love. All illustrations by Hablot K. Browne, or ‘Phiz’ - who illustrated 10 of Dickens’s books, starting with The Pickwick Papers. Though apparently they fell out after 23 years, or rather Dickens dropped him without much explanation.

(Sorry, it’s a bit difficult to get a good full-on shot of the illustrations as the binding’s a bit fragile so I can’t flatten it out)

Yes, I’ll take a pic when I’ve finished with dinner!

Lovely to see a picture of Florence. Thank you.

Thank you for the images Terpsichore!
Sadly, I have an edition without illustrations this time. Diogenes the dog is exactly how I imagined him.; wonderfully shaggy.

The advertisement for Jay's Mourning Warehouse is magnificent. There is such detail in it. You could spend a small fortune there if you had the means! Yes, it must have been a massive industry.

My copy is a freebie from Kindle with a side order of the audible version so I’d love to see your illustrations Terpsicore. Could you post the Susan Nipper plate as well please?

Images might take a while. Sorry

ETA oops, no, they appeared immediately!

Another great section. I did know about the Big Spoiler because I confess I did start reading it before a few years ago, but never finished. I thought the extended episode of little Paul falling ill and then dying was very touchingly and movingly done (looking at you, Little Nell) and his gradual fading away, because it was done from his point of view, held all the more impact. It just goes to show how variable Dickens could be but in this instance I think he really triumphed and managed not to make it saccharine or pious (and just put in the obligatory name-check for GOD right at the end). Poor Florence.

By the way, there are 2 magazines for every section we’re reading, and an errata slip bunged in rather hastily all skew-whiff at the front of the second one of this part with a good few corrections, which just adds to the feeling that Dickens was racing along to get it written and off to press just in time (presumably someone had to transcribe directly from his handwritten MS? Not sure how much time they even had to make up proofs).

I’m guessing most people are reading copies with illustrations but just in case not, here’s the illustration of Florence with Diogenes in my copy, titled ‘Poor Paul’s Friend’ - the other plate in this edition is of Florence and Susan Nipper going into Sol’s shop with the wooden midshipman outside.

I’m also attaching one of the adverts that appears in every edition of the serial - in fact I’d hazard a guess it was in every part-work published in this era, because they advertised constantly. It’s for Jay’s Mourning Warehouse, which was a huge establishment on the corner of Oxford Circus, offering to supply a dizzying range of mourning outfits of every possible kind. It’s something we don’t even really think about nowadays, but mourning was such a massive industry in the days when death was so common, and so present for everyone. A side-light on a lost world.

Thanks @Piggywaspushed for posting the July summary. I was like others shocked at Paul's demise, I never saw that coming at all! Do you think maybe the book title is a bit of gallows humour/sarcasm from Dickens eg Dombey wanted a son, son dies but the real star of the show might be Florence, the rejected child? As in, not the 'son' at all?

Also, I can feel myself hating slightly on the Major, he's pretty grating with the third person variations he refers to himself in:
"Joey B"
"Old Joe"
"The Big J.B."
Ok I might have made that last one up. I have a feeling he might start getting a bit nasty about Miss Tox. And will Miss Tox be envious over Mr Dombey's potential new love interest?

I’m very much enjoying this, unknown to me Dickens novel, having romped through the first 22 chapters in a week.

I did wonder if Dickens had done the old baby switcheroo trick on us in the first part with Dombey senior musing:
‘…that a great temptation was being placed in [Polly Toodles] way. Her infant was a boy too. Now, would it be possible for her to change them?
Then on her visit home Dickens points out that Polly ‘changed babies’ with her sister, and when Polly and co. leave ‘an interchange of babies was again effected—for Polly had all this time retained her own child, and Jemima little Paul—and the visitors took leave.’
Or did they I thought or has there been an unintentional, or even intentional, mix up and the actual son and heir is being brought up as a Toodle. It seems unlikely though as the Toodle’s are all ‘apple cheeked’ sturdy types and Paul junior was wan and fey like his mother.

Loving Captain Cuttle, with his pitiful stash of treasure whipped out to act as collateral at key moments, and his complete lack of guile.
Like piggy I’m also immensely enjoying Miss Tox’s stalker, Mayor Bagstock (AKA Joee B., Joseph, Joe, Joe Bagstock, Joey Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, Josh Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock and so on, seemingly infinitum!) with his complexion of blue Stilton and habit of referring to himself in the third person. What a brilliant comic villain he is, I hope he doesn’t get too vicious in his pursuit of Miss Tox.
We need to leave the real villainy to Carker, the original smiling assassin, great point about him being described as a shark and that not boding well for Perch Chessie.