NEW Dickens readalong Dombey and Son - the 2025 Dombeyalong!

[Piggywaspushed]

Join me in the next Dickens readalong, Dombeyalongadingdong! This is probably the last big Dickens we haven't done.
The novel was originally published by Dickens in 19 instalments, all exactly 32 pages long (I do find this obsession with 32 pages intriguing- writing to such an exact brief must have involved quite a lot of editing and , as I recall from Nickleby, much padding at times!) and then published in full in 1848. I know nothing of this one really - except the name Paul Dombey sticks in my head. Apparently , this one is more focused on marriage and is read as marking a change in Dickens' presentation of women. Seafaring is involved but this is also his first book about the arrival of railways which Dickens was not altogether sold on. This period was referred to as 'railway mania'. It's really quite hard to conceptualise the rapid progress and change surrounding Dickens.

This one has not been on TV for a long time. Andrew Davies had been working on a version - but it was ditched because it was felt we had had too many 'bonnet dramas'. I swear we have still had many since but rather heavily 'adapted' and maybe Sarah Phelps hasn't read Dombey...

I propose condensing this to an eight month read, using Dickens' shorter sections as a guide . We begin in May, as follows:
May - Chapters 1 - 7
June- Chapters 8-13
July- Chapters 14-22
August - Chapters 23-31
September - Chapters 32-38
October - Chapters 39-45
November - Chapters 46-51
and finishing for Christmas in
December - Chapters 52 - end

Considerably more chapters in this one, so I am guessing some must be quite short.

I'll link Katie's intro in my next post.

Anyone and everyone welcome!

Oh totally,Mrs Chuck is a Grade A Bitch!

I barrelled through this whole section yesterday, having left it (as usual) very late. Lots of action here, and thanks all for some great insights.

The scenes with Edith and her mother were powerful. I was particularly struck by the echo of the grim bits in Nicholas Nickleby where poor Kate is pretty much pimped out by uncle Ralph to Sir Mulberry Hawk (saved by Nicholas overhearing them and leaping in to the rescue). Mrs Skewton was doing exactly the same, with the difference being that Edith has come to accept her fate, and has no-one to save her. Dickens could be so astute and on the button when he wanted to be about the sordid realities of life (and yet still scuttle back disappointingly into his child-wife/angel of the house mode).

I too loved the drunk servants, and Miss Tox (in her old gardening gloves) being torn off a strip by Mrs Chick. There was a lot in this section that made me marvel all over again (and I know I've said this at least once, if not more, in these readalongs!) at Dickens's gift for making a modern-day reader sit up and think 'yes! That’s so true and funny!' and then remember he was writing 150 years ago, and yet somehow hits on the perfect turn of phrase to make us feel that, in so many ways, people in the past were essentially just the same as us.

CHICK!

Yeah, totally. There was a bit about being British or some such that made me think people certainly have not moved on (or perhaps come full circle) in terms of Little Englander mentalities.

people certainly have not moved on (or perhaps come full circle) in terms of Little Englander mentalities

That's for sure!

Oh wow great posts everyone, thank you.

Edith is a fascinating character. The many references to her pride reminded me a bit of Lady Dedlock in Bleak House. I had expected her to become a wicked stepmother figure, so I was very surprised by the instantaneous bond she formed with Florence. It's good to see a relationship between women framed so positively (in contrast to the abominable Mrs Chick! yes, she was TOTALLY pushing Miss Tox towards Mr Dombey earlier in the novel! what a frenemy and a gaslighter she is).

And yes, the idea (as expressed by Edith) that marriage is 'a form of legalized and socially sanctioned prostitution' (thank you Desdamona for that interesting Gradesaver analysis) is like Simone de Beauvoir avant la lettre. Very striking! Terpsichore, your comparison of Edith to Kate in Nicholas Nickleby is spot on. But Kate has her brother to sustain her, whereas Edith has been alone with her mother all her life... It's complex, the way in which she's yielded to her mother's wishes but is still carrying out a fierce form of silent protest. I liked the way she intervened with her mother to protect Florence. Her mother is clearly a little frightened of her, and knows that her threat to pull out of the marriage isn't an idle one.

I think Gradesaver is right to compare Dombey's attitude toward money with Edith's. He is like a walking symbol of patriarchy and capitalism, whereas Edith complies with the patriarchal/capitalist system even while critiquing it and despising it.

On a lighter note, I also thought the conversation between Carker and Cleopatra was hilarious.

'Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,' said Cleopatra, 'with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything that makes life truly charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated!'

'Yes, we have fallen off deplorably,' said Mr Carker. 😂😂😂

The mad regret for the good old days - it's still so relevant now, as some of you have said!

I also feel compelled to draw everyone's attention to Susan Nipper's excellent formulations of what she is NOT. That woman does have a way with words.
I may not be a Amazon, Miss Floy, and wouldn't so demean myself by such disfigurement, but anyways I'm not a giver-up, I hope.

'...though I can bear a great deal, I am not a camel, neither am I,' added Susan, after a moment's consideration, 'if I know myself a dromedary neither.'

A couple more random thoughts:

There is the theme of mothers, good and bad: Florence's dead mother, Polly Toodle, Cleopatra, and Edith, who is already poised to become a surrogate mother to Florence (and is thankfully determined not to imitate her own mother).

Piggy, I'm also interested in the Black servant, after reading David Olusoga's Black and British last year.

I noticed that in an illustration of the Black servant, he is wearing formal attire, and looks like any other valet would apart from the colour of his skin. Here's the image reproduced on the Victorian Web:

https://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/dombey/19.html

Excellent posts! Thank you cassandre!
I love the illustration too.* *

Finally finished this month’s section, it was a great instalment! I was confused about Edith’s haughty but troubled character until that brilliant ‘reveal’ section where she confronts her mother. Dickens is surprisingly astute on what it must have felt like to be bred up for the marriage market - he does know that women are actual people with complex psychology, for all his angels of the hearth. So relieved she isn’t going to be an evil stepmother. And I don’t think she’ll do anything to the dog. (Wouldn’t put it past Carker though…)

Finally caught up, this felt like a really long instalment! Thanks for sharing all your thoughts. Nothing else to add but I’m really enjoying this one.

Chapters 32- 38 this month, Dombeyalongers!

I have just caught up on August! Thanks for all your comments - made it keen for me to catch up. Will try to do better in September.

Just a bumpy reminder for tomorrow.

I am feeling myself a bit short on comments this moth. I feel like Dickens has interested some new plot threads that he will work on bringing together in the last 300 pages.

There continue to be excellent descriptions of characters, especially the dinner party guests, so illustratively ill suited to each other, the awful Mrs Skewton and her stroke with its touch of the Gothic and – of course- Carker. We continue to wonder whither Walter and to ponder who these newly added and somewhat vengeful women are. But nothing much is solved in this section.

I have noticed the running theme of mothers and daughters. Whilst this relationship does exist in other Dickens’ novels, it seems to be more explicitly explored here through Florence and her two mothers, Mrs Skewton and Edith, the new mother and daughter and also the pseudo motherly relationships servants give to their charges and the real children they have to forsake at times. I wonder why Dickens took such an interest around this time of his life? Perhaps it was just a new avenue to explore after so many orphans, and grandparents and siblings and wards. I think that Florence’s lack of a mother is such a poignant angle in this book and Dombey seems to be realising he has neglected her but Edith is stealing her away. I fear for Florence – I am not sure I trust the damaged Edith at all.

Hello Piggy, hello all.

I'm afraid I'm going to be behind in the book for the foreseeable future.

I have gone back to college and my life is completely on hold including reading, unfortunately. Sorry everyone :(

Congrats on going back to college Fuzzy, what a brave move. What are you studying?

As far as the book goes I have nothing much to add. I felt it went off the boil a bit in this section and there seemed to be lots of padding. My mind started to wander as I read it. I’m also disappointed that the Audio version has been removed from the free offerings on Audible so I can’t let it wash over me as I get on with other things. I’m halfway through chapter 38 so have fallen a bit behind, maybe things are about to pick up.

This did seem more of what they call on the Archers threads a 'filler episode' - putting the essential machinery in place for the next bit of the plot.

Who is the mysterious poor-but-beautiful woman who turns up at the Carker household and then curses her when she finds out who she’s accepted charity from? No clue at the moment, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough!

Your question about what was going on in Dickens’s life at the time is a great one, @Piggywaspushed. He was 12 years into his marriage by the time D & S appeared, in 1848, and he and Catherine had 7 children, the youngest exactly a year old when the book came out (I think there had been some miscarriages too). When they split a few years later he claimed that he'd been unhappy for a long time, but it’s hard to say exactly when his feelings changed. What did happen was that Catherine’s sister Georgina had come to live with the family in 1842, and took a big role in looking after the children and running the household. So maybe thoughts about care-giving, motherliness and child-rearing - even the 'two mothers' idea - were especially preoccupying him at around that time?

The other big thing in his life just then was helping to set up a hostel-type establishment for 'wayward' girls, with a view to training them for jobs and finding employment for them, usually in Australia. This was Urania Cottage in Shepherds Bush - he was, as ever, extremely hands-on, and got very involved with the lives and past histories of the girls. I can definitely see that in the introduction of this mysterious ex-convict woman, and it'll be interesting to see where he takes that storyline.

Thank you @DesdamonasHandkerchief
It's a teaching qualification in TEFL certified by CELTA. It's a ten-week course. The workload is staggering. I feel completely overwhelmed. Maybe it's because I'm out of practice with learning and studying. I'll look forward to catching up when I get my life back in November.

Aaarh, at least it’s ‘only’ 10 weeks of intense work Fuzzy and not 3 years!

Apologies if you twigged this part of the puzzle @Terpsichorebut the beautiful young woman who rejects Harriet Carker’s charity is the daughter of ‘Good Mrs Brown’ who abducted Florence briefly in Chapter 6.

Yes, I did figure that out and was kind of expecting her to come back. She was the lurking lady under the tree in a previous chapter wasn't she, too- the one who cursed Carker?

Yes, I got that bit, @DesdamonasHandkerchief - I’m just keen to know how they both fit into the overall storyline - why/how the daughter was so touched by the Carker sister's charity but so furious once she realised who she was.

Harriet Carker and the other male Carker (whose name escapes me) are also very thinly drawn at present.

I don’t really have much to add to what others have said - agree that these were filler chapters and I’m also intrigued to find out the history between the Browns and Carkers.

I think Alice could be an interesting character and I liked the parallel with her and Edith about both essentially bought and sold but Edith having the protection of marriage on account of her status. Not that it is always a good thing - Dombey was horrible chastising her in front of Carker Not a Dombey fan. I also felt a bit sorry for Miss Tox - to seek out the Toodles - just to have someone to talk to about Mr Dombey. They do sound a lovely family so at least hopefully someone will be kind to her.

Very interesting to hear what was happening in Dicken's life when he wrote this.