Master Humphrey's Clock: Difference between revisions

'''''Master Humphrey's Clock''''' was a weekly periodical edited and written entirely by [[Charles Dickens]] and published from [[4 April 1840 to 4]], [[1840]]—[[December 4]], [[1841]]. It began with a [[frame story]] in which [[Master Humphrey]] tells about himself and his small circle of friends (which includes none other than [[Samuel Pickwick|Mr. Pickwick]] himself), and their penchant for telling stories. Several short stories were included, followed by the novels ''[[The Old Curiosity Shop]]'' and ''[[Barnaby Rudge]]''. It is generally thought that Dickens originally intended ''[[The Old Curiosity Shop]]'' as a short story like the others that had appeared in ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', but after a few chapters decided to extend it into a novel. Master Humphrey appears as the first-person narrator in the first three chapters of ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' but then disappears, stating, "And now that I have carried this history so far in my own character and introduced these personages to the reader, I shall for the convenience of the narrative detach myself from its further course, and leave those who have prominent and necessary parts in it to speak and act for themselves."

Master Humphrey is a lonely man who lives in London. He keeps old manuscripts in an antique [[Longcase clock|longcase clock]] by the chimney-corner. One day, he decides that he would start a little club, called Master Humphrey's Clock, where the members would read out their manuscripts to the others. The members include Master Humphrey; a deaf gentleman,; Jack Redburn; retired merchant Owen Miles; and Mr. Pickwick from ''[[The Pickwick Papers]]''. A mirror club in the kitchen, ''Mr. Weller's Watch'', run by Mr. Weller, has members including Humphrey's maid, the barber and Sam Weller.

In the portion of ''Master Humphrey's Clock'' which succeeds ''The Old Curiosity Shop'', Master Humphrey reveals to his friends that he is in fact the character referred to as the 'single gentleman' in that story.

Although Dickens's original artistic intent was to keep the short stories and the novels together, he himself cancelled ''Master Humphrey's Clock'' before 1848, and describedstated in a preface to ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' that he wisheddid not wish the story to not be tied down to the miscellany where it began within.<ref>Charles Dickens - Preface to ''The Old Curiosity Shop'', 1848 Cheap Edition</ref> Most later anthologies published the short stories and the novels separately. However, the short stories and the novels were published in 1840 in three bound volumes under the title ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', which retains the full and correct ordering of texts as they originally appeared. The illustrations in these volumes were by [[George Cattermole]] and [[Hablot Browne]], better known as "Phiz".

* {{librivox book | title=Master Humphrey's Clock | author=Dickens}}
*[http://www.online-literature.com/chesterton/dickensworks/23/ G. K. Chesterton's discussion of ''Master Humphrey's Clock''] in ''Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens''

*[http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/steig/3.html "From Caricature to Progress: ''Master Humphrey's Clock'' and ''Martin Chuzzlewit''"] by Michael Steig at [[Victorian Web]] -– an article on Dickens's collaboration with his illustrators during this period.