Exhausted Montage
Montage of images with a portrait of Dickens exhausted after reading Sikes and Nancy (by Harry Furniss, c1910) in the centre.
It could be said that the Readings initially had a therapeutic effect on Dickens. By becoming a professional reader, he found a way to occupy his restless mind and to forget some of his personal problems. The year 1858 marked a new start for Dickens: he embarked on a second career, made Gad's Hill Place (bottom right) his permanent home and began a relationship with Ellen Ternan (top left). However, the final decade of his life was overshadowed by his failing health. The demands of the Reading Tours, in particular traveling long distances in all kinds of weather, and the pace and intensity of his life-style, adversely affected him. In June 1865, the tragic railway disaster at Staplehurst (top left) exposed him to the horror of an accident while traveling at high speed. He never fully recovered from the ordeal and the comfort of traveling on trains, so important for his tours, turned into an unavoidable nightmare. Family members and close friends were naturally very concerned, especially when Dickens planned to add Sikes and Nancy to his repertoire.
"The finest thing I have ever heard, but don't do it," advised his son Charley. He knew that the Reading made too many demands on his father.
Dickens invited 100 chosen guests to judge whether he should include it and many warned him against doing so. But when the actress Mrs. Keeley explained "The public have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty years or so, and by Heaven they have got it!" It was settled.
The decision was to have very serious consequences.
It could be said that the Readings initially had a therapeutic effect on Dickens. By becoming a professional reader, he found a way to occupy his restless mind and to forget some of his personal problems. The year 1858 marked a new start for Dickens: he embarked on a second career, made Gad's Hill Place (bottom right) his permanent home and began a relationship with Ellen Ternan (top left). However, the final decade of his life was overshadowed by his failing health. The demands of the Reading Tours, in particular traveling long distances in all kinds of weather, and the pace and intensity of his life-style, adversely affected him. In June 1865, the tragic railway disaster at Staplehurst (top left) exposed him to the horror of an accident while traveling at high speed. He never fully recovered from the ordeal and the comfort of traveling on trains, so important for his tours, turned into an unavoidable nightmare. Family members and close friends were naturally very concerned, especially when Dickens planned to add Sikes and Nancy to his repertoire.
"The finest thing I have ever heard, but don't do it," advised his son Charley. He knew that the Reading made too many demands on his father.
Dickens invited 100 chosen guests to judge whether he should include it and many warned him against doing so. But when the actress Mrs. Keeley explained "The public have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty years or so, and by Heaven they have got it!" It was settled.
The decision was to have very serious consequences.