The Great International Walking Match
This humorous sporting narrative of a burlesque walking match between Dickens's Reading Tour Manager, Dolby the Man of Ross and Osgood the Boston Bantam, a junior partner in the firm of Dickens's American publishers, was written by Dickens who, with Fields' Massachusetts Jemmy, umpired the contest which took place in Boston on 29th February 1868. In it he refers to himself as the Gad's Hill Gasper on account of his surprising performances (without the least variation), on that truly national instrument, the American catarrh." Osgood was the winner, walking the course over the Mill Dam Road from Boston to Newton Centre and back at a brisk pace. Whatever humour Dickens attached to the event, it could hardly have been beneficial to his health. In a letter to his daughter Mamie dated 2 March 1868 he says: "The walking match came off over tremendously difficult ground, against a biting wind... it was so cold, too, that our hair, beards, eyelashes, eyebrows were frozen hard, and hung with icicles. The course was 13 miles..."
Beside the broadside is a reproduction of a cartoon of Dickens. It shows him participating in the event which accompanied an article about the walking match in The Boston Daily Advertiser, 3rd March 1868.
Beside the broadside is a reproduction of a cartoon of Dickens. It shows him participating in the event which accompanied an article about the walking match in The Boston Daily Advertiser, 3rd March 1868.