Classics Retold

Trotwood Copperfield was on a trip after the completion of his education in Doctor Strong's School.  After the schooling, he was uncertain about which career he should choose.  Aunt Betsey suggested him to go on a trip and gave him necessary money to meet his expenses. The first point of his trip was Canterbury, and after it he was in London.  The trip to London manifested him a novice fresh from school.  Though he pretended to appear as a seasoned traveller, he lost his box seat to a shabbily dressed co-passenger.  Arrived in London, the waiter of the Golden Cross Hotel in Charing Cross junction deliberately put him in a stable like room.  Fortunately, he met his Salem House school friend James Steerforth in the coffee-room of the hotel after his return from Convent Garden Theatre.  Steerforth could see that his friend was still the school boy of Salem House.  He asked the waiter in which room he put Copperfield, and got him changed to a comforta...

Trotwood and Mr Dick became great friends.  They would fly kites, and attend to the worries of Dick with regard to his Memorial.  His aunt further shortened his name to Trot.  And one day she asked Trot whether he would like to go to a school at Canterbury.  Trot was very much delighted. Miss Betsey asked Janet to arrange a pony and chaise by next day to go to Canterbury.  All his clothes were packed in the night. Canterbury is fifteen miles west of Dover;  on the way to London.  Miss Betsey was indifferent to public opinion; and she drove the chaise herself through Dover in a masterly way. It was a market day in Canterbury, and was crowded and busy.  They dodged among the carts, baskets, vegetables and huckster's goods.  The hairbreath turns and twists, the loud noise of crowd, the rattling of carts. The grey pony chaise reached in front of an old house.  Long latticed windows, and beams with carved ends stood facing the narrow pavement...

Miss Betsey Trotwood was married to a charming person younger than herself.  But she found him a wife- beater, and one day he threw her out of a window by stairs.  She got a separation from him after paying him a compensation.  He went with the money to India.  It was first heard that he was riding elephants in India, and later that he was dead.  Miss Betsey took her maiden name, purchased a cottage in Dover, a seaside town, and settled herself there with Mr Dick, an invalid and a maid servant, Janet. David, standing at the garden gate looked into the parlour and found that there was nobody.   He looked upwards and saw a window through which he could see a florid pleasant looking gentleman with a grey head, who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head several times at David, then laughed and went away.   David was disturbed by this, and was thinking of slinking off, when there came out of the house a lady with her handkerchief tied o...

Introduction Charles Dickens offers an interesting reading.  But the thick volume and archaic language dissuade any reader.   Once these bottlenecks are overcome dramatic moments of Shakespearean dimensions are availed.   Enough retold versions are available, but after shearing here and there, they look skeleton spirits, without soul, flesh and blood.  Even translation to our own vernacular is not comprehensive, but sheared one. My effort is at sustaining my interest in reading.  Pulps are pleasure.  But, as we progress, we find that they run a dull course and make us drowsy. Preface The novel was first published in 1850.  In its preface, Dickens expressed his regrets in parting with his many companions.  He aso expressed his pleasure in realising his long wish.  He was afraid, that he was going to wear his readers with his personal confidence. It took two years for the author to finish the work. In the preface to 1869 edition he re...

Mrs Micawber sat at the back of the coach together with her children.    She saw through her tears little David stood looking low-spirited at them.  She beckoned to him to climb up, put her arms round his neck and gave him such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy.  He had barely time to get down before the coach started.  It was gone in a minute.  David and Orfling stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road; and then shook hands and said goodbye. A desperate idea came into the mind of David.  It had its root in the narrative, by his mother now and then, of an incident connected with his aunt Miss Betsey Trotwood.  David was not sure whether it was true or a mere fancy of his mother.  The dreaded Miss Betsey Trotwood came into the story on the day of his birth.  The soft touch of his mother's hair by the terrible aunt lingered in his mind caused David to see her in a positive shade.  And she was the only...

Murdstone and Grinbys was at the waterside. It was down in Blackfriars.  Blackfriars is in the southwest corner of London.  It is located on the banks of River Thames.  It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in and on the mud when the tide was out.  It was a dirty place, with rats, dirts and smoke.  An important branch of Murdstone and Grinbys dealt with the supply of wines and spirits to packet ships.  To select the good bottles, reject the flawed bottles, rinse and wash the bottles, paste the labels on bottles, fit them with corks, seal them and pack them in casks were done by boys. A look into the history of child labour in this context is appropriate. Child labour in Victorian England was not the result of Industrial revolution.  Poor children would start work as soon as their parents could find employment for them.  But prior to Industrial Revolution not much work was available.  This ch...