Talk:Martin Chuzzlewit

Seth Pecksniff

I did a search on the name Seth Pecksniff and found myself redirected here. I'm guessing Seth Pecksniff must be a character in this book, but there's nothing in the article to confirm that. Can someone who knows (or at least owns a copy of) the work add a list of characters? I can't help feeling that if we're going to redirect folks here from a proper name, there should be something to explain to the user why this has happened. CKA3KA (Skazka) (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Seth Pecksniff is now included in the Characters section, the first character we meet in the Extended Chuzzlewit family. - - Prairieplant (talk) 22:08, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Characters

I noticed Mary is not in the list of characters, even though she is a very important one. There seem to be several other major characters missing as well. Maybe someone with more familiarity with the story can add them. Johann1870 (talk) 03:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Mary is included in the Characters section, Other characters as Mary Graham. - - Prairieplant (talk) 22:06, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Postscript from 1868

After attempting to find an appropriate Wikisource home for the following, I am instead moving this text here. 67.101.7.131 (talk) 20:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

In order to clarify his intent and purpose as satire, Dickens in 1868 added a postscript in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit:

At a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868, in the city of New York, by two hundred representatives of the Press of the United States of America, I made the following observations, among others:--

"So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I might have been contented with troubling you no further from my present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion, whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the amazing changes I have seen around me on every side--changes moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take place anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct when I was here first. And this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since I landed in the United States last November, observed a strict silence, though sometimes tempted to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your good leave, take you into my confidence now. Even the Press, being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have in one or two rare instances observed its information to be not strictly accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have, now and again, been more surprised by printed news that I have read of myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read in my present state of existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which I have for some months past been collecting materials for, and hammering away at, a new book on America has much astonished me; seeing that all that time my declaration has been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no consideration on earth would induce me to write one. But what I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place in you), is, on my return to England, in my own person, in my own Journal, to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record that wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour."

I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay upon them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness. So long as this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part of it, and will be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences and impressions of America.
— [[User: CHARLES DICKENS.

May, 1868.

]]

There is now a citation in the article for this speech being added to future publications of this novel, a speech made during the second tour of America made by Dickens, when he found America a better place. The source is Harp Week, online, with a copy of cartoons drawn in 1868 followed by a text written by Robert C Kennedy in 2001. — Prairieplant (talk) 21:59, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Jefferson Brick

The character has a single sentence written about it, and unless there are a lot of sources that have gone unutilized, it has no need for an article. TTN (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. The sentence here says more. Paul B (talk) 17:10, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Sarah Gamp

The character currently has nothing to differentiate it from the main work. The current references are already included in the article, so it is redundant unless there are more sources available. TTN (talk) 13:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

BBC TV series 1964

Mention should be made to this tv adaptation broadcast in the UK in 1964 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.225.80.64 (talk) 15:10, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

References

Sources list

Only one of the items listed in Sources is used as an inline citation in this article. It seems a good list; any chance that more use is made of it? - - Prairieplant (talk) 22:10, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

French Wikipedia, again, has a more complete article

As has happened with a few other articles on novels by Dickens, the one in French Wikipedia covers more topics and uses more sources than this English article. Contemplating if I am up to doing translation again. - - Prairieplant (talk) 03:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC)