Of Wooden Legs & Wretchedness: Dickens’s Letters ~1820 to Spring 1833

Post 2 of the Dispatches from Dickens Series

We begin our journey with Dickens’s letters with Volume One of the Pilgrim Edition, spanning 1820-1839, and it seems whimsically appropriate that on the first page—and the first full letter, since the one before it was a one-line invitation—Dickens makes comments on wooden legs. This seems to be a bit of an inside joke with his friend, but it was to become something of a lifelong obsession—as was door knockers—whose source is difficult to pin down. The appearance or mention of a wooden leg is sprinkled throughout his literary career, even to his final (finished) novel, Our Mutual Friend, with the character of Silas Wegg.

The first Dickens letters in our edition