Bionic Jean
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Let’s put the record straight. A Message from the Sea is decidedly not a short story. Nor, at 300 pages, is it a novella, but more the length of a novel. In fact it is a collaborative integrated work, with a central character, whose actions we follow from the very beginning, through the middle and right to the satisfying end. I can see some puzzling over their kindles or books. Yes, some editions are only 60 pages. Others, just 25. How can this be? In their wisdom, and now that Victorian authors are well out of copyright, many editors and publishers have decided on our behalf that nobody would be interested in the “bits that weren’t written by Charles Dickens”. Therefore they have summarily chopped out several chapters, including any linking passages that were authored by the great man. Some editions do grudgingly allow Wilkie Collins’s stories to appear, but the result is a confused mess, leaving readers to wonder either why the story does not seem to go anywhere, or why it has little depth. The answer is easy. You need to read the middle chapters, which flesh it out! Also, A Message from the Sea is the overall title of the work; it is inaccurate to use the title for any single chapter, as all five each have their own name. In 1911, G.K. Chesterton referred to the “strange sentimental and relic-hunting worship of Dickens”, and how an acquaintance had run up to him and told him that “he was sure he had found two and a half short paragraphs in All the Year Round, which were certainly written by Dickens, whom he called (I regret to say) the Master”. This thoughtless jettisoning of stories by other authors, excellent in their own right but now forgotten, is the logical, deplorable result.
Charles Dickens lived his life fast, and burned himself out at an early age. If we attempted half the things he did, we would be exhausted. Actor, theatre director, traveller, writer and tireless social campaigner, he threw himself into whatever he did. If his publisher did not do as he wished, why then he would publish his own magazine. And this is exactly what he did, at the end of April 1859, with “All the Year Round” the magazine which succeeded nine editions of “Household Words”.
“All the Year Round” was a big success, and included many excellent stories and features not authored by him. More than once, he would use his guiding hand and set then lesser known authors such as Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anthony Trollope et al on what he considered to be the right track. Dozens of authors passed through his hands in this way. Some are now famous names in Victorian literature, perhaps, in the minds of some, even surpassing Charles Dickens himself.
It was his policy however, not to credit individual authors, but to keep them as in-house authors. He had also developed a “collaborative” style of writing, which had proved very popular. Stories such as “The Lazy Tour of Two Apprentices” in 1857, were written by both himself and Wilkie Collins, but presented as a seamless whole. Another work, “The Wreck of the Golden Mary”, has six authors in total (although sadly, there are severely truncated editions of this around too). That had been published four years earlier, as the Christmas edition of “Household Words” for 1856. This must have suited Charles Dickens perfectly. He viewed himself as a mentor, and had strict rules about the type of material he published in “All the Year Round”. It must be wholesome family entertainment; light and yet educational. By including and editing other authors’ work, he could still produce something he was proud of. Not only would he be helping other authors in their careers, but he would also ease his own huge burden of work.
Charles Dickens always wanted to create something special for Christmas. A Message from the Sea was the second of nine extra Christmas numbers of “All The Year Round”. The first, a year earlier, had been “A Haunted House”: also a collaborative work. The Christmas “Extra Double Number” as he called it, was very much Charles Dickens’s call. He usually drew up a list of possible contributors - always more than were needed - and sent to each of them a possible scenario, even stipulating the type of characters he wished to be included. From these he would then select the ones he preferred, edit them (and rewrite parts) interpolating them into his own frame story. He regarded himself as conceiver, unifier, and, as he expressed it in “All the Year Round”, the “conductor” of the entire work.
A Message from the Sea may have a special appeal for American readers. Charles Dickens visited the USA twice, but the first time, in 1842, he gained a negative impression overall. Later that year he began a new serial novel, “Martin Chuzzlewit”. Parts of this poked fun at Americans, or showed them in a bad light, to which not surprisingly, Americans of the time took exception. Charles Dickens was not to return until 1867, but in the meantime, his attitude mellowed considerably. The frame story by Charles Dickens features an affable and capable American ship’s Captain Silas Jorgan, who is based on a Captain Morgan, a good American friend of his in real life. Captain Jorgan is the fulcrum, and the essential mover of the whole story.
In November 1860 Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins visited the West Country to gather ideas for a nautical Christmas story, to be on the lines of the hugely successful “The Wreck of the Golden Mary”. In these post-Napoleonic decades, nautical stories were very popular, and both authors were fans of this type of fiction. They “arranged and parcelled out” the sections for the story while they were there, and wrote their parts in London over the next fortnight, ready for the Christmas edition.
By now Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins were good friends, although Wilkie Collins was 12 years his junior. In fact earlier that year, Dickens’s youngest daughter, Katey, (later to be known as Kate Perugini, the painter) had married fellow artist Charles Allston Collins, who was Wilkie Collins’s younger brother. Charles Allston Collins did contribute a section of the work, although which part, has been lost in the annals of time. As well as the two Collins brothers, Charles Dickens also accepted stories from Henry F. Chorley, Amelia Edwards, and Harriet Parr, all of which are cunningly interpolated into chapter 3.
A Message from the Sea: what could be more intriguing? Pirates, ships, buried treasure, shipwrecks, messages in bottles … what does it make you think of? With an American as the main character: a “citizen of the world” as he calls himself, we have a true hero: the dapper, intelligent, cheery and kind Captain Silas Jorgan.
As we begin chapter 1 “The Village”, this stranger to the area walks into a pretty Devon fishing village, arriving by a winding road:
“‘And a mighty sing’lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days of my life!’ said Captain Jorgan, looking up at it.”
Charles Dickens’s description of “Steepways” is truly as pretty as a picture, so it is no surprise to discover that it is drawn from life. On his visit with Wilkie Collins earlier that year in 1860, Charles Dickens stayed at the New Inn, Clovelly, with its precipitously steep and narrow main road. He was so enchanted by the village that he used it as inspiration for this work. Just as Captain Jorgan did, you can still stand in the middle of a 400ft cobbled path leading down to the harbour quay. It was built in the 16th century and is largely unchanged, with only seven houses being unlisted (i.e. able to be adapted). Clovelly is a timeless place, giving an odd sensation of being displaced from reality. Higgledy-piggledy whitewashed houses tumble down the steep cliffs to the sea. Clearly Charles Dicken felt as if he had stepped back in time - and we feel this even now.
Captain Jorgan is the bearer of news, and of a secret, but it does not seem to offer good fortune. Just the opposite. The garrulous captain has been made very welcome by two families: those of a young fisherman Alfred, and also of his sweetheart Kitty. But the news he passes to Alfred is not welcome. Nor does the Captain seem to know or understand its import. But it does mean that the sweethearts’ wedding has to be postponed, and Captain Jorgan and young Alfred set off on a journey, much to everyone’s shock and dismay. By the end of chapter 2 we learn that they are destined for “Lanrean” (perhaps Lanreath, near Looe, near the foot of Cornwall).
Chapter 3 is titled “The Club Night” and is an extremely long chapter. It comprises a collection of short stories, set within a frame story continuing the action. Charles Dickens, or possibly Wilkie Collins, has linked them all together describing with great veracity how they trudged across the moors in the cold and wet all day, until as darkness fell, they come to an inn. Here were several men all sitting around a table. They are discussing a “seafaring man” who told a tale of being shipwrecked, and lay upstairs. Their custom is to each take a turn, by chance, to tell a tale. The first is Tredgear’s story, authored by Wilkie Collins. This is a spine-chilling, very atmospheric and claustrophobic tale, full of foreboding. .
David Polreath’s continues with his story, probably written by a regular contributor to “All the Year Round”, Harriet Parr. She had written “Poor Dick’s Story” for “The Wreck of the Golden Mary“ and was famous for her ghostly tales, including this one. Again, the ending is ambiguous. There is tragedy, madness, a vengeful spirit and possibly murder in this tale. Moving on, the spinning top stops at Captain Jorgan. Since David Polreath has included part of a journal in his story, Captain Jorgan decides to tell the company his tale, written on a piece of paper used as a pipelight. This is a long poem, probably authored by Amelia B. Edwards. She used to write poetry, and again was famous for her ghost stories, such as “The Phantom Coach”. This is a poem of a terrible shipwreck, told evocatively with grisly authenticity by the victims. It has a deeper significance too, as do nearly all her works. Amelia B. Edwards was a great traveller and her writings on Egyptology as a science were well respected. She was forward thinking, and her views on the injustices of racism and slavery are evident in this poem.
The fourth story is told by Oswald Penrewen. It is set in the Swiss Alps, and brings to mind several of Charles Dickens own stories, such as the fantastically eerie “To Be Told At Dusk”. Oswald’s brother had told him of a ghostly encounter which he had experienced thirty years earlier, on a sketching tour through Switzerland. Poignantly sad, this involves four or five travellers from different countries, who swap tales to pass the time in an inn. We have talk of a tomb, deathly chill, eerie music, and a visit from beyond the grave. It focuses on a young man and his sweetheart, and a haunting, as earlier ones have done.
All four stories are sworn to be true. Either the narrator had experienced what he told, or someone close to him did. For the next we move to chapter 4, and a long complex tale by Wilkie Collins, called “The Seafaring Man”.
Wilkie Collins must have had great hopes with this story. “The Woman in White”, arguably his best novel, had seen its first publication as a serial in “All the Year Round” earlier that year, albeit uncredited. Only later did Wilkie Collins publish the novel under his own name. He was becoming frustrated by now, at being part of Dickens’s team of authors; in fact this was to be their penultimate collaboration, after five years of occasional collaborative works. After he had written his story “The Seafaring Man”, Wilkie Collins showed it to his friend over dinner. But Charles Dickens was very critical of the beginning, and wrote scathingly to Georgina Hogarth (his sister-in-law and confidante, who edited his letters):
“Wilkie brought his part of the Xmas No. to dinner yesterday. I hope it will be good. But is it not an extraordinary thing that it began: ‘I have undertaken to take pen in hand, to set down in writing etc. etc.’ … like the W in W (Woman in White) narratives? Of course, I at once pointed out the necessity of cancelling that …”
In fact this story, which comprises chapter 4, is a triumph. Wilkie Collins was increasingly confident after the success of “The Woman in White”, and his signature is stamped all over “The Seafaring Man”. In many ways this chapter epitomises Wilkie Collins, and it feels like reading a Wilkie Collins novel in miniature. Like “Treasure Island”, this would make a wonderfully exciting film.
It develops a distinctive method he had used for “The Woman in White”, whereby the whole mystery and authenticity of the account depend on the reliability of the narrator. This narrator also stresses his story’s believability by his diffidence, and protestation that it is difficult to organise his memories so that they can be told as a story - just as he did in “The Woman in White”. However, this way of telling a story is markedly different from Dickens’s way. Their authorial paths were beginning to diverge.
The “seafaring man” is not used to telling his story, and Wilkie Collins does not tell of a jaunty adventure at sea. Charles Dickens loved “Robinson Crusoe”, but although both Wilkie Collins and Daniel Defoe both took inspiration from the real life shipwrecked Royal Navy officer Alexander Selkirk, the tale told here is nightmarish: bleak and chilling. He stops abruptly, and disappears upstairs amid howls of protestation. Thus we are no further in solving the mystery in the frame story.
Charles Dickens did not find it an easy task to make a seamless whole. He complained in letters to his friends about problems with the contributors to the Christmas numbers more than once. In Captain Jorgan, he reprised his editorial role, as the Captain has to alternately encourage or cajole the others to tell their stories, and ultimately all are grateful to him.
Because it is so skilfully done, Charles Dickens scholars have come to different conclusions about the authorship of certain parts. In the late 19th century, Frederic G. Kitton gained access to a marked set of “All the Year Round” which had never left the office, and which has since disappeared. From this he deduced that some of the linking passages were by Charles Dickens. Against this evidence though, is a volume of collected Christmas numbers collated by Dickens himself in 1868, which has a contents page listing the author(s) of each section. This indicates that some parts written by Dickens himself were missed out from his “Collected Works”, and others were misattributed. Kitton deduced that Wilkie Collins might have written parts of chapter 1, as well as chapter 4 and some linking sections between the interpolated stories in chapter 3. Charles Dickens was responsible for the bridging sections between the chapters. However the 1868 contents page attributes all chapter 1 to Charles Dickens, chapter 2 to Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, chapter 3 to Charles Dickens, Charles Collins, Harriet Parr, H. F. Chorley and Amelia B. Edwards, chapter 4 to Wilkie Collins and chapter 5 to Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Although the poem told by Captain Jorgan feels like the work of Amelia B. Edwards, and her name is included, it is attributed to H. F. Chorley in the 1868 contents - and Kitton says it is by R. Buchanan! Even now, there are conflicting claims and disagreement about attribution, despite a detailed analysis by Professor Harry Stone in 1970.
In the final Chapter 5, “Restitution”, (probably) again written by Charles Dickens himself, the clues we have had so far are all brought together, and made clear. The truth is revealed, and the mysteries all explained, dispelling old fears. The dark secrets, when reinterpreted in their proper light, are seen to be no longer a disgrace. Lawyers are consulted, past unpaid debts are explained, and hidden documents are found clearing a man’s name to show him as honourable. No longer should Hugh live under a cloud.
We do Charles Dickens a great disservice in arrogantly chopping this story about, ignoring his strong desire to create a seamless whole. I can quite see him today, writing to “The Times” newspaper, as he so often did, objecting that the reappearance of Hugh is inexplicable. The solution to the mystery no longer makes sense without Captain Jorgan’s asides in the Club stories in chapter 3, or chapter 4 “The Seafaring Man”. Also, he might well say that his whole purpose for the work - Charles Dickens’s strong underlying moral theme - would be missed. In the butchered editions, the emblematic meaning of a message in a bottle is all but lost.
Captain Jorgan is the key. He is present throughout, reacting to all these middle stories. We see from the start that this is a open honest fellow, at home wherever he finds himself, and we look to this astute fellow to help us find the answers. He is keen to act in everyone’s best interests, and is able to communicate with anybody. A true facilitator, he deciphers messages, orders events and controls the joyous outcome. Captain Jorgan is a sort of Prospero, who can reunite dispersed families, and can even magically return the lost from the dead. All this, Charles Dickens seems to tell us, is possible through story-telling itself.
Captain Jorgan’s words at the end bear this out: fiction itself has regenerative powers. In fact all the stories contained within A Message from the Sea stress how crucial it is to maintain connections. Storytelling, and sending and delivering of a vital “message” is there in each. Captain Jorgan crosses the whole world to deliver a message, even though he does not know what it is. Charles Dickens has made an effective metaphor for us here, in the telling of stories. The lack of communication, and keeping people apart, he tells us, can be one of the worst evils, obscuring the truth.
Never deny the power of telling stories.
(This edition is a facsimile of the original magazine, on kindle.)
- 19th-century-ish charles-dickens ghost-horror-supernatural
