Charles Dickens's Networks

Despite the somewhat wonky title (I was always taught that if it was something 'owned' by Dickens, it should be rendered thus: Dickens') this is a extremely readable and very interesting book by Jonathan H. Grossman.

It is an innovative examination of the novels of Charles Dickens, their interesting, multilevel and criss-crossing plots and how the burgeoning transport networks of that time impacted on the novelists of the Victorian era.

It's an original work, which employs a novel approach to literary history with a thought-provoking look at the 19th century novel from the perspective of the transport networks of that time.

It theorises how passenger networks operate and how narrative forms a part of imagining public transport networks.

The author points out that at the same time as Dickens was writing his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, the first railway line in London opened for business.

Charles Dickens's Networks examines the rise of the global, high-speed passenger transport networks of the 19th century and the important impact they made on the works of Charles Dickens.

It looks at the advent of the stagecoach network, the railways and ocean-going steam liners and how they made transport easy for everyone, but also more affordable, too. Journeys that once seemed unattainable could be made in less than a day.  And the strict timetables of the railway companies made such travel predictable and reliable, in the main part.

The railway timetables also changed how time was looked at. Before the advent of the railway, each town had its own, separate time. If it was noon in Birmingham it might be 12.15 in London and 12.10 in Manchester. But to avoid railway accidents the whole rail network must run at precisely the same time, so the standardised railway time was introduced which very quickly became the same standardised time for the whole country. We were all synchronised and are to this very day.


Grossman takes a literary microscope to three of the so-called road novels of Charles Dickens and uses them as a sort of a lens to examine the history of how the public transport network changed how we perceive time and how this impacted on community and how the novelist played a key part in bringing this all together and helping us to have some understanding of it.

It is an extremely important book for Dickens lovers, people who enjoy finding out about how the Victorian era is still impacting on our lives today and students of transport history. 

The book will cost £25 in hardback and is published on 1 March.

In association with the Oxford University Press, readers of That's Books can have FREE access to the life of Charles Dickens in the prestigious Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Just visit www.oxforddnb.com/public/dnb/7599.html This free access will last for six months.
 

Murder at Deviation Junction

Jim Stringer always wanted to be an engine driver but a series of unfortunate events (described in the previous books in the series) robs him of this ambition and ruins his chances of working as an engine driver.

However, he is spotted as a good man with a keen eye and a sharp mind so he becomes a railway policeman, a detective in the force.

It is December in the year of 1909. There is heavy snow in Yorkshire that winter, so it is of no surprise when a train runs smack into a snowdrift and becomes stuck.

What does cause a surprise is when the gang of railworkers who are given the task of clearing the line of snow discover a body hidden at the side of the track.

It should be a simple case, but it all goes terribly, horribly wrong. And Jim's life is put in grave peril.

Why does the case involve a giant steel works?

Who is the murdered man? What connection is there to an exclusive railway dining club that mysteriously and abruptly ceased operating sometime prior to the discovery of the body?

Why does the case interest a reporter from a railway magazine, who seems to know more about the case than he should? And what, exactly, is the reporter so anxious to find?

The novel takes Jim Stringer away from his warm home and his loving wife and child and the familiar surroundings of of the police office at York station to an appointment with a grim and grizzly fate on the be-snowed Scottish Highlands.

But who can Jim Trust? The strange Scottish giant called Small David? The reporter, Bowman?

The novel sets a cracking pace and Andrew Martin paints excellent word pictures to set the scenes of story. So well that you'll swear you can smell the smoke and steam and feel the chill that gnaws at the bones.

The list price is £10.99, but I paid considerably less with Amazon.
ISBN 978-0-571-22965-9