Tom Tiddler's Ground. The Committee of Concoction

1861

Publisher: The Queen

Scanned image and text by George P. Landow.

[This image may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose.]

Commentary by Wilkins and Matz

"One of the features of Household Words and All the Year Round, was its Christmas number each year. These appeared anonymously Although it was known that various authors contributed chapters to each number. Dickens would plan the story as a whole, write the first and sometimes the second and last chapters, whiIst other well known writers were asked to contribute the remaining chapters on certain fixed lines. Although at the time, the names of the writers of these were not revealed, they became known some years afterwards when the stories were re-published in complete form."

"The picture here reproduced from The Queen newspaper, humorously portrays one of the meetings assumed to have been held, when the form the story should take was fully discussed. It is purely imaginary and speculative, of course, for neither G. A. Sala, nor John Hollingshead contributed to the story in question."[59]

References

Piowman, Thomas F. in the Days of Victoria. London: John Lane, 1918.

Wilkins, William Glyde and B. W. Matz. Charles Dickens in Caricature and Cartoon. Boston: The Bibliophile Society, 1924. No. 11.

Last modified 17 July 2007