Nonfiction · 1880
Speeches
Literary and Social
Dickens was among the most sought-after public speakers of his day, and this collects what he said standing up: appeals for hospitals, sanatoriums, orphan funds and the Newsvendors' Benevolent Association; addresses to mechanics' institutes and to printers; the speeches in America in 1842 that raised the question of international copyright and caused a great deal of trouble; the farewell speeches of the reading tours; and the last of all, at the Royal Academy dinner shortly before his death. Three appended chapters treat him as a letter writer, as a poet, and as a public reader.
The speeches were gathered after Dickens's death, and this is the 1880 Chatto and Windus edition, which prefixes a life. They are a record of his public causes — schools, hospitals, sanitation, the standing of authors — in his own words and in the form he took most trouble over after the novels.
This Bibliomancer edition presents the speeches complete, with the introduction and the three added chapters.
Contents
- A New Edition
- Introduction
- I — Edinburgh, June 25, 1841
- II — January, 1842
- III — February 1842
- IV — February 7, 1842
- V — New York, February 18, 1842
- VI — Manchester, October 5, 1843
- VII — Liverpool, February 26, 1844
- VIII — Birmingham, February 28, 1844
- IX
- X — Birmingham, January 6, 1853
- XI — London, April 30, 1853
- XII — London, May 1, 1853
- XIII — Birmingham, December 30, 1853
- XIV
- XV — Administrative Reform
- XVI — Sheffield, December 22, 1855
- XVII — London, February 9, 1858
- XVIII — Edinburgh, March, 26, 1858
- XIX — London, March 29, 1858
- XX — London, April 29, 1858
- XXI — London, May 1, 1858
- XXII — London, July 21, 1858
- XXIII — Manchester, December 3, 1858
- XXIV — Coventry, December 4, 1858
- XXV — London, March 29, 1862
- XXVI — London, May 20, 1862
- XXVII — London, May 11, 1864
- XXVIII — London, May 9, 1865
- XXIX
- XXX — Knebworth, July 29, 1865
- XXXI — London, February 14, 1866
- XXXII — London, March 28, 1866
- XXXIII — London, May 7, 1866
- XXXIV — London, June 5, 1867
- XXXV — London, September 17, 1867
- XXXVI — London, November 2, 1867
- XXXVII — Boston, April 8, 1868
- XXXVIII — New York, April 18, 1863
- XXXIX — New York, April 20, 1868
- XL — Liverpool, April 10, 1869
- XLII — Birmingham, September 27, 1869
- XLIII — Birmingham, January 6, 1870
- XLIV — London, April 6, 1846
- XLV — Leeds, December 1, 1847
- XLVI — Glasgow, December 28, 1847
- XLVII — London, April 14, 1851
- XLVIII
- XLIX — London, November 5, 1857
- L — London, May 8, 1858
- LI
- LII
- LIII
- LIV
- LV
- LVI
- Charles Dickens as a Letter-Writer, and as a Poet
- Footnotes
New editions
Never lose your place.
This book is free to read in full, and stays that way. Leave an address: one click confirms it and opens a free account, so your progress and bookmarks sync across every device. You'll also hear when the next restored edition enters the archive. Terminate at any time.
About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
Source mind
About the author
1812–1870 · Victorian
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born at Portsmouth and worked as a child in a blacking factory while his father was imprisoned for debt — an experience he drew on for the rest of his life. A parliamentary reporter by twenty, he became the most popular novelist in English with The Pickwick Papers (1836–37) and never lost that place: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861) followed. He died at Gad’s Hill, Kent.
Adjacent records
