DICKENS AND GERMANY
IN 1873 Karl Hillebrand complained, in one of his letters from
that the English as a whole had remarkably little interest i
affairs and practically no understanding of them; and this w
peculiar, he thought, when one realized that a German d
occupied the throne of England for a century and a half, an
discovered the tireless curiosity with which the English follo
affairs.1
Dickens certainly cannot be excepted from this latter generalization.
His acquaintance with Germany had been small, and though his interest
in the men and affairs of the country was sympathetic, it was not deep
and lasting. His school education had been elementary, and in his later
fairly wide private study he learned little of Germany. He spoke French
well, but could not always write it without mistakes; and that, with a
little Italian, was his sole knowledge of foreign languages. Benignus says:
Die Schule brachte ihm weder einen Sinn fur die Klassiker bei, obwohl er Latein
lernen musste, noch die Kenntnis der modernen Sprachen, um die Erzeugnisse der
ausserenglischen Schriftsteller, soweit sie nicht in landlaufiger Ubersetzung vorhanden
waren, zu verstehen, oder auch nur seine Aufmerksamkeit darauf zu lenken.2
That he realized the importance of a knowledge of German is shown by
a letter of his dated 22 November 1852. Referring to his eldest son, who
wished to enter commerce, he writes: 'We have arranged, therefore, that
he shall leave Eton at Christmas and go to Germany, to become well
acquainted with that language, now most essential in such a walk of life
as he will probably tread.'3 He frequently expressed his sorrow at his
own complete ignorance of German; in 1841, for example, to Dr Heinrich
Kiinzel (the letter is quoted in full below), and again in 1842, when
Freiligrath, an admirer of Dickens from a very early time, sent him a
copy of his poems through Longfellow, who was a personal friend of
both. Longfellow wrote to Freiligrath: 'He thanks you most kindlily
for your poems-which, alas! he cannot read-and will send you in a
few days a copy of his American Notes'.4 In 1846, travelling in the
Rhineland, he noticed a great number of people reading his books and,
according to Forster, 'remarked... how great his own vexation was, not
to be able himself to speak a word of German .5
1 K. Hillebrand, Zeiten, Volker und Menschen, Berlin, 1876, III, the second letter, p. 8.
2 S. Benignus, Studien iiber die Anfdnge von Dickens, Diss., Strassburg, 1895, p. 33.
3 Letters of Charles Dickens, published by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter,
London, 1893, 3rd ed., p. 278.
4 S. Longfellow, Life of H. W. Longfellow, London, 1886, I, p. 421.
5 J. Forster, Life of Charles Dickens, London, 1928, edition annotated by J. W. T. Ley,
p. 390.
He had practically no acquaintance with German literature; there are
occasionally small references in his books and letters, or in Forster's
'Life', to the Faust legend, for example,l and to the story of Baron
Trenck,2 but there is nothing of any substance. Sara Coleridge's sug-
gestion to Aubrey de Vere that 'The Old Curiosity Shop is a good deal
borrowed from Wilhelm Meister', and that the figure of Little Nell was
probably suggested by Mignon, is not accepted by Forster, who writes:
'Expressing no opinion on the comparison, I may state it was within my
knowledge that the book referred to was not then known by Dickens.'3
That he may have read it later, in English translation, is shown by an
inspection of his library list,4 which is otherwise rather disappointing.
At first the list of books on German subjects appears interesting, but a
large majority of them are presentation copies, and are consequently of
little significance. Among these presentation volumes are Fliigel's
English-German dictionary (1856); Goethe's works, translated by John
Oxenford (1867-including the Wilhelm Meister referred to above); a
translation by W. Ross of Lessing's Laocoon; two different copies of the
adventures of Till Eulenspiegel, and a translation of Schiller's early
dramas and romances, from H. G. Bohn. There are a few books without
manuscript dedication, but which were also probably presentations:
these include German Novelists; Tates from Ancient and Modern Authors,
translated with critical and biographical notes by T. Roscoe (1826), and
a translation of Freytag's Bilder aus der Deutschen Vergangenheit in four
volumes. There were also in his library copies of the German editions of
nine of his earliest works-Die Pickwickier, 1837-8; Londoner Skizzen,
1838; Oliver Twist, 1838-9; Leben und Schicksale der Familie Nickelby,
1838-40; Master Humphreys Wanduhr, 1840-1; Barnaby Rudge, 1841;
Leben und Abenteuer Martin Chuzzlewits, 1843-4; Der Weihnachtsabend,
1844; Die Geschichte Englands fir Jung und Alt, 1852 (Bd. I).
From the fact that Dickens bought so few, if any, of these books
himself, we may conclude that his interest in German history and
literature was very small. The complete list is not altogether negligible,
but it is doubtful whether he paid much attention to the presentation
copies which predominate.
The success of the Pickwick Papers attracted the attention of German
publishers, and by 1838, thanks to various good translations, Dickens was
1 Forster, p. 658; Letters, p. 555; David Copperfield, chap. II, etc.
2 Letters, p. 573, and in The Holly Tree (Christmas Stories).
3 Forster, p. 723, footnote.
4 J. H. Stonehouse, Catalogue of the Library of Charles Dickens, from Gadshill, London,
1935.
241E. N. GTUMMER
16M. L. R. XXXIII
242 Dickens and Germany
already popular in Germany. In that year Dr Kiinzel of
wrote to him and asked for a short autobiography for inclu
Brockhaus Konversationslexikon. He replied from Doughty S
the letter, since well known, explaining that he was born at P
'an English seaport town, principally remarkable for mud,
sailors'; giving full facts of his life, adding: 'if it be any con
the German ladies to know that I have two children, pray te
and mentioning his travels in England, Scotland and France
eyes open'. 'Heaven send that some kind wind may ere long
to Germany!'l Soon after this he reviewed Thomas Hoo
Rhine (1839) for the Examiner,2 and this may have given him
plan for a visit to Germany.
But the kind wind was only to blow once in his life. In Nov
a first attempt to see something of the country failed; he wa
back through Switzerland from a visit to Italy, and wrote
from Paris on 28 November: 'I got to Strasburgh on Mon
intending to go down the Rhine. But the weather being fogg
season quite over, they could not insure our getting on, fo
beyond Mayence; or our not being detained by unpropitiou
so he returned to England through Paris, and it was not unt
summer of 1846, when he set out for Switzerland via Ostend
Coblenz and Mannheim, that he saw anything of Germany;
was to be his only visit. Forster gives an interesting account
... the beauty of the weather showed them the Rhine at its best. At M
had come aboard their boat a German, who soon after accosted Mrs. Di
in excellent English: 'Your countryman Mr. Dickens is travelling this w
our papers say. Do you know him, or have you passed him anywhere?'
ensuing, it turned out, by one of the odd chances my friend thought h
singled out for, that he had with him a letter of introduction to the b
gentleman; who then spoke to him of the popularity of his books in Germ
the many persons he had seen reading them in the steamboats as h
Dickens remarking at this how great his own vexation was not to be ab
speak a word of German, 'Oh dear! that needn't trouble you' rejoine
'for even in so small a town as ours, where we are mostly primitive pe
few travellers, I could make a party of at least forty people who un
speak English as well as I do, and of at least as many more who could m
you in the original.' His town was Worms, which Dickens afterwards sa
old place, though greatly shrunken and decayed in respect of its popu
a picturesque old cathedral standing on the bank of the Rhine, and so
churches shut up, and so hemmed in and overgrown with vineyards th
as if they were turning into leaves and grapes.'3
The whole journey from London to Bale only took eight
though he says elsewhere that his valet Roche, who came fro
The Dickensian, November 1912, pp. 297-8.
2 The article unfortunately cannot be traced; there is indeed some doubt th
published. See Forster, pp. 132, 137-8. 3 Forster, p. 390.
E. N. GUMMER
was not too well at ease in Germany because of great difficult
language, Dickens himself seems to have been pleased wit
there are affectionate references in some of his works after 18
castles and Rhine wine and inns of the Rhineland; an amu
example, in The Holly Tree, one of the Christmas stories; stou
Rhineland inns, who will stay all night 'clinking glasses,
about the river that flows, and the grape that grows, and Rhi
beguiles, and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my
ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of it'.
At least three of Dickens' children made visits to Germ
them, as was mentioned above, was his eldest son, Ch
junior, who stayed for nearly two years. The boy wished
merchant, and arrangements were made through Baron T
nearly thirty years a close friend of Dickens-for him to
education at Leipzig.l Dickens took great interest in his son
and frequently refers to them in his letters: for example, in
'Charley is still at Leipzig... he has been in the Hartz mou
walking tour, and has written a journal thereof, which he
in portions. It has cost about as much in postage as would
a pair of ponies.' And in September: 'Charley was heard of
ago. He says his professor "is very short-sighted, alw
spectacles, always drinking weak beer, always smokin
always at work". The last qualification seems to appear to
most astonishing one.'2 Another son, Frank, also visited
1860, and a daughter, Kate, was at Wiesbaden in 1864.3 Ch
junior later published a few German plays arranged for tr
English: for example, Goethe's Egmont and Schiller's Neff
Various letters also give us some idea of Dickens' opinion
Two in particular are valuable. The first was written to an
translator of his works, Dr Johann August Diezmann,
10 March 1840:
My dear Sir
I will not attempt to tell you how much gratified I have been by the receipt of
your first English letter: nor can I describe to you with what delight and gratification
I learn that I am held in such high esteem by your great countrymen, whose favourable
appreciation is flattering indeed.
To you, who have undertaken the laborious (and often, I fear, very irksome) task
1 Forster, p. 570, footnote. 2 Letters, pp. 294, 300. 3 Letters, pp. 496, 576.
4 With deference, I suggest this is the right Diezmann; if so, the initials are not S. A.,
as in the edition of the letters, and not U., as suggested by Suzannet in The Dickensian,
1931-2, xXVIII, pp. 60-2. For J. A. Diezmann see Kelchner in the Allgemeine Deutsche
Biographie, v, p. 222, and Briimmer, Deutsches Dichterlexikon, 1886-7, I, p. 142.
16-2
243
244 Dickens and Germany
of clothing me in the German garb, I owe a long arrear of thanks. I wish you would
come to England, and afford me an opportunity of slightly reducing the account.
It is with great regret that I have to inform you, in reply to the request contained
in your pleasant communication, that my publishers have already made such arrange-
ments, and are in possession of such stipulations relative to the proof-sheets of my
new works, that I have no power to send them out of England. If I had, I need not
tell you what pleasure it would afford me to promote your views.1
The second, paradoxically only available in German translation, is dated
from Broadstairs, 13 September 1841. Heinrich Kiinzel had again
written to Dickens, this time to ask his support for a weekly magazine,
which was to be called Britannia, and would contain translations from
English and articles on English literature, with Kiinzel and Freiligrath
as editors.2 Dickens replied:
Glauben Sie mir, mein verehrter Herr, ich kann ohne jede Schmeichelei sagen, dass
nachst der Gunst und guten Meinung meiner eigenen Landsleute ich die Achtung des
deutschen Volkes uber alle Massen hochschatze. Ich verehre und bewundere es mehr,
als ich ausdriicken kann. Ich weiss, dass es mit seinen grossen geistigen Fahigkeiten
und der H6he seiner Kultur das auserwahlte Volk der Erde ist, und niemals war ich
stolzer und gliicklicher, als da ich zum erstenmal horte, dass meine Werke vor seinen
Augen Gnade gefunden' hatten. Nichts, was englische Literatur mit Deutschland
verbindet, kann mir gleichgultig sein. Das Ziel Ihrer neuen Zeitschrift ist mein Ziel
und das jeden Englanders, der Interesse und Freude empfindet an dem Fortschritt
der menschlichen Geister. Gott fordere ihn und Sie. Ich wiinschte bei Gott, deutsch
sprechen zu konnen, und ware es noch so schlecht; k6nnte ich es, so wiirde ich in
sechs Monaten Ihr Mitarbeiter sein.3
German politics, however, were apparently not included in this otherwise
comprehensive testimonial. This Dickens demonstrated on the occasion
of the imprisonment in Prussia, for political reasons, of Gottfried
Kinkel-Professor at Bonn University, poet, playwright and distinguished
scholar. Dickens had been leading agitation for his release, and on
4 December 1850 he wrote from the office of Household Words: 'We had
been following up the blow in Kinkel's favour, and I was growing
sanguine in the hope of getting him out (having enlisted strong and
active sympathy in his behalf) when the news came of his escape. Since
then we have heard nothing of him. I rather incline to the belief that the
damnable powers that be connived at his escape, but know nothing....'4
In the following year the article Whole Hogs, in the issue of Household
Words dated 23 August, even includes Germany in a list of countries
where 'there are tyrants and oppressors... watchful to find freedom weak
that they may strike, and backed by great armies'.
1 Letters, p. 34.
2 W. Buchner, F. Freiligrath: Ein Dichterleben in Briefen, Lahr, 1882, 2 vols., I, p. 387;
and see Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, 1876, Nr. 82.
3 Tigliche Rundschau, 26 February 1915; and in F. Schweizer, Die Auslinder in den
Romanen von Dickens, Diss., Giessen, 1920, p. 18. Only a Probenummer of Britannia was.
ever published; the promoters, publishers of Pforzheim, lost courage.
4 Letters, pp. 224-5.
E. N. GITMMER
Apart from this his relations with Germany appear to hav
but always friendly. His connexions with Kiinzel, Diezmann,
Freiligrath have already been mentioned; and he knew a fe
By 1843 he was writing the first of a long series of friendl
Baron Tauchnitz, who had founded the great series of edition
and American authors in 1841. Tauchnitz later communicated some
information about this friendship to Forster, who mentions it in the
Life: "' All Mr. Dickens' works", M. Tauchnitz writes to me, "have been
published under agreement by me. My intercourse with him lasted nearly
27 years. The first of his letters dates in October 1843 and his last at the
close of March 1870. Our long relations were not only never troubled by
the least disagreement, but were the occasion of most hearty personal
feeling; and I shall never lose the sense of his kind and friendly nature." 1
Professor Lehmann-Haupt tells how arrangements were made for his
father, Dr Emil Lehmann, to produce the German translation of Edwin
Drood as each number was published in England. Dr Lehmann's younger
brother, Friedrich Lehmann, had married a daughter of the Chambers
family of Edinburgh, and was an intimate friend of Dickens; the arrange-
ment for the translation was made through him.2 Another interesting
acquaintance was that with Emil Devrient, whom Dickens met on his
first visit to England in 1852. In a letter to Knight, dated 29 June 1852,
Dickens writes:
I dined with Charles Kemble, yesterday, to meet Emil Devrient, the German
actor. He said (Devrient is my antecedent) that Ophelia spoke the snatches of ballads
in their German version of Hamlet, because they didn't know the airs. Tom Taylor
said that you had published the airs in your Shakespeare. I said that if it were so,
I knew you would be happy to place them at the German's service. If you have got
them and will send them to me, I will write to Devrient (who knows no English)
a French explanation and reminder of the circumstance, and will tell him that you
responded like a man....3
There are very few references to Germany in his works. Like the
Germans on the Dover packet (in the Uncommercial Traveller), the
Germans in his books are 'few and shadowy'. The first (possible) German
to appear is in chapter 15 of the Pickwick Papers, at Mrs Leo Hunter's
party at Eatanswill: Count Smorltork, who, it has been suggested, is
a caricature of Prince Piickler-Muskau. The Count was a 'famous
foreigner-gathering materials for his great work on England'. He ha
been in England 'long-ver long time-fortnight-more', and was
stay another week. All his material was already collected in a 'lar
book at home-full of notes-music, picture, science, potry, poltic; all
1 Forster, p. 807, footnote.
3 Letters, p. 269.
2 The Dickensian, 1929, p. 159.
245
246 Dickens and Germany
tings'. Piickler-Muskau had toured much of Europe, including England
and Ireland, in the twenties, and had published long accounts of what
he had seen: accounts that were not always free from absurdities, and
which Thomas Hood even accused of showing 'petty jealousy'.
Dickens' third novel, Nicholas Nickleby, contains, as an inserted short
story, The Baron of Grogzwig (chapter 6)-the longest reference to Germany
in Dickens' works. The Baron von Koeldwethout, of Grogzwig in
Germany, at first passes his life mainly in drinking quantities of Rhine
wine, smoking his pipe, and hunting boars or bears, helped by his twenty-
four retainers. Later he marries a daughter of the house of Swillenhausen,
and in a few years is father of a large family. After some time, driven
to despair by lack of money, he is about to kill himself, but, disgusted
by the dismal Genius of Despair and Suicide, he changes his mind and
settles down to a happier existence. Then in Dombey and Son there is
Cousin Feenix, who has lived for a considerable time at Baden-Baden;
and Bleak House, besides another very slight reference (in chapter 19) to
the spas of Germany, has Mr Skimpole, who is able to sing the refrains
of German drinking songs 'by the score'. The essay A Christmas Tree
('That pretty German toy') in Reprinted Pieces has a paragraph on
German ghosts and German castles, and one of the three parties of
travellers on the St Bernard pass, described in Little Dorrit (chapter 37),
is of four Germans: 'a plethoric, hungry and silent German tutor in
spectacles, on a tour with three young men, his pupils, all plethoric,
hungry and silent, and all in spectacles'. Lastly there is a reference in
Our Mutual Friend (Bk 3, chapter 7) to the wooden toys from Germany
so common then on the market; Wegg is compared to one of these in
his 'hard-grained face... and his stiff knotty figure'. Various articles in
Household Words which touch on German subjects were not written by
Dickens; the 'Bendigo Buster' essay, for example (28 December 1850),
which discusses education in Prussia, was written by Henry Morley, and
only slightly remodelled by Dickens later.
These meagre references show how little Dickens occupied himself, in
his actual production, with Germany. But he had had evidence of his
fame in that country during his brief visit in 1846, and the letters of
Diezmann and Kiinzel had made him conscious, even before that year,
of his wide popularity there. Arrangements had been made, very early
in his career, for the publication of his books in Germany, and the first
mention he makes of this is in a letter to Cattermole, dated 13 January
1840. He asks for the illustrations to Master Humphrey's Clock, and says:
'My new periodical work appears-or I should rather say the first
E. N. GUMMER
number does-on Saturday 28th March; and as it has t
America and Germany, and must therefore be considerabl
it is now in hand.. .'--and Diezmann's letter (quoted above
him of Germany's sympathy only two months later. Once
his popularity in Germany he did not forget it; the knowle
part of the Continent enjoyed his works had given him gr
and supported him in many of his future activities. D
fortunate first visit to America in 1842, writing of his strugg
the American copyright of his books, he says: 'Some of t
[i.e. those who had produced pirated editions of his books
credit to themselves (grant us patience!) for having made
by publishing my books in newspapers; as if there were n
Scotland, no Germany, no place but America in the whole
Here the evidence for Dickens' knowledge of German lif
comes to an end. It is too meagre for any particular theory of
to be founded upon it, and the utmost one can say is that
respect for the strong intellectual life of the country, lik
counted some of them among his friends, and was delight
popularity there.
Unlike his contemporaries Carlyle, Thackeray and Bulw
Dickens took little interest in the affairs of Germany; his
that country was, nevertheless, considerably greater tha
reasons for this and the details and effects of his popularit
to summarize in a future publication.
E. N. GUMMER.
OXFORD.
247
1 Letters, p. 31. 2 Forster, p. 220.

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Keywords: #Dickens