DICKENS & DICKENS & CHRISTIANITY CHRISTIANITY

Bethany's Dr. Robert Hanna presented article with findings to global audience

Dr. Robert Hanna

When Dr. Robert Hanna (English) joined the Dickens Studies Annual Editorial Board, he was asked to write the annual article, “Recent Dickens Studies.” He explains, “I was asked to read and then write a critique of all publications about Charles Dickens that came out in 2018, which I did during 2019 for publication in early 2020.”

Hanna’s search for all these publications, followed by his reading and critiquing all of them resulted in an article of 71 pages, covering almost 200 print and online publications about Dickens written in English. While Hanna is in the process of adding some of his findings to his courses Introduction to Fiction, Ages of British Literature, Romantic and Victorian British Literature, and The Life and Writings of Charles Dickens, readers of Bethany Magazine will be interested in his findings on the topic of Dickens and Christianity.

First, in an article titled “Grammar of Choice: Charles Dickens’s Authentic Religion” in the June 2018 issue of Dickens Quarterly, Hai Na studied the role of Christianity in The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Our Mutual Friend, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Na concludes that “religion is something Dickens wishes his characters and his readers to be informed by, to participate in . . .” Hanna agrees with this assessment and points out that a study of all of Dickens’ novels leads to the same conclusion. Dickens himself acknowledged as much in a letter in reply to a reader, written the day before Dickens died. He wrote, “I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of Our Savior . . . But I have never made proclamation of this from the house tops.”

Second, Robert Sitio and his colleagues explored the role of Christianity in A Christmas Carol and four other Christmas books. Although Dickens was a member of the Church of England, in “Religiosity in Charles Dickens’ Christmas Novels,” published in the online International Journal of Language Education and Culture Review, the authors intriguingly examine the extent to which Martin Luther’s teachings in his Large Catechism appear in Dickens’ Christmas books. They find compatibility with Luther’s instruction as it relates to Christian service to others.

Third, Molly Hillard contributed an entry on Dickens and Children’s Literature to The Oxford Handbook of Charles Dickens. She brings up the topic of homeschooling, and Hanna had expected to find some commentary on Dickens’ 1846 simplified version of the Gospels and the Book of Acts. He never published his manuscript, but he regularly read it to his children. In the same letter Dickens wrote to the reader mentioned above, he also explained, “I rewrote that history for my children—every one of whom knew it from having it repeated to them, long before they could read, and almost as soon as they could speak.” Hanna notes this omitted content in his critique, for readers who are interested in Dickens’s introduction to Jesus for children, titled The Life of Our Lord and first published by Dickens’s grandchildren in 1934.

“I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of Our Savior... But I have never made proclamation of this from the house tops.

- CHARLES DICKENS

Hanna relates how he found himself in the curious position of having to critique one of his own articles on Dickens. He is referring to “Frances Maria Kelly, Charles Dickens, and Miss Kelly’s Theatre and Dramatic School,” found in the Winter 2018 issue of The Dickensian. He says that his article provides the most comprehensive examination yet of Dickens’ professional relationship with London actress Miss Kelly. For several years, he rented her private little theater for his amateur acting company, which he had assembled in order to raise money for charity. Hanna even tracked down the manuscript of an unpublished 1986 biography of Miss Kelly, with a lot of previously unpublished material.

Hanna mentioned that in March of this year, the editor of The Dickensian sent him a scan of a previously unknown letter by Dickens to a recipient whose name could not be determined because of the idiosyncrasies of Dickens’ handwriting. The letter is dated December 24, 1847, and it mentions a “Miss Kelly.” The editor asked Hanna if he could decipher the letter, determine if the “Miss Kelly” is Frances Maria Kelly, and identify the name of the recipient. He succeeded in all three tasks. The recipient is “Miss [Ellen] Greville,” live-in companion to Frances Maria Kelly, and the date of the letter suggests that Miss Kelly needed to consult with Dickens regarding her need to repair her theater’s roof. The editor has forwarded these findings to the Charles Dickens Letters Project website’s editor for publication.

Hanna’s next publication will be “The Dickens Family London Residence on Gower Street North in 1823-24.” Of all of Dickens’ childhood homes in London, the precise location of only one of those homes has never been determined. Hanna will identify its location!