Barnaby Rudge
Months ago, I picked up one of Charles Dickens’ histories—one previously unbeknownst to me—and fell into the typically diverse and numbered cast of characters one expects from Dickens. While many have certainly heard of Dickens’ other history (A Tale of Two Cities), few know his first. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty was originally published in installments throughout 1841 and it fictionalizes the very real Gordon Riots of 1780. I imagine most Americans, like me, are unfamiliar with the Gordon Riot of 1780 that erupted as Protestant British, under the leadership of Lord Gordon, attempted to curtail the rights of British Catholics. The violence that erupted lasted a number of days and ended only after significant destruction to Catholic property; Newgate Prison burnt and many people lost their lives. When I endeavored to read Barnaby Rudge I had no idea how Dickens’ portrayal of the politically/religiously-motivated riots would strike me all the more following the recent events of January 6, 2021. Yet the parallels between the historical riot of 1780 and the contemporary one certainly added an additional level of meaning to this lesser known Dickens novel, and made it all the more meaningful for me in 2021.
Barnaby Rudge is a hefty read, and has two basic storylines (with plenty of side-stories and subplots characteristic of Dickens). As in many of Dickens’ novels, there are several sets of lovers: one of higher class, one of middle. The novel’s first half sets up the complicated nature of a number of domestic and romantic relationships all centering around a Catholic family’s estate, The Warren, and two protestant families—the Willets and their Maypole Inn, and the Vardens and their locksmith shop. Early in the novel Dickens introduces a mystery and unsolved murder, and one wonders if this will turn out to be a ghost story. But soon, that mystery is supplanted by the romantic frustrations, and the father-son discordances that abound. Yet there are certainly ghosts of a kind in this novel and mysteries to solve.
The Maypole Inn sets the introduction to both the first and second half of the novel, as Dickens perhaps sought continuity for a tale with many a loose-end. The first half of the novel is entirely domestic; the second half skips a number of years and (re)opens in the 1780. This half of the novel very much focuses on the Riots of 1780 and introduces a number of new characters, like Lord George Gordon himself. Of course, as one would expect, many of the characters from the first half, particularly some of the lesser characters, play a significant role in the riots.
It is worth noting that I find the title, Barnaby Rudge, a curious one. The titular character is a delightful one as he galivants the countryside adorned with flowers in the hat, the mind of a child, and a pet crow named Grip. While the language of the times is at times off-putting (he is often referred to as an “idiot”), Barnaby’s person and/or family are at the heart of much of the novel’s conflict, and perhaps it is for this reason that Dickens elected to title the book with his name. He certainly demonstrates the honesty, loyalty, and friendliness of innocent humankind; he also seems to symbolize the way naïve individuals can be manipulated and entreated to join a cause they likely do not understand. In any case, over the course of penning the novel Dickens changed his mind on whom to name the novel after, and settled on Barnaby Rudge rather than the heroic and deeply loveable Gabriel Varden. Thus, it seems, in the end, Dickens viewed Barnaby a better representative for the novel as a whole.
If you enjoy Dickens’ complicated plots and many-charactered storylines, or perhaps if you hope to someday read all fifteen of Dickens’ novels, this is a novel worth reading. It is, by no means, his best work, but I found it entertaining as well as, at times, educational. The crafting of Barnaby Rudge is perhaps a bit wonky (something many of Dickens’ contemporaries pointed out at the time of publication), but it is an enjoyable read in which good comes to good and evil leads nowhere pleasant.
Dickens also clearly studied the Gordon Riot of 1780 and includes many a historic detail. It is certainly a cautionary tale of the darkness that descends when masses take to the streets in the name of political purposes. And it is one that felt particularly hair-raising as I read it in the months after the US Capitol Riot. Thankfully, our contemporary events did not descend into anywhere near the level of destruction as the Gordon Riot of 1780. But even as it was a nasty riot, full of violence and property damage, Dickens uses the riot as a means to move his plot along and ultimately resolve much of the novel’s early conflict. In that sense, Dickens’ craft in Barnaby Rudge is certainly clever, even if it is nowhere near his best.
A Few Great Passages:
“Men who are thoroughly false and hollow, seldom try to hide those vices from themselves; and yet in the very act of avowing them, they lay claim to the virtues they feign most to despise. ‘For,’ say they, ‘this is honesty, this is truth. All mankind are like us, but they have not the candour to avow it.’ The more they affect to deny the existence of any sincerity in the world, the more they would be thought to possess it in the boldest shape; and this is an unconscious compliment to Truth on the part of these philosophers, which will turn the laugh against them to the Day of Judgement” (196).
“From the workshop of the Golden Key, there issued forth a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humoured, that it suggested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite a pleasant music. [. . .] It was the perfect embodiment of the still small voice, free from all cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind; food passengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near it; neighbors who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good-humour stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing; still the same magical tink, tink, tink, came gaily from the workshop of the Golden Key” (350).
“Rumours of the prevailing disturbances had, by this time, begun to be pretty generally circulated through the towns and villages round London, and the tidings were everywhere received with that appetite for the marvelous and love of the terrible which have probably been among the natural characteristics of mankind since the creation of the world. The accounts, however, appeared, to many persons at that day—as they would to us at the present, but that we know them to matter of history—so monstrous and improbably that a great number of those who were resident at a distance, and who were credulous enough on other points, were really unable to bring their minds to believe that such things could be; and rejected the intelligence they received on all hands, as wholly fabulous and absurd” (465).
Bibliography:
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty. Everyman’s Library, Alfred A Knopf: 2005.
“Barnaby Rudge.” Retrieved from: https://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/novels/barnaby-rudge/
