Content. Introduction

Glossary
aldermen - local government official
articled clerks - young men who were apprenticed to lawyers for 5 years.
beadle - a minor parish official whose duties include ushering and preserving order at services and sometimes civil functions. Some parishes hired them to run the workhouse after the 1834 New Poor Law was passed as was the case with Bumble, the beadle in Oliver Twist.
beerhouse - a place where one could sell beer for payment of an annual fee of two guineas, promoted by the government in the 1830s to divert the poor from gin.
blind man's buff - popular parlor game in which the contestant is blindfolded and then must catch another player and then guess who he had caught. The game dates from ancient times. Blind man's buff is played by Samuel Pickwick and friends at the Christmas party at Dingley Dell in The Pickwick Papers, and at Christmas parties in A Christmas Carol.
Bow Street Runners - detective force organized by novelist Henry Fielding and his brother John in 1750. The Runners worked for fees and rewards. They went out of existence in 1829 when Robert Peel organized London's first police force.
Candlemas - church festival, observed February 2, celebrating the purification of the Blessed Virgin and the feast of the presentation of Christ in the Temple.
Chancery - English court of equity law, merged with common law courts in 1873. Dickens pointed out the absurdity of chancery cases in Bleak House. He had gained first hand experience when he won chancery cases against those who pirated editions of A Christmas Carol, and then lost more money in court costs than he was realizing from the book's sales.
charity boy - a student in a private charitable school for the very poor. Noah Claypool is a charity boy in Oliver Twist.
Chartism - working class movement that advocated reforms that went beyond the Reform act of 1832 including universal suffrage for men and eliminating property qualification for Parliament
. City - term referring to the old portion of London within the medieval city walls. Later became the financial district as Londoners moved to the suburbs and commuted.
Claret - a dry red wine from Bordeaux France.
Cockney - resident of east London; more specifically, to be a true Cockney you had to be born within hearing distance of the bells of St. Mary Le Bow, Cheapside, in the City of London. Style of speech used by a Cockney. The best known Cockney in Dickens is Samuel Pickwick's servant Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers.
courier - a traveler's paid attendant, traveling ahead to make arrangements. Dickens employs a French courier for his travels in Pictures from Italy.
Dickensian - relating or similar to something described in the books of the 19th century British writer, Charles Dickens, especially living or working conditions that are below an acceptable standard.
Doctors Commons - area south of St. Paul's Cathedral where the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts were located. Dickens, in Sketches by Boz called Doctors' Commons "the place where they grant marriage-licenses to love-sick couples, and divorces to unfaithful ones; register the wills of people who have any property to leave, and punish hasty gentlemen who call ladies by unpleasant names."
Great Exhibition - 1851 celebration of technology housed at the Crystal Palace built in Hyde Park by Joseph Paxton. The exhibition was the idea of Prince Albert, who conceived it to celebrate the Industrial Revolution. Dickens visited the Exhibition in 1851. The Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham, in south London, in 1854 and accidentally burned down in 1936.
Great Fire - fire which destroyed much of central London in September 1666. (Read contemporary account in the London Gazette)
Inimitable - nickname given to Dickens by his early schoolmaster, Mr. Giles. The term means 'impossible to imitate, unique'. Dickens later referred to himself as 'The Inimitable'.
L.L. - Literary LadiesLowestoft - seaside town in Suffolk. David Copperfield goes to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to meet Mr. Quinion.
maid-of-all-work - maid, usually a young girl, hired as the only servant in the house. Charlotte is maid-of-all-work for Sowerberry, the undertaker, in Oliver Twist.
N.B. - nota bene - note well, take notice
Newgate Calendar - stories about sensational crimes committed by inmates of Newgate Prison. The first edition came out in 1773 and the last in 1826. Dickens used the term "Newgate Calendar" to refer to crimes of every sort.
Walker - an expression that expressed disbelief. In A Christmas Carol, when the reformed Scrooge asks the boy in the street to go and buy the prize turkey, the boy exclaims "Walk-er."
workhouses - also known as the union, poorhouse, or simply "the house." Publicly supported institutions to which the sick, destitute, aged, and otherwise impoverished went for food and shelter. After the New Poor Law was passed in 1834 the workhouse became little more than a prison for the poor. Civil liberties were denied, families were separated, and human dignity was destroyed. The meager diet instituted in the workhouse prompted Dickens to quip that the poor were offered the choice of "being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it."