The Gentleman from the Gem of the Sea: The 1834 Edinburgh Dinner Revisited

Abstract: Most modern biographies of Dickens refer to his first major assignment for the Morning Chronicle : a trip to Edinburgh to report on a Festival in honor of Lord Grey. The visit has become celebrated by the inclusion, in the resulting newspaper copy, of a 238-word passage which, it has been remarked, "would not have been out of place in one of Boz's Monthly tales" (Slater 43). The present paper considers the fiercely bipartisan political atmosphere at the time, its expression in the contemporary press, and the impact on it of the famous passage. It is suggested that a jokey contemporary comment on the passage represents the earliest recovered quasi-personification of Dickens's authorial presence.