The Dickens Country

The Dickens Country is a book by Frederic G. Kitton. The list of illustrations includes, among others, Dotheboys Hall at Bowes, the George Inn at Amesbury and the Leather Bottle at Cobham. A caption names 1 Mile End Terrace, Portsea (now 393 Commercial Road, Portsmouth) as the birthplace of Charles Dickens.

The first chapter, headed Portsmouth and Chatham, says the writer of an article in a well-known magazine conceived the idea of preparing a map of England that should indicate, by means of a tint, those portions especially associated with Charles Dickens. The map is said to make manifest that the country most intimately connected with the novelist is the south-eastern portion of England, having London as the centre and Rochester as the literary capital. The text says it seems very probable that the novelist himself put up at the New Inn during his brief tour of investigation in 1838. A note states that Robert Langton, author of The Childhood and Youth of Charles Dickens, says that Dickens, in Hard Times, is unsuccessful in his attempt to render the Lancashire dialect.