Section 3. Procedures in the worksheets
© 2017 Tony Laing, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0092.05
Formatting the worksheet
From January 1846 onwards, Dickens experiences the usual restless preparation for a new book “wandering about (in London) at night in the strangest places”, during which time according to Forster “the characters were growing in his mind” (Life 388K:7934). Nevertheless, believing he “could write better in retirement”, he determines to go abroad to Italy or Switzerland, settling with his family in Lausanne in the summer of 1846. Soon after their arrival, his box of writing materials is delivered and on 28 June he “BEGAN DOMBEY!” (Life 400K:8159). [Editor’s note: the abbreviation following ‘Life’ refers to John Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens, ed. J. W. Ley (London: Cecil Palmer, 1926) and to the same title, 3 vols. in 2 (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1875) as ebook 25851, Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25851 (released 20 June 2008), downloaded to the Kindle app and here with the location superscripted. For more information, see the explanation in ‘References’, p.7].
With his materials to hand, his talismans—“certain quaint little bronze figures”—on the desk before him, and the inkwell cleansed and replenished the previous night, we can imagine Dickens preparing his first worksheet (L4:573n). He has already made a few notes, but on this occasion he takes a leaf of the poorer quality paper from one of his two pre-cut half-foolscap paper supplies and, having folded it in half parallel to its shorter side, he lays it flat, with the longer side facing him.
By folding the worksheet in the way he does, Dickens prepares to distinguish number business from chapter business, a distinction that reflects his growing ambition for his chosen method of publication. Intending to create a novel more coherent in theme and structure, he plans each number so that it relates well to what has gone before and what is to come. On the right-hand ‘chapter’ side, he gives the longer title of the novel with the number of the instalment and chapter number headings for the routine three chapters then, turning the worksheet over, adds another on the back. On the left-hand ‘number’ side, he notes what might go into the current number, in view of both his larger and his immediate intentions for the novel (see endnote 42).
After Dickens has planned the shape and substance of the number, he usually writes the opening chapter (the only exception No.15) and titles it in the manuscript. He transfer the title to the worksheet and, when the chapter is completed, he adds, if it seems necessary, a brief reminder of its contents. Then he does the same for the middle and the last chapter, alert to the special relation of the closing chapter to the predefined end of the number. Throughout the creation of each instalment, Dickens moves from one task to the next, going between the left and right-hand side of the worksheet, the manuscript, the proofs, and—from Ws.6 onwards—the “List of Chapter Headings”. Keeping in mind the progress of the story as well as his “immediate intentions”, he is also of course determined to make each instalment attractive in itself and likely to get and keep the interest of the reader (see endnote 42).
Entries on the left-hand half
As soon as Dickens starts to use the worksheet, the format he has devised changes into something more elaborate. The number plan for the first instalment initially leaves blank the lower part of the left-hand half. Later, how he uses that space will vary in function more than any other part of the worksheet. On this occasion, during the composition of chapters two and three, he reverses the leaf and uses the space to trial three possible titles, perhaps for chapter headings or as lettering for the illustrations. Entry Ws.18 p.39 where the leaf is reversed for the first and only time, and Ws.122 & 23 p.37 on the right-hand side—unique entries on the under (verso) side of the worksheet—are both instances of a method of entry that is subsequently always avoided. Dickens on reflection probably decides that reversing or turning the leaf over might hamper his use of the worksheet, making it more awkward to scan or check entries.
Heading the left-hand half
In about half of the worksheets, Dickens gives the left-hand side the heading “Mems”, a term that he uses elsewhere for the worksheets themselves. The heading is a reminder of what needs to be remembered as he writes each number. Although there are often some differences between worksheets headed “Mems” and those without the heading, the distinction is not made consistently.
He titles the left-hand side of Ws.3 “General mems”, a heading that was probably given it before it became the worksheet “for Ws.3”. Some of its misplaced entries may also have been made at that early pre-format stage evident in ‘Discarded entries’ in Ws.2 p.44 and ‘Plan for the number’ in Ws.3 p.48. He doubts the usefulness of the heading, only reviving it for the worksheet of the double number.
The number plan
Because Dickens begins entries on each left-hand side with his plans for the number as a whole, the left-hand side is usually referred to as ‘the number plan’, a convenient label but often only applicable to entries in the upper part of the left-hand half.
Every number has a plan, but plans vary considerably in scope and structure, partly depending on their place in the development of the novel, and to a lesser extent, on Dickens’s circumstances at the time. A few number plans fill the whole page; one has only a single entry. Some are entered as whole and on the same occasion; others, as the layout and hand of the original shows, are accumulated in two or three stages.
Grouping and function on the left-hand half
Dickens regularly separates one group of left-hand entries from another by his diagonal slash. Even in the first half of the novel, where notation practices are more variable, the practice is unusually consistent. He groups without using slashes—by positioning and qualities of hand alone—in only three worksheets in the first half of the novel (Ws.3, 7 and 9), and in only one worksheet in the second half of the novel (Ws.18). In all other worksheets, entries on the left-hand half are sorted into groups by Dickens using his characteristic slash.
We can also deduce from the worksheets as a whole that each left-hand group will have a particular function. Firstly and usually in the upper part of the left-hand half, there may be:
- a preliminary—an occasional heading “Mems” (in Ws.6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 15) or “General mems” (in Ws.3 and Ws.19&20
- a plan (or ‘initial plan’) for the number—comprising materials for the number, occasionally haphazard, but more often roughly sorted into chapter order, particularly as to the opening and middle chapters
- an additional number plan—entries made later, some adding to the plan for the number as a whole and some concerning individual chapters
- a further number plan—entries made later than and distinct from the additional number plans, sometimes also concerning individual chapters.
Secondly, in the lower part of the left-hand half, there may be:
- a memo—a note of special significance, to be remembered for its potential use in subsequent numbers, usually entered after the composition of a chapter
- a comment—a retrospective explanation, written after completing the number, concerning his plans and their execution.
Finally, throughout the left-hand half, there may be:
- outcome(s)—replies to earlier left-hand entries if they take the form of questions or for some other reason require confirmation.
The occurrence of the single number ‘plan’—as opposed to the ‘initial/additional/further plans’—varies. In the first half of the novel, for very different reasons, most worksheets have just a single ‘plan’. By contrast, in the third quarter of the novel, the reverse is the case; most number plans are entered in two or three different stages, largely because of the entanglement of Dickens’s interrelated narrative “threads”. Then in the last quarter, as the outcomes become more predictable, the number plans shrink to just three entries or less, as Dickens orders the events that wind up his two main plots.
Two unique entries on the left-hand half
Two left-hand entries fall outside of the above categories. The first is the special chapter-cum-number plan (Ws.5a) that Dickens uses to help him weave the sick Paul’s viewpoint into the narrative of chs.14 and 16, which he regarded as an innovation in his fictional method. The second is the long entry giving the “social history” of Edith and her mother, which, though it prefaces Ws.7, also provides background to ch.27 (see ‘Plan for ch.27’ p.81). It marks a shift of direction in the plotting of the novel, which Dickens probably had in mind from its inception (see top right in the cover design of the green wrapper, for his earliest intentions, evident in the wedding ceremony at the altar and its witnesses p.viii).
Chapter planning on the left-hand half
The point at which an idea for the number becomes an item within a chapter is usually implicit. Compare the lower left-hand entries of Ws.3 with those of Ws.4a. The lower left-hand entries of Ws.3 are four scattered groups, the first of which (8) is not yet associated with any chapter, but held back for the next number, while the other three (9)–(11) may be embedded in an imagined narrative, but not yet assigned to a particular chapter (see Ws.3 p.49). On the other hand, the lower left-hand entries of the leaf attached to the bottom of Ws.4 comprise eight items all linked to the second half of ch.12, with the last one (8)—partly re-formed from two of the previous seven—used to close the chapter (see Ws.4a p.54). Hindsight tells us the destination of all these entries, but their position on the left-hand side suggests that, for a time at least, they floated free in Dickens’s imagination.
In contrast to Ws.4a, the crucial note of “Dombey musing at table….” in Ws.10 is from its inception imaginatively associated with the middle ch.30 (see Ws.10 p.83). It might appear to be placed on the left-hand half simply because there is no space for it in the adjacent right-hand plan. However, hand and quill suggests otherwise (see the commentary ‘Plan for the number’ in Ws.10 p.84). By placing the note of the reverie amid his general ideas for the number, Dickens singles it out as particularly significant; it evokes Dombey’s buried fear of the tie to his daughter and his profound guilt.
The larger issue of the relation that number plans on the left-hand half have to chapter plans on the right-hand will be examined later, when the chapter plans have been described more fully (see third paragraph onward of ‘Third quarter’, p.152–53).
Entries on the right-hand half
Preliminaries: part heading and chapter numbers
The longer title of the novel and the number of the current instalment are preliminary headings, spread across the top of the right-hand half—together called ‘the Part heading’—and followed by the chapter number headings for three chapters, spread evenly down the page. Once this starting routine is established, the chapter number headings tend to slip to the right as the arm moves downwards, confirming that they are entered altogether. The chapter number headings usually mark out three regions on the page, each region consisting of a number, a title and a ‘chapter description’ (see below).
Changes to chapter number heading(s)
Sometimes Dickens has to update chapter number heading(s) to have an accurate record of changes made after his preliminary entries (see commentaries to Ws.7, 10, 14 and 15).
Titling the chapters
Dickens takes great care over the choice and wording of chapter titles. He treats them, to begin with, as the most important part of the record on the right-hand side. The stage at which a title is entered in the worksheet changes along with alterations in choosing, revising and entering the title in the manuscript. All revisions to chapter titles, with their wording, sequence and location are given in ‘Appendix D’.
The chapter description
In the context of the right-hand entries, the term ‘chapter description’ here refers to all entries made between the chapter title (or title gap) and the next chapter number (or the bottom of the page). It is used as the general term for those entries so as not to anticipate their purpose, whether plan or summary. Dickens discovers how best to use the space during the progress of the novel. At first, he merely adds a summary note to most chapters (Ws.1–3), which becomes a fuller summary in the opening and middle chapters of Ws.4. Then, for the short closing chapter (ch.13), he uses the space to plan the chapter, anchoring the structure of an imagined narrative by identifying the order of its main concerns. This planning method is extended in the more detailed planning that accompanies the narrative innovations of No.5.
Subsequently in Nos.6–8, partly from adverse circumstances and ill health, and partly from problems intrinsic to the story, his attention to the chapter description lapses, just as his number planning, though increasingly detailed, becomes more tentative.
In No.9, once Dickens establishes Florence within the gathering ‘marriage storm’, the confident invention of the earlier numbers returns, and with it the frequent use of the chapter description space for planning purposes in Ws.9–15.40 Then in Ws.16–18, many chapter descriptions are retrospective outlines, i.e. summaries recalling the “principal landmarks of the story” (L11:161) and lacking the positive indications of planning that are found in previous numbers. [Editor’s note: the numbers following ‘L[etters]’ refers to volume and page in the Pilgrim edition of Dickens’s Letters, ed. Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson and Madeline House, et al., 12 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982–2002). For more on the letters, see ‘References’, p.7].
When entries in the description space become more detailed, Dickens begins to use his idiosyncratic diagonal slash to form them into groups. In contrast to the left-hand half, the slash is used only occasionally in isolated chapters before Ws.9. However, from then on, it is used to structure most descriptions, except for those in the shorter closing chapters, where a single paragraph is usually organised by dashes and commas.
Entries in the double number
In Ws.19&20, Dickens preserves as much as he can of the format of a single number, before adapting and extending his plans into Ws.19&20a. He continues the formal distinction between the left and right-hand half. As in single-number worksheets, preliminaries on the right-hand half in the double number cover the part heading and number headings for the first three chapters. He has already entered (2), and now adds a descriptive heading (1) and crucial number plan entries (3) and (4), filling the lower left-hand space with a unique roll call of named characters (5)–(12) (see the transcription of Ws.19&20 p.119).
The compression of the later left-hand entries (10)–(12) suggests that the additional leaf is probably not attached to Ws.19&20 at the start, but delayed until he has completed ch.59, at which point he wafers a slip to the bottom of Ws.19&20 and attaches the additional leaf Ws.19&20a to it. Then, writing with the same greeny blue ink and quill that he has just used to compose ch.59, he makes all the greeny blue entries (15, 20, 28–31, 36, 40 & 41) that are scattered through the transcription of Ws.19&20 p.119 and Ws.19&20a p.123.
One reason that Dickens has to give such sustained close attention to the double number is that the usual adjustment of number to chapter planning is complicated by his intention—implicit in the lower left-hand entries (5)–(12)—to bring a degree of closure to the stories of most named characters. A few (5), (10) and (12) are coupled with other characters because the intrigues, in which they are involved, have still to be resolved. Some are named because they require a final mention having been prominent in earlier episodes; others simply because they have played some lesser part. The list of course is not exhaustive, and probably is not intended to be so.
One group of named characters probably goes unmentioned because they are extensions of the setting in which they appear, e.g. Mrs Blockett the nurse, Mr Baps the dancing master at the Blimbers, Sownds the Beadle and Mrs Miff at the church, and Old Glubb at the seaside. Others, not mentioned in the left-hand list, are nevertheless drawn into the closing narrative, including Mrs Wickam, Berinthia, Perch and Mrs Perch, Towlinson and Anne, Briggs and “old Tozer”. In the various proofs, he revives Mr Toodles, the Skettles, then for one last time Miss Tox, and finally, at the very last moment, Diogenes, who is hurriedly inserted, on Dickens’s instruction, by Forster (see ’Proofs’ p.125).
For further discussion of the double number worksheet, see the last part of ‘Section 6’, ‘Planning the double number’ (p.156), which describes its order of entry as well as setting out the various kinds of evidence for chapter planning found there.