Section 6. Overview

This final section surveys aspects of the worksheets that are noted in the commentaries. It examines the following:

• preliminary entries, particularly the decision on the number of chapters
• chapters titles, when and where they are revised
• chapter descriptions as plans
• chapter descriptions as summaries
• changes in number and chapter plans as the novel progresses
• planning and the double number.

Preliminary entries and the number of chapters

Having perhaps prepared a few blank worksheets and selected a quill of lesser quality than those he uses for the manuscript, Dickens heads the right-hand page of a worksheet with the novel’s title and instalment number, bracketing and double underlining them, the line extending—because he uses the longer title of the novel—from the midway fold to the page’s edge. He comes then to the chapter number headings. These he will make distinctive by using slightly larger letters, with a heavier hand for the Roman numeral, and by underlining them with a pattern of broken double underlines. Completing them marks the end of the routine entry into his month’s work. First however, he has to decide on the number of chapters.

The three-chapter norm

It is clear from the worksheets that Dickens’s preferred strategy is for three chapters to a number. This choice is apparent throughout, even in the final double number where he initially lays out its first worksheet for three chapters, independently of the second sheet, to which he later allocates two more chapters. Whereas the distinction between left and right-hand arises from his concern for the part’s relation to the story and the chapter’s relation to the part, the number of chapters is determined by the fixed length of each instalment. Given thirty-two pages of print, Dickens finds a number of factors act together to make a three-chapter structure the optimum arrangement.100

For the sake of all readers of the monthly issue, Dickens wants to vary the shape, tone and substance of the number, an intention that coincides with the regular practice in all “green covers” of including two contrasting narrative threads. In the first half of Dombey and Son, he usually starts each number with a chapter on Dombey’s story followed by a contrasting subplot, whereas in the second half he often begins the number with one or other of the subplots, using them to pace the action of the main plot. There is a comparable contrast in his and/or Browne’s choice of subject (and its treatment) for the two illustrations. They are, with the one exception (No.4), chosen from two different chapters. The effect of both illustrations varies somewhat depending on whether they are viewed in the part or single-volume issue. Within the green cover they are presented to the reader in a way that invites inquiry, inserted between the first section of advertisements and the text, not physically separated and tied to a particular page, as in the single volume publication (see endnote 128).

In a typical opening chapter, once the story is under way, partly to remind the reader of previous numbers, and partly to engage new readers, he revisits the relevant storyline by inventive backward looking re-description, as he slowly manoeuvres the narrative towards the principal development that he has in mind for the chapter.101 The opening chapter of No.4, for example, is ten pages long, but begins with a four page preamble containing a striking recapitulation of Mrs Pipchin, Berinthia and Paul, followed by Dombey’s arrival and the prickly conversation with Mrs Pipchin about his son’s progress, all of which prepares for the main business “Paul’s introduction to a new scene”, where the six year old is to be “taken in hand” by Dr.Blimber.102

The element of recapitulation varies greatly but it is always present even in those chapters that open in the middle of an encounter, e.g. in ch.20 that begins No.7. However, most initial as well as middle chapters—ch.18 (later ch.17) fills both of those positions in No.6 at different stages of its production—are extended less by retrospection and more by Dickens’s characteristic relish the opportunity to extemporise, what he later called “elbow room [and] open places in perspective”, i.e. a pleasurable sense of distance from the pre-defined close that gives him licence to invent.103 In ch.26 beginning No.9, he makes the typical combination of retrospect and prospect explicit in the title “Shadows of the past and future”, but leaves it implicit in the text, playing with the reader’s expectations of the Janus-faced qualities of storytelling.

As we shall see, the inclusion of two principal storylines, a tendency to write a longer opening chapter, a dislike of very long chapters, and his preference for shorter closing chapters, all help to make a two-chapter number, even when planned for, difficult to achieve. The first departure from the thee-chapter norm occurs in the four-chapter number that opens the novel.

The four-chapter numbers

Composing No.1, Dickens allows himself to write freely, to “plunge” into the story that had been growing in his imagination during the previous six months. Although there is no chapter planning in the worksheet, the number plan supplies the names of most principal characters of the first four chapters, briefly describing them, roughly in the order of their appearance, with the omission of Miss Tox. She figures, however, in the “outline of […] immediate intentions” (see first paragraph of endnote 42) and is prominent in the pre-format entries of Ws.28 and 35. Even when Dickens reaches the end of ch.3 on page thirty-two of the manuscript—coincidentally, a reminder of the boundary of every instalment at the thirty-second page of print—he goes on to write into a fourth chapter, introducing his main contrasting narrative thread “Wally & Co”. The final chapter runs on to page forty-two in the manuscript. Following chs.1, 2 and 3, it becomes almost eight printed pages (for the editor’s calculation of chapter length, see the ‘Key’ to ‘Appendix A’ p.167).104

Dickens anticipates four chapters in the worksheet. He enters the initial number entry for ch.4 by turning the sheet over to enter the chapter number heading (and later the title) on the under (verso) side of the leaf. These are the only two verso entries in all of the worksheets (apart from those in the exceptional separate leaf Ws.6a). Similarity of hand and style of the four chapter number headings makes it very likely that all four headings are entered on the same occasion. (Conversely, the dissimilarity of the chapter headings of ch.4 (recto) from ch.4 (verso) shows that the latter’s number heading is added later).

During composition, Dickens appears to use the right-hand side of the worksheet as a trial page, where he can devise, revise, and finalise (by broken underlines) the titles of the first three chapters (see ‘Appendix D’, chs.1–3, p.181, for more detail). The chapter descriptions of the chs.1–3, entered together, are probably an afterthought, a summary note of the content of each chapter added to an otherwise uninformative title. By the time of those entries, after squeezing the headings of ch.4 on to Ws.1 (recto), there is no space for a summary note on ch.4.

From both manuscript and worksheet, it is clear that Dickens from the beginning of his work on No.1 intended the opening number to be a four-chapter number. However, his stance towards the number boundary is uncharacteristically relaxed. He apparently dampens his awareness of the constraints of fixed length serialisation, in order to reassure himself—after a break of two years—of his own powers of invention. When he considers how to solve the problem created by the overrun, he always preserves the four-chapter structure, perhaps unwilling to disturb the existing chs.1–3 by adding the equivalent of six printed pages (thus making them up to thirty-two). Instead he prioritizes the greater variety of character and action possible in four chapters.106

In the next of the four–chapter instalments, No.12, Dickens writes a long opening chapter, which he divides in two when he sees it in print in the proofs. The manuscript shows that he may have anticipated the possibility of division of ch.35 during its composition.105 The change, not registered in the right-hand half of the worksheet, is only noted when he adds a retrospective explanation on the left-hand half, in the same distinctive faint blue ink that he had just used to write the closing ch.38. An alteration in the presentation of ch.35, made after composition, the four-chapter number follows from his judgment of the readers’ experience and expectations, that they might find the opening chapter—at just over seventeen printed pages—too long (Ws.128 p.91).

In No.14, Dickens plans for three chapters. However, his imaginative engagement with the material unbalances the plan. The opening ch.42 fills ten dense manuscript pages, which becomes over eleven and a half pages of print, as Carker at last moves centre stage. Then, during the writing of ch.43, he overruns what was probably his planned endpoint “Be near me always. I have no hope but in you” (Ws.1419 p.99).

Writing on into the day after Dombey’s accident, Dickens begins by motivating Susan’s reckless action with her outrage at Florence’s treatment. A page or more into this section, he decides to use the dawn of the second day as a chapter break. Perhaps anticipating what threatens to be another overlong chapter, he cuts off the bottom third of page sixteen of the manuscript, replacing it with a heavily revised slip containing the last three paragraphs, from “Not when you lie asleep near me, sweet” to the end. Then at the top of the following page, he inserts the number heading and title of ch.44.

In the new ch.44, Dickens embarks on what he may now view as a pressing issue, Susan’s clash with Dombey (and Pipchin) and her subsequent departure. This is a crucial addition to Florence’s isolation, best made well before ‘The Thunderbolt’ of the next number. The confrontation across classes, enlivened by the antipathy of the characters involved, leads to its extension. As he reaches manuscript p.23, he realizes that there is now only four, or at most, five manuscript pages left for the final chapter, the crucial encounter of Carker and Edith and the reader’s “last view of them before the elopement” (Ws.1426 p.99).

On manuscript, after “I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know”, he cuts the page and pastes on a slip containing a re-written fair copy that probably reduces the turn taking, shortens the dialogue, and leaves a blank half page. He deletes the page number “23” replacing it with “22½”. Despite gaining this extra half page, however, he learns at proof stage that ch.45 has to be shortened, which Forster does by excising the final three paragraphs.107 The deletion is perhaps the most damaging of all the cuts to the novel made at proof stage (see endnote 85).

To sum up, in No.1, Dickens accepts Forster’s advice to include the principal counter plot “Wally & Co” in the first instalment. The ensuing difficulties could only have been avoided by planning to limit the scope of the first three chapters (for the sake of the fourth chapter), which his “headlong plunge” into his story probably precluded. In No.12, the long chapter, which later has to be divided, arises from the freedom he gives himself in the opening chapter of a number, and from his initial decision to override the distinctiveness of the two halves. (He probably senses the unity of each half as he was writing, when he reached the point where he later divided ch.35.) No.14, the last of the four-chapter numbers, is largely a result of the narrative expanding as Dickens is caught up in the drama of the moment in a number full of incident, but especially in ch.42 and again in the second half of ch.43 (the newly created ch.44).

Between writing the No.3 and No.4, he composes the second preface to the Cheap Edition of Pickwick Papers. In the preface, he recognises from his past “experience and study” the need for planning, not just in his conception of the novel’s unifying themes but also in the shape and substance of the instalment and its relation to the whole. Nevertheless, in the four-chapter numbers, it is his continuing predilection in the heat of composition to protect “invention” against “planning” that brings in its train compromise and loss. Taken together, the planning and composition of these four-chapter numbers are a nice demonstration of the fluctuating tension between his chosen mode of publication and his extraordinary imaginative powers.

In Ws.128 p.91, instead of updating the right-hand record, Dickens adds a comment in the left-hand page “the No. [is] divided into four chapters. First being too long”, revealing an overriding constraint—the reluctance to submit the reader to an over long chapter, which, in practice, means any chapter that fills more than half of the number. As we shall see, it was this reluctance in particular that helped undermine his attempt at a two-chapter number.

The two-chapter experiment

The worksheets reveal Dickens’s growing interest in formal innovation. We have seen in Ws.5 and 5a how he intensifies the pathos of Paul’s death that closes the first quarter by a carefully planned innovation in narrative method. In No.10, the number that finishes the second quarter and the first half of the novel, he is interested in testing the feasibility of a climactic two-chapter number.

However, No.7 becomes for a short time at least Dickens’s first two-chapter instalment. He begins the opening chapter on 10 March 1847. On the same day, he sends the long description of Dombey’s first meeting with Edith to Browne, as the subject of the number’s first illustration. As soon as he completed ch.20 (later 20 and 21)—well over half of the number, and probably finished by the 18th—he sends it to the printers. The compositors perhaps take at least two days to set up and run off the proofs of eighteen pages of print. In the meantime, he is writing the next chapter, initially numbered ch.21 in the manuscript. Receiving the proofs on 20th, he will be at least half way through though the chapter. With no plans for another chapter and his deadline only two or three days away, he will by now be aware that the narrative has become the closing chapter of a two-chapter number.

It is also possible that Dickens planned No.7 as a two-chapter number from the start, entering the number heading for ch.20 and ch.21, as he does later for Ws.10. When he divides the proofs of ch.20, he may have adjusted the number headings in the worksheet by inserting the number heading for a new ch.21 and converting the number heading of the initial ch.21 to 22 in the same way he converted the number heading of ch.21 to ch.22 in the manuscript. Evidence from hand, ink and layout, however, is inconclusive. Whether No.7 was planned as a two-chapter number or simply became a two-chapter number from the pressure of the approaching deadline, he would certainly have the experience in mind, when he next considers testing its formal advantages.

In No.10, when Dickens marks up the right-hand half with its preliminary entries, he appears initially to contemplate a two-chapter number to the same pattern as No.7 with a long opening chapter, very probably devoted to an extended main storyline, followed by the usual shorter closing chapter. He spreads the chapter number headings, giving ch.29 twice as much space as ch.30. Moving to the left-hand and assembling three subjects that need his attention, he is uncertain how to proceed. Despite his early doubt about the arrangement shown in (1), he outlines two possible chapter subjects for the final shorter chapter, the dashing of Miss Tox’s romantic hopes (2) and the introduction of the Harriet Carker thread (3). However, as he starts to enter (4), he sees the possibility of dividing the marriage material between (4) and (6); separating the preparations from the wedding itself gives him room to expand on both occasions. Despite the division, the interval before the marriage and the wedding itself remain closely connected, so that Mrs Chick’s delivery of the news of the marriage to the shock of the tender Miss Tox could, without loss and with some gains, be placed at the start of the number, delaying the event, raising expectation and easing the transition to the wedding climax.

Dickens can now answer his initial query with an emphatic “three”. Returning to right-hand side, he converts the two-chapter headings to three by adding a number heading for a new ch.30 halfway between ch.29 and the initial ch.30, and by converting the latter to ch.31. He manages the conversion by adding a “I” (perhaps covering the stop after the Roman “XXX”) and attaching a pair of underlines to the additional “I”, both of which he misaligns.108

He abandons the attempt at a two-chapter number, partly because of the way his longer storylines naturally break in two, and partly out of concern for his readers, not wishing to subject them to more than sixteen unbroken pages of print. His reservation about chapter length becomes explicit later when he divides ch.35, finding that at over seventeen pages of print, it had become “too long” (see Ws.128 p.91).

There are two notable exceptions to his aversion to longer chapters, ch.14 (Paul’s farewell to the Blimbers) and ch.56 (the preparations that clear the way for Florence’s wedding). Both chapters are well over seventeen pages of print in the part issue (see ‘Appendix A’ p.165). In the opening ch.14, as the action moves steadily forwards, the manuscript shows many passages written with fluency and without revision. Likewise in ch.56, as he moves the Florence/Walter romance forward (and disposes of Sol Gills’ return), Dickens focuses particularly on Toots, with evident pleasure in his presentation, lingering over Toots’s interaction with Florence, Cuttle, Susan and the Chicken. However, the lengthening of both chapters—apart from the pleasure Dickens has in creating them—may also be a deliberate ploy, to prepare for the unusually short final chapter that ends each number. “What the waves were always saying” and “Another Wedding” are only four and six pages respectively. The concentrated poignancy of ch.16 is more effective being short. Similarly, the pervasive retrospective pathos of ch.57 is enhanced by the simplicity of its short journey narrative. For that reason, perhaps, it is the only later chapter without plan or summary (Ws.18 p.115).

Chapter titles: When and where they are entered and revised

Importance of chapter titles in the worksheet

Although Dickens probably does not know at the start exactly how the division between the left- and right-hand halves will function, he clearly expects to use both together as a basic record of the contents of each instalment. Number and chapter plans vary in length and detail, whether plan or summary, with the progress of the novel, but chapter titles—with the single exception of ch.36, see below—are always recorded. Moreover, he gives titles prominence on the page by their lettering and layout and, from Ws.4 onwards, avoids obscuring them with the details of revision. When he writes Ws.6a—to resolve the issue Florence’s age before Dombey’s return to the family table in No.15—he appears to use worksheets with their chapter titles (along with their descriptions) as a key to the content of the more distant instalments among his growing pile of back numbers.109

Overall, titling in the worksheets is accurate, apart from Ws.12. In that instance, Dickens simply reminds himself, in a retrospective comment on the left-hand page that “Plan changed afterwards, and the No divided into four chapters” (Ws.128 p.91). Consequently, there are some uncorrected chapter number entries and one omission “Housewarming”, the title of the new ch.36 following the late division of ch.35. Apart from this complication, there are only two wrongly titled chapters in the worksheets, those of chs.29 and 62. In the case of ch.29, he may well have felt that the slightly different wording did not merit correction (the complicated history of ch.29, see ‘Appendix D’ p.185). As for ch.62, at that late point, updating the record would seem unnecessary.

After the publication of No.5, Dickens begins to compile a cumulative list of chapter numbers and titles, which he calls his “List of Chapter Headings”. Because the record for each instalment is usually updated towards the end of its composition, the List is wholly accurate except for three differences: the order of chs.17 and 18 and the wording of the title for ch.2 and ch.38. The act of completing the List would confirm for him the final version of the title, its number and relative position. Moreover, as an alternative to leafing through a pile of worksheets, Dickens may have intended the List as a basic overview. It differs from the worksheets in that it shows the position of each chapter title relative to all past chapters, and the changes of hand in the List from ch.17 onwards give a rough indication of the relation of the chapters to the instalment in which they are published.

This emphasis on chapter titles in the worksheet and List may seem too obvious to be significant, but it is in keeping with the care with which Dickens chooses and revises them (see ‘Appendix D’). Like the titling of the novel itself or the naming of characters, chapter titles can be strikingly suggestive or oblique, intended to give readers the pleasure of uncovering meaning as they read, thus drawing them into the story. However, they also serve as important signposts in his memory of the narrative.

Titling during composition

Dickens soon finds that, because of the close relation between the substance of each chapter and the choice of title, it is often better to delay titling—and revising—until some way into composing the chapter. From Ws.4 onwards, if he is at all uncertain about a title, he tends to work on the task during composition. The content of the chapter occasionally indicates the interval during which a choice is probably made. For example, Dickens entertains the “association” of the onset of bad weather with Cuttle’s despair, after the opening exchanges with Rob, at the start of the evening narrative (439481). However, the title of ch.32—“The Wooden Midshipman goes to pieces”—is a wordplay that gets its full force later in the chapter, when Cuttle is alone, imagining the wreck near the chapter’s end (452–53497). The title is inserted between Dickens’s treatment of the “outward influence” of the stormy weather and Cuttle’s contemplation of the fragments of his hopes “as they floated past him”. The postponed title entry in the manuscript is confirmed by the contrast of hand between the title and the opening text.

Late entry of titles in manuscript is most obvious when Dickens uses a different coloured ink. For example, ch.33 is written in black with the interpolated title written in blue, presumably entered while he is composing the following chapter in the same blue ink. Similarly, the first part of ch.26 is in black whereas the later part is in bright blue, the same ink used for the title when he later inserted it. There are also in the manuscript occasional revealing false starts to chapters, many of which are given in ‘Appendix E’ p.189. The false start of ch.58 shows him titling at the start. The false start of ch.61, on the other hand, shows a title being inserted after writing just the first line, while that of ch.49 shows how he might leave a chapter untitled, then, dissatisfied with the opening, turn the leaf over and begin again, returning later to insert the title.

Other less obvious indications of late title insertion in manuscript are overwriting (ch.19) or shaping the title entry so as to avoid the surrounding text (ch.23), or a marked alteration in the title’s hand and/or the quill quality (chs.5, 19, 24 and 32), or, most commonly, a cramping of the title, having left insufficient space for it (chs.19, 26, 39, 43, 46, 49, 56 and 61).

A cramped title entry in manuscript, however, has to be assessed with caution. Dickens comes to depend on his count of the manuscript pages as a measure of his progress in preparing text. Once well into the novel (from about No.4), he is careful to keep both the space between words and between lines as narrow and regular as possible, by making most corrections interlineally, but also by minimising the space reserved for titles. Consequently, a cramped title entry in the manuscript, e.g. in chs.39 and 42, can give a misleading appearance of being inserted. In the worksheet, similarity of hand and ink is needed to confirm that they are indeed entered as he writes, and conversely dissimilarity to confirm later insertion.

Titling before composition

Of course there are occasions when there is no reason to delay titling. Dickens confident in his choice may title in the worksheet before he begins to compose, particularly in those much rehearsed and carefully planned-on-the-page climaxes to each quarter. Such assurance in titling may occur when the substance of the title is particularly ironic, e.g. ch.35 “The Happy Pair”, or strongly predictable, perhaps at a climax or towards the denouement, e.g. ch.48 (later 47) “The Thunderbolt” or ch.54 “The Fugitives”.

Titling at the start of composition in manuscript can usually be recognised by orderliness of hand and layout. In a false start for ch.51, for example, he lays out the chapter number with its title “Mr Dombey and the World”, writes the opening of the first sentence, and unhappy with wording, turns the leaf over and begins by entering the title again (for more on the titling in ch.51 in the worksheet, see below in ‘Timing of title entry’, p.141). Such titles have few or no corrections, lineation is evenly spaced with title and text in the same hand, and corrections carefully shaped to avoid its underlines. Despite Dickens’s concern over wordage in the manuscript (and space in the worksheet), they are nevertheless sometimes written with a slightly larger bold hand, e.g. chs.31, 35, 47 and 51.

Revising chapter titles in the manuscript

After titling in manuscript at the start or during composition, Dickens may still return to revise his choice. The timing and the purpose of revision varies. He may insert a revision after writing just a paragraph, or several pages, or occasionally after the chapter is finished. In revising, he often rewords, making association and implication more apt, e.g. the title for ch.30 “Before the Wedding” eventually becomes “The Interval before the Marriage”. Sometimes, he is seeking to avoid wording elsewhere, e.g. the lettering for an illustration (ch.29) or the wording of a refrain in the text (ch.62). However, when he rethinks the title entirely, the revision may focus the reader’s attention on a particular episode or allusion (in place of more usual inclusive titling), e.g. the title of ch.30 Relatives and Friends” becomes “Father and Daughter” and that of ch.41 “The sea shore” becomes “New Voices in the Waves” (see ‘Appendix D’ p.186).

All the titles in manuscript are as published, with the exception of ch.35, which was divided into two and re-titled at proofing. That, however, does not mean that the manuscript has all the revisions that were devised in the course of titling. Eight chapters have a revision that does not appear in manuscript (chs.2, 3, 8, 23, 36, 38, 56 and 62). In these eight chapters, revision is made in the worksheet (chs.2, 3, 8, and 62), in the “List of Chapter Headings” (chs.23 and 56), or in both worksheet and List (ch.38), or in proof (ch.36)—but not in manuscript.

Memory, speech-making and planning

When Butt and Tillotson assert that the chapter notes ‘always serve to summarise the contents and put Dickens in the mood of the last monthly number when beginning upon another’, they underestimate the writer’s powers of recall, as well as his involvement in his own narrative (Butt and Tillotson, p.27). If he needed to be reminded of what was in the last number, it would more probably be in connection with some small detail, in which case he would surely consult his own copy of the number, having presumably received the customary complimentary copy soon after publication. For more distant chapters, he may rely on the worksheets alone, and if he requires more detail, use them as guides to chapter and page in the back numbers (see ‘Outcome’ in the commentary on Ws.6a p.69).

Dickens’s memory, notably visual as well as aural and kinetic, was remarked on by many of his contemporaries, and has been confirmed by later research. There are ‘numerous comments of his contemporaries […] and in his own works’.110 He could learn a part in a play or prepare a speech in a morning. He could recall and repeat a speech verbatim that he had given a week after giving it. He could ‘read’ from his own works to thousands, without much reference to the text, except in so far as he needed to, to preserve the appearance of reading. Among contemporary testimony, two accounts in particular throw light on the relation between memory and note-making.

Prior to the writing of Dombey and Son Dickens had avoided systematic preparatory planning on the page, preferring to rely on memory. Writing to Gaylord Clark, the editor of an American literary monthly, by way of explanation for his delay in sending an extract from his current novel (probably Nicholas Nickleby), he explains how difficult it was to find “an entire scene capable of segregation”. To account for this interdependence of the part and the whole, he describes his habit of ‘planning-in-the-head’ as opposed to ‘planning-on-the-page’:

I never commit thoughts to paper until I am obliged to write, being better able to keep them in regular order, on different shelves of my brain, ready ticketed and labelled, to be brought out when I want them.111

The reflection partly explains his reluctance to notate plans at the time of writing (1839). The shelving and ticketing analogies describe the retaining of a thought, sensing its association with other ideas, and using the association to recall it when needed. Such a process suggests an unusual degree of control over remembering, as well as confidence of recall, both of which help account for the allusiveness of much of his later note-making, when he came to try its advantages.

A second report comes from George Dolby, Dickens’s personal manager during his later reading tours in the 1860s. It is an anecdote about how, according to Dolby—and there is no reason to doubt the account, Dolby being a reliable witness in other respects—Dickens might prepare for an important speech:

He told us that, supposing a speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his ‘mind’s eye’, liken the whole subject to the tire of a cartwheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subject to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel (Dolby, Charles Dickens as I knew him, 273–74).

The wheel analogy, like the shelving model, explains how he orders his thoughts, remembers and then extends each topic, but retains its position in the whole, as he performs his speech and adapts it to his audience. Similarly, once his use of the worksheets is well established, chapter descriptions that are plans become so many salient ordered points, requiring expansion in many different ways. The main task in narration, as in performing a speech, becomes one of fleshing out his notes, including of course whatever comes to him during composition. But here the similarity begins to break down. Dickens may have a quite comprehensive vision of a chapter, even if it is a rather long one, well before he puts pen to paper. A single entry in a plan may be his brief reminder or ‘mem’ of what already exists in considerable detail in his imagination, to which he may add further entries, each with their imagined narrative potential, as well as other matters already noted in the number plans. The relation of the items in chapter plan to each other and to the preparatory number plan is also more complex. Like “the stock of the soup”, they may intermingle or coalesce.

The early half-formed routines of Dickens’s use of the earlier worksheets were disrupted by a series of misfortunes. The number plans for both Nos.7 and 8 have only a few short entries (Ws.73 & 4 and Ws.81, 2 & 5 pp.72 and 76) and no chapter descriptions, whether plans or summaries. However, despite adversities, in the case of No.7 during his “dream” of work from 10 to 23 March, he found time to give Browne an extended description of the subject of the first illustration. He may have already written the outline of Mrs Skewton’s character and Edith’s psychology in Ws.72, and perhaps written part of the first half of ch.20, but he had certainly not begun to compose the second half, which later became ch.21. The only mention of the material of the chapter in Ws.7 is the number plan note added some time later to the outline above: “These to be encountered in Leamington” (Ws.73).

Nevertheless, a letter to Browne shows how fully imagined is Dickens’s picture of the scene at the heart of that unwritten chapter. He is “very late with my number, which I have only begun this morning [10 March 1847]” emphasising that the illustration is “very important to the book”:

I should premiss that I want to make the Major, who is the incarnation of selfishness and small revenge, a kind of comic Mephistophelian power in the book; and the No. begins with the departure of Mr Dombey and the Major on that trip for change of air and scene, which is prepared for in the last Number. They go to Leamington, where you and I once were. In the Library, the Major introduces Mr Dombey to a certain young lady, whom, as I wish to foreshadow, dimly, said Dombey may come to marry, in due season. She is about thirty—not a day more—handsome, though haughty-looking—good figure—well dressed—showy—and desirable. Quite a lady in appearance, with something of proud indifference about her, suggestive of a spark of the Devil within. Was married young. Husband dead. Goes about with an old mother who rouges, and lives upon the reputation of a diamond necklace and her family.—Wants a husband. Flies at none but high game, and couldn’t marry anybody not rich—Mother affects cordiality and heart, and is the essence of sordid calculation—Mother usually shoved about in a Bath chair by a page who has rather outgrown and out-shoved his strength, who butts at it from behind, like a Ram, while his mistress steers herself languidly by a handle in front—Nothing the matter with her to prevent her walking, only once sketched (when a Beauty) reclining in a Barouche, and having outlived the beauty and the barouche too, still holds on to the attitude, as becoming her uncommonly. Mother is in this machine in the Sketch. Daughter has a parasol.

The Major presents them to Mr Dombey, gloating within himself over what may come of it, and the discomfiture of Miss Tox. Mr Dombey (in deep mourning) bows solemnly. Daughter bends. The Native in attendance, bearing a camp stool and the Major’s great coat. Native evidently afraid of the Major and his thick cane. If you like it better, the scene may be in the street or in a green lane. But a great deal will come of it: and I want the Major to express that, as much as possible in his apoplectico-Mephistophelian observation of the scene, and his share in it.

Lettering.

Major Bagstock is delighted to have that opportunity

(L5.34–35 and cf. 280–85305–08).

Giving Browne a choice of settings—indoors or out—confirms that Dickens has yet to compose the scene. Some of the information that he provides appears earlier in the first half of ch.20, but most will appear in the second half of ch.20 (later ch.21). Dickens’s rapid broken bursts of description are delivered with such energy that he seems to be stirring the characters into life. He identifies with each participant in turn, telling Browne about their motives and history, while giving a glimpse of their appearance and actions. He supplies significant details for each character, which Browne might work into in his sketch of the moment when the Major introduces the participants to one another. Despite the fullness of the description, he has to write a second letter to bring Browne’s sketch of the Native into line with his vision of him incongruously got up in “European” rather than native costume, a detail not mentioned earlier.112

The “lettering” for the illustration—like a “label” or “ticket” kept in order on different shelves, or a “spoke” in the turning “wheel” of a memorised speech—calls up a memory and, by association, the whole of which the memory is a only part. That whole probably includes most of the following: Edith’s first marriage, the loss of her child, her first husband’s link with Bagstock as Colonel in his regiment, the Native’s dress and earrings, the meetings that follow the first encounter, and the chapter’s deliberately truncated ending as Edith displays her final genteel accomplishment, accompanying herself on the piano, singing in her “deep and rich voice” the song that Florence sang, and Paul crooned, as she carried him up the stairs to bed (289–91313–15 and cf. 96101).

The three accounts above, given at the start and end of Dickens’s career, and during the writing of Dombey and Son, demonstrate his extraordinary visual and verbal memory and the deliberate training with which he cultivated his ability to recall. They help explain not only the allusiveness and omissions of his planning, but also his concern, despite hiatuses, to find, on many occasions, fixed points that secure the course of a plan’s progress.

Chapter descriptions as plans

Terminology

Butt and Tillotson, arguing from mainly David Copperfield and Bleak House, rightly conclude that chapter descriptions, whether they are plans or summaries, always act as records (Butt and Tillotson, p.27). However, because all plans can be viewed as records, they consistently set aside the number and variety of Dickens’s chapter plans. In the chapter devoted to Dombey and Son, they seldom identify and discuss a chapter description as a chapter plan. When they describe the crucial right-hand entry Ws.54 “his [Paul’s] illness [to be] only expressed in the child’s own feelings”, they refer to it as ‘the decision recorded in the number plan’, presumably using ‘number’ to mean ‘instalment’ and ‘plan’ to mean ‘worksheet’ (Butt and Tillotson, p.100).113 Even in the double number, where Dickens’s planning intent in the chapter descriptions is generally agreed, they treat their own quotation from a chapter plan as something akin to a summary, describing how ‘the movement of chapter lx is traced [editor’s italics] in the notes’ (Butt and Tillotson, p.111).

The first scholars to give a general account of Dickens’ working notes, Butt and Tillotson led the way for later commentators, many of whom have also emphasised the recording function of the notes. To test the validity of this emphasis with regard to Dombey and Son, this edition sets aside assumptions and begins with terminology. It uses ‘worksheet’ for the leaf, i.e. for the left and right-hand half as a whole, ‘chapter description’ as the general term for entries that Dickens makes after each chapter heading, and ‘summary’ and ‘plan’ as subordinate terms that distinguish between types of chapter description. Ridding key terms of ambiguity turns out to be an important first step.

The point at which Dickens enters his chapter descriptions does indeed vary. Many descriptions are made before composition (and must therefore be plans), and some afterwards (and therefore are summaries). This variation in function with alteration in timing is accompanied by other differences. The following account looks first at the descriptions whose features mark them as plans. It divides their distinguishing features into those that are inherent in their wording and appearance and those that involve a comparison with the text of the novel. First, we examine intrinsic indications of planning.

Directives

When Dickens writes “Introduce” (Ws.419 p.51), “Open” (Ws.1222 p.91), “Begin” (Ws.1022 p.83) and “End with” (Ws.19&20a45 p.123), it seems reasonable to assume that the instruction to himself can only mean that the description is a plan, outlining his intentions for the chapter, and similar to his use of directives in number planning, e.g. “connect Carker with Edith, before the wedding , and get in Florence” (Ws.92 & 3 p.79).

Queries

Queries are indicators of planning, like directives, though much less frequent. Only three occur in the chapter descriptions. The first is answered with a qualified negative “Not yet” (Ws.59 p.57), the later ones with an emphatic positive (Ws.1335 & 36 p.95). In number plans, on the other hand, interrogatives and their answers are frequent. The contrast between number and chapter plan, in this respect, points to a difference between the different stages in planning that they represent, the one more open and fluid and the other more closed and defined. However, both involve self-questioning that is unlikely to occur in a summary.

Elisions

Elision can sometimes imply intention, such as “Back to dawn again” (Ws.1028 p.83). On other occasions, similar phrases—without an implied directive—may be read as ways of ordering a summary, especially if they are short and to the point. Like a stage direction, they may announce a new arrival joining character(s) already on stage, e.g. “To her, a daughter” (Ws.1125 p.87). However, preceded by ‘so’, elided directives regularly signal a narrative shift that requires preparation “So to Mrs Skewton” (Ws.1328 p.95) and “So to the Captain’s narrative” (Ws.169 p.107). As the plans for the double number demonstrate, anticipating and managing narrative transitions is an important part of Dickens’s craft as a story-teller (see for example “lead to Bunsby, through the Captain” Ws.19&2033 p.119).

Variation in layout

Layout of a description can also give an indication of planning, particularly in the case of those descriptions that are obviously accumulated, with some entries—judging from the hand—made at different times (Ws.58-11 p.57) and (Ws.913-17 p.79). The gathering together of ideas over time is particularly obvious where it is accompanied by changes of ink, for example in Ws.19&20a36–37 p.123.

Listing is a characteristic of both plan and summary. However once assembled, a planning list often has a distinctive irregularity, a sudden change of positioning, or of hand, or of both together. It may have additions, inserted or tacked on, at the beginning, in the middle or at the end. This sort of accretion gives some assembled plans their distinctive layout, e.g. ch.15 (Ws.5) or ch.27 (Ws.9). Listing can also lead to frequent use of Dickens’s idiosyncratic diagonal slash, to separate and order the entries. Moreover, because the pressure on space is greater in planning—being essentially more unpredictable than summarising—there is a greater tendency to vary orientation in order to use space more economically.

The worksheet attachment Ws.5a demonstrates how Dickens can use layout to help him shape narration. Initially, he appears to use the attachment—without entry (6)—in the composition of ch.14. Its layout—focused on Paul’s experience of illness—maps the child’s thoughts and speeches into an imagined narrative, while the hand and alignment suggests their emotional weight (see the facsimile and transcription of Ws.5a). Then the attachment, with the addition of (6), may be used in the same way, for the composition of ch.16. In composing both chapters, Dickens looks to incorporate the wording (and the expressiveness) of the attachment into his narrative as he writes. The reader of the finished text of chs.14 and 16 may see beneath their surface the tracery of these early plans (see the commentary on Ws.5a p.61).

Revisions

Chapter descriptions, which appear for other reasons to be plans, often contain deletions followed by revisions. In Ws.16, for example, Dickens makes a change to emphasise the distance between father and daughter, deleting “his feelings towards” and adding “about” (Ws.1618 p.107). Such alterations may appear small, but—apart from what they us about Dickens’s stylistic judgement—they are also the immediate second thoughts of the sort that might be expected in planning. A few deletions with revision involve substantial change during planning, e.g. in the approach to the ending of ch.14 “News of Paul’s illness   No” (Ws.55 p.57) or to the choice of speechmaker at the wedding (Ws.1025 p.83).

A special instance of revision sometimes occurs in the preparation of a text to close a chapter. In his plan for the end of ch.55, Dickens revises the sensational horror of Carker’s death by deleting “sup(ped)”, thus omitting any suggestion of dogs drinking his blood (Ws.1810 p.115). Then in the text, with characteristic subtlety, he embeds the whole within Dombey’s perceptions (743823). Compare this alteration with the summary note that describes the tableau of Edith and Florence together at the end of ch.30 (Ws.1018 p.83). When he deletes “lying” for “kneeling”, he may be adjusting his vision of the scene, rather than merely making a running correction (cf. 420461).

In summarising, Dickens seldom needs to delete an entry, or any part of it. The many early summary notes, usually a word or phrase describing an aspect of the chapter, contains only one isolated deletion “Miss T”, which seems to show him hesitating over the scope of notes of this sort, not correcting the summary itself (see Ws.116 p.39). Apart from the deletion in ch.12, where he accidentally begins with the dinner scene—corrected to the “Internal economy of Blimber’s” (Ws.415 & 16 p.51)—the only deletion in subsequent summaries, a running correction, occurs in Ws.14. At the end of the chapter giving the reader’s “last view of them [Carker and Edith] before the elopement”, he hesitates over how to suggest Edith’s mixed motives, deleting “relen” but then continuing “relenting by force [editor’s italics]” (Ws.1426 p.99).

Planning for transitions

Dickens’s planning for transitions in the narrative varies. Generally he leaves it to the invention of the moment, often changing the scene, for instance by moving the narrative focus from one character to another, e.g. the use of Bagstock in ch.26. However, if the transition is particularly awkward—perhaps rather abrupt or frequent—he may plan for it in the worksheet. The most explicit example occurs amid the crowded ch.60, partly prepared for by Ws.19&20. The narrative focus is like a baton handed from one character to the next. Having followed his own direction to “Open with Blimber’s” during Feeder’s marriage to Cornelia, Dickens shifts the focus of the narrative to Toots by his arrival there with Susan, his wife (Ws.19&2029 p.119). Afterwards, he follows the couple to their hotel where they receive a letter from Cuttle, in response to which they leave at once to meet its writer (810898). Dickens can now “lead to Bunsby, through the Captain” (Ws.19&20a33 p.123).

Of course, such a multiplication of plotlines, or “threads” as Dickens calls them, is a comparatively rare occurrence. However, there are instances of planning for a transition in single-number worksheets. Among them is the transition in ch.41, signalled by his characteristic pointer “So to [editor’s italics] come to Edith at night” (Ws.1333 p.95). Other similar instances of the cautionary “So to” can be found in the planning of ch.40 (Ws.1328) and that of ch.49 (Ws.168 p.107).

For an uncharacteristic example of inevitable awkwardness in managing a transition, examine how Carker’s ride home from the office is suddenly interrupted in ch.22. Coming up short in an unplanned, and unusually long, second and closing chapter, Dickens unexpectedly finds he has to extend the chapter as he approached its probable endpoint (see the added ‘chapter plan’ on the left-hand side (Ws.76 p.71) and its commentary). On this occasion, abruptness is unavoidable. Despite the attempt to disarm readers—with typical self-mockery explaining “a few digressive words are necessary” (305331)—they may detect a telling creak in the otherwise smooth transition. The narrative extension also detracts somewhat from what was probably his initial intention to end with the lascivious Carker, slowly riding by Dombey’s house and contemplating the opportunity for advancement offered by the maturing Florence: “With dark eyes and hair, I recollect, and a good face; a very good face! I dare says she’s pretty” (304330).

Related to the use of chapter planning to manage awkward transitions is the planning of successive incidents to prepare for acceleration to an approaching climax. Compare for example the plan for Edith’s final meeting with Florence in ch.61 (Ws.19&2038 & 39 p.123), with the plan for the aftermath of Dombey’s wedding ceremony in ch.31 (Ws.1026–28 p.83) or the planned events leading up to the flight that ends ch.47 (Ws.1528–31 p.103). Most of these notes would be without purpose or out of place in a summary, but in a plan they warn the author of an important sequence that requires particular narrative ingenuity.

Planning for the end

A special sort of transition is the more obvious, careful planning for the chapter’s end, and the approach to the end, both of which are handled with the finesse that is characteristic of Dickens as a serial novelist. From Ws.4 onwards, when he plans chapters, he regularly defines their endings. For example in the more detailed chapter plans for Ws.5 he begins each plan by first identifying its end (Ws.55 p.57). When he returns to chapter planning in Ws.9, he usually anticipates the detail of a chapter’s conclusion. The procedure is especially evident in the closing chapter of the instalment; concerned to retain his reader, he designs the end to raise expectations and to linger in the reader’s memory until the next month’s issue.

Closing texts appear in shorter as well as longer chapter plans, whether “Dombey and Son’s a daughter after all”, which appears after the carefully planned ch.16, or “I have no hope but in you” in ch.43 after briefly planning the beginning and the middle, or in ch.30 where Dickens just describes, with no preliminaries, the chapter’s closing tableau. Texts of endings are often revised (as in ch.30) at the planning stage, and then further changed during composition, as they are woven into the narrative, for example, at the death of Carker (see Ws.1810 p.115 and cf. 743823). Summaries, of course, will also include material that ends a chapter, but usually as part of a list of similarly generalised items and always in less detail (see Ws.617, Ws.1014 & Ws.1514 pp.63, 83 and 103 respectively).

We come now to extrinsic indications of planning, i.e. differences between chapter description and the novel’s text that have to do with the very different relationship that plans and summaries have with what Dickens actually composes. Plans differ from summaries in their relation to the manuscript in a number of ways.

Timing of title entry

A rather involved consideration is the relation in time between the entry of the title in manuscript and worksheet. Dickens’s frequent practice, from Ws.4 onwards, of inserting the title in the manuscript during or after composition and, if necessary, revising it there, has an outcome for the worksheets. In the worksheet, if he intends both to plan on the page and to postpone the choice of title, he has to leave a blank space for the title between chapter number and chapter description. This sometimes results in a contrast in hand between the underlined title and the description, and some irregularity in their layout.

The contrast created by entering plan first and title later is obvious in Ws.5 and Ws.9 and 10. However from then onwards, the contrast between the two is less marked, partly because Dickens becomes more adept at estimating the space needed for the title, and partly because he may deliberately narrow the gap, if he anticipates a long plan, e.g. ch.32 in Ws.11. Title gapping in both manuscript and worksheet is also made easier by changes in the sort of title he chooses. Although throughout the novel he searches for titles that are inclusive and intriguing, after the first quarter he moves away from the longer mock-heroic title, preferring shorter ones in the second half, particularly the internally referential titles, many of which are one-liners (and easy to insert). 114

A further complication is indicated by ch.51 (Ws.16 p.107). In that chapter, the first entry of the description has to be adjusted to prevent overwriting the title, which shows that the title is entered before the description. However, we can be reasonably certain—from the deletion of “the ser(vants)” and their move to the end of the description, from the omission of the introductory exchange between Dombey and Mrs Chick, and the later re-ordering in composition of the appearance of Miss Tox—that the chapter description is a plan, made before Dickens begins composition. So in this instance, we find that the title is first entered in worksheet, followed by the plan, then by the title in the manuscript, and finally by the composition of the text. A false start confirms that the title is entered early in the manuscript (see ‘Appendix E’, ch.51, p.190).

This less common procedure—titling first in the worksheet, then copying to manuscript (see ‘Titling before composition’, p.134)—is a reminder that Dickens is seldom methodical simply for the sake of being so. If circumstances change, as in ch.51—being so sure of his title that he can enter it first in the worksheet—he may change his practice. His general approach in this and in many other procedures is always business-like rather than systematic. Nevertheless, with the caveat to allow for the possibility of an early entry of a title in the worksheet, the relation of title entry to description entry, as revealed by layout and hand considered together, may indicate that the description precedes the title entry and that its purpose is planning.

Change of substance in composition

Many of Dickens’s allusive salient-point plans are probably markers for narrative that he has already rehearsed in considerable detail. His fluent and startling inventiveness will of course open out what he has visualised in planning (see the letter to Browne, quoted above, p.136). Nevertheless, by comparing the published text with worksheet plans, it is clear that some passages are not an enlargement of a plan but additions to it. This is particularly true of early passages in opening and middle chapters—often more retrospective parts—where there is more time and space for invention independent of planning. For example in No.5, after the skilfully contrived opening reminder of the “young gentlemen” and adults involved in Paul’s life at Dr Blimber’s, the number continues with a lengthy exchange between Paul and Miss Blimber about his end-of-term analysis. Eventually, about a third of the way into the chapter, the narrative moves on to the invitations in preparation for the party, the first item in the chapter plan (Ws.54 p.57). Unlike the plan, a summary would probably include some reference to Miss Blimber’s analysis and/or to the special position that Paul now enjoys at Dr Blimber’s.

Change of order in composition

A summary of course aims to cover, in one way or another, however brief, the more important incidents in the order in which they occur in the text. Plans, on the other hand, are provisional. They may not only omit significant matter but also may be re-ordered at any point in composition (see for example the re-ordering of the items in the plan for ch.51 (p.107) during its composition (686-90759-63)).

Interdependence of number plan and chapter plan

A final consideration has to do with the relation, not between chapter plan and the text that follows it, but between the chapter plan and the preceding number plan. It will be examined in connection with the development in number and chapter planning in the third quarter (see below).

Conclusion

Various sorts of evidence may indicate that a chapter description is a plan rather than a summary. The stronger, more reliable indications are:

• a choice of word(s) indicating intention
• an irregular layout suggesting hesitancy or pauses for thought
• deletions that are followed by revision, rather than by running correction
• the foregrounding of narrative transitions that require careful preparation
• the inclusion of the draft of a text to end the chapter.

Four less reliable indications all stem from the relation of the chapter plan to the manuscript. Less reliable, partly because of the difficulty of interpreting hand, quill and ink, they are:

• dissimilarity in the hand, quill or ink used for plan and for title, suggesting a gap in time between their entry
• marked irregularity of layout between plan and title, also suggestive of a gap in time between entries
• an order in the plan, which is re-ordered in composition
• omission in the plan of important material that is added in composition (or, rarely, the inclusion in the plan of material that is entirely omitted in composition).115

The table in ‘Appendix B’ summarises the entry history of each chapter title; the initial purpose of each chapter description, with a query if there are residual doubts about its purpose; and the briefest of notes on the reasons for the choice of plan or summary (see ‘Appendix B’ and its key, p.172). 116

Chapter descriptions as summaries

Summaries, unlike plans, have no intrinsic defining features that enable us to identify a chapter description at once as a summary. However, those descriptions that cannot be identified with any certainty as plans—judging from the criteria in the ‘Conclusion’ above—may well be summaries. By examining these possible summaries, we can discover if some have features in common, which can be regarded as characteristic of Dickens’s summaries.

Summaries in the first quarter

Dickens begins by using the space below chapter headings for a summary note, sometimes an expansion or clarification of the chapter title, sometimes a note of the main concern or of an important moment. In Ws.4, he expands the summary to two or three short entries, derived from successive parts of the chapter, and therefore ordered as in the text. As might be expected, the order of the summary matches that of the narrative, a characteristic (though not a defining one) of the longer summaries.

Summaries in the second quarter

In Ws.6, Dickens expands the summary further. Two of the more extended examples—the summary of the opening ch.17 (later 18) and that of the closing ch.19—are comparable in length to the plans of the first quarter. They are distinguished from them by a second feature to do with the relationship of chapter titling and description.

Dickens makes two attempts at titling ch.17 (later 18) during its composition, eventually choosing “Father and Daughter” (see ‘Appendix D’, ch.17 (later 18), p.184). In the worksheet for the chapter (Ws.612–17 p.63), although the lettering used for the title is of course larger than that used for the description, the slope of the lettering and density of the ink are the same for both. Moreover, the vertical alignment of title and description is comparable—setting aside for the moment the insertion (13) on “The state of mind of the household”—though with some slippage to the right as the arm of the right-handed author moves downwards. So it is reasonable to conclude from this uniformity of hand and layout that the final title and description are entered together, a conclusion that is incidentally confirmed by an ink smudge and the way entry (13) is inserted between title and summary (see commentary p.65). As the titling occurs during composition and is copied into the worksheet from the manuscript, and the description and title appear to be entered together, the description is very probably written after composition—and is therefore a summary.

The above line of argument rests finally on the hand and layout of title and description. In the third quarter especially, Dickens sometimes leaves a narrow gap for the title in the worksheet, enters his plan and inserts the title later with the same quill and ink that he used for the plan, obscuring evidence of the insertion. The description, appearing to be a summary, may be shown to be a plan on other grounds. For that reason, though uniformity of title and description may be typical of summaries, the feature has to be treated with caution.

Later in the second quarter, comparison of the summary of chapter twenty-nine with that of chapter seventeen (later eighteen) reveals another feature. Since the entries in each chapter summary are made at the same time, Dickens uses a similar syntax to describe them. In the case of ch.29, each entry opens with a name; in ch.17 (later 18) each entry—with the exception of entry (16)—has a similar phrase structure. Such stylistic mannerisms are more likely to be found in descriptions of what has already been narrated; they go with a tendency, being summaries, to generalise, simplify or compress.

Summaries in the third quarter

In the entanglement of Dickens’s “threads” in the third quarter, most descriptions, whether plan or summary, become longer, more intricate and more detailed. He plans most opening chapters of the third quarter, including ch.32, an opening chapter that brings important developments in the counter plot, but excluding the opening ch.46 in No.15.117 There are some contra-indications that the description for ch.32 is a summary—late titling in manuscript, the uniformity of hand and layout of title and description—but they are less persuasive than the many indications of planning (see the commentary on the ‘Plan for ch.32’, p.88).

Most of the summaries of the quarter can be reliably classified as such (see chs.36 (later 37), 44, 45, 46 and 48 in ‘Appendix B’). The grounds for the classification vary. The commentaries on the faint blue entries in Ws.12 p.93, from the ‘Title and summary of ch.36 (later 37)’ onwards, show the effect of the use of this unusual ink on the order of entry in the worksheet and in the manuscript. All uses of faint blue in Ws.12, including its use in the composition of ch.38, are very probably unbroken and consecutive, i.e. involving only one colour change (from black to blue and back). A cursory look through the worksheet reveals that, because the description is in faint blue and its use is consecutive, the composition and titling of ch.36 (later 37) in black must come before the description, which is therefore a summary.

The initial purpose of the description of chs.44 and 45 is also largely established by factors extrinsic to the worksheet itself. The special circumstances affecting both ch.44 and 45 have been examined in an earlier section, concerned in part with No.14 (p.129), which shows that ch.44 is unplanned. Similarly, the commentaries on chs.44 and 45—arguing from the layout of chapter numbering, titles and descriptions, the brevity of content, and the circumstances of composition—present a strong case for treating the descriptions of both as summaries made after composition (see Ws.14 p.101).

With regard to the first two chapters of No.15 (which were written last), we know that Dickens, heavily committed to overseeing the establishment of Urania Cottage, was on 19 November “in a whirlwind of finishing a No [15] with a Crisis in it”. Having finished the “crisis” chapter—with the two remaining chapters to write in little more than six days—Dickens is in a rush to complete the number. Nevertheless, he finds time for a detailed summary of ch.46, in view of its importance to the plot. He notes the crucial events in (10) and (11), in preparation for their later development, as he did, for example, in the only note on ch.22, a summary of Rob as Carker’s spy (Ws.716). Then in entries (13) and (14), making up for the unfortunate cut made to ch.45, he wishes to make the motives of Carker and Edith more explicit and their later actions more plausible.118 As part of the summary, he may memo both “states of mind”, expecting to re-visit the worksheet—and, from it, the text—before advancing the action and opening out their characterization further in the final meeting of ch.54.119

In the description of ch.48 (formerly 47), Dickens notes three moments, one in each of the chapter’s three sections, expanding the last (Ws.1521) with the items that give rise to Cuttle’s bewilderment. These details act as a reminder to himself and a sign to the reader of the starting point for the opening chapter of the next number. In ch.46, he inserts the chapter title after he begins composing; in ch.48 (formerly 47) he is obviously sure of the title from the outset, deriving it from (2) in the number plan. In both chs.46 and 48 (formerly 47) there is the same uniformity of hand and layout. Their substance, titling and appearance are indicative of summarising rather than planning.

Summaries in the fourth quarter

The last two single numbers of the fourth quarter, Ws.17 and 18, bring a marked change to the treatment of the worksheets. All remaining descriptions, though similar in the number of entries to the earlier ones, become less detailed. Their brevity reflects Dickens’s concentration on the “pursuit” and the working out in narration of the denouement—what he calls in connection with a late scene in Barnaby Rudge “the Machinery of the Tale” (L2:471). All except for ch.55 and possibly ch.56 can be identified as summaries by the timing of entry and the hand of title and description (see chs.52–54 and 56 in ‘Appendix B’ p.171).

Conclusion

Summaries have no intrinsic or extrinsic feature that defines them as summaries. The principal task in identifying a summary is to determine the order of entry of the chapter description relative to the titling of the chapter in the manuscript. The timing of titling in the manuscript during composition has been examined in a previous section (see ‘Titling during composition’ p.133). If a chapter title is entered in manuscript during composition (either by insertion or with revision or both) and if the appearance of title and description in the worksheet shows they are entered together, we may tentatively conclude that the chapter description likely to be a summary. However, even if these two conditions are met, other evidence is needed to confirm it.

To sum up, examination of the chapter descriptions that are thought not to be plans reveals typical characteristics which suggest they summaries:

• similarity of entries—the entries of a summary are usually made at the same time and fluently written, which makes them similar in hand and in layout, whereas the entries of a plan, sometimes assembled over time, may be written in contrasting hand and layout
• similarity of order to that of the text—entries of a summary tend to follow the order of the text to which they refer, whereas those of a plan may be re-ordered in composition
• inclusiveness—apart from the recapitulatory and expansive matter of opening chapters, which both plans and summaries regularly omit, summaries are likely to refer to all important narrative material, whereas plans will omit all material that comes to Dickens during composition, and may include other material that he decides not to use (see Ws.1332 p.95).
• stylistic uniformity—on at least two occasions Dickens takes an obvious pleasure in making summary entries stylistically similar (see ch.17 (later 18) and ch.29 pp.63 and 83).

Development of number and chapter planning in each quarter

First quarter: Paul’s story

Having devised the worksheet’s basic format—a leaf for each instalment, folded in half vertically, then flattened down, with the left-hand half assigned to number planning and the right half to part and chapter headings—Dickens allows the issues that arise during planning and composition to guide him how he might adapt the format to his needs. Chapter planning entries in particular show how quickly planning-on-the-page develops from Ws.3 to Ws.5, once Paul becomes “a talking, walking, wondering Dombey”.

The scope and method of number planning on the left-hand side is clear from the start. In Ws.1, Dickens confidently lays out his ideas for the opening and the following chapter. The first group of entries, bounded by a slash, gives the general situation and predicts the end “the boy born to die” (1), as planned in the “outline of [his] immediate intentions” (see endnote 42). The other three initial plans (3)–(5) with the insertion (2) introduce the principal characters of the first two chapters in order of appearance. The assembly as a whole carries in its sequence the shape of the narrative, just as groups (6) and (7) of the ‘additional plans’, though more spare, map the four sections of the final ch.4. The material of ch.3, unmentioned in the number plan (except for a note on possible lettering for the illustrations), grows out of the composition of ch.2. It introduces Susan Nipper and, through Richards, develops the character of Florence as a young child, revealing her difficult relationship with her father. It also contributes to the overrun and Dickens’s dilemma in ch.4 (see ‘Composition of an alternative’ p.41).

With the leading characters introduced and the direction of the quarter established, Dickens has the shape of the next instalment in mind from the start. In Ws.21–3, the number plan moves smoothly from one episode to the next, but of course omits any reference to the closing ch.7 concerning Miss Tox and Major Bagstock, which had been written earlier as a shorter alternative closing chapter to No.1.

The number plan for Ws.3 is less orderly. In this central instalment of the first quarter, as Dickens begins to complicate both the main Dombey plot and the counter plot “Wally and Co”, he considers bringing in other threads associated with Miss Tox, the Major and Carker. He has also been pondering the effect of extending the life of Paul from four to five numbers. By listing possible lines of development and querying potential ideas, the number plan determines the likely content of the number, but at the same time indicates that some of its material will be held over to the next instalment or beyond. He marks by underlining two groups of entries (4) and (7) to “stand over”. Similarly, in Ws.4, he underlines two entries (1) and (4) signalling that, though important to the part under preparation, they are also to be carried forward into later numbers. Such underlining, like querying, are often used as ways of indicating that some entries may need to be attended to later.

His starting point on the right-hand side is determined by the loose-leaf nature of the worksheet. As he accumulates the worksheets, he probably expects to regularly shuffle through them to track the substance and detail of earlier numbers. The right-hand side serves first of all as a basic record of the part number, so that he can quickly re-order the sheets by their instalment, if they become disordered. After the part number, he usually goes on to enter the chapter number headings (the exceptions occur towards the end of the novel when he heads up a few sheets in advance). Titles follow as he works on each chapter.

In Ws.1, Dickens appears to use the right-hand side—in this worksheet only—to trial, revise and finalise chapter titles (probably during composition), whereas from Ws.2 onwards he usually titles and revises in manuscript, then transfers the final title to the worksheet (the only early exception is ch.8). This arrangement, if there is any doubt in his mind about the choice of title, becomes his common practice. It has two obvious advantages. In the worksheet, it leaves the record prominent, uncluttered and clear at a glance, and in the manuscript, it gives him the opportunity to devise an apt title, revising as he writes. It is an obvious first step in adapting format and improving method, which has consequences that are probably unforeseen at the time. His concern to anticipate how he is going to use the worksheets is evident in the his decision, after Ws.1, to avoid both reversing the page as in Ws.18, and turning the page over as in Ws.1 (verso)22 & 23 p.37, both of which would encumber the later use of the worksheet as a record. He hurriedly re-enters the number heading and title of ch.4—without underlines or capitals—on the front of the worksheet.

The right-hand half of Ws.2, in one respect, may seem more unsettled than that of Ws.1. It has eight negated “smallhand” notes towards its right-hand edge. These appear to be pre-format jottings (see commentary, p.44). The negative, which probably applies to all eight, confirms Dickens’s decision to confine number plans to left-hand page. Always excluding number plans from the right-hand page is another important step, which also affects how the worksheet is used. It confirms the importance of the number plan as a separate and distinct entity. He completes the record for Ws.2 by adding the chapter titles altogether, including that of ch.7, the alternative ch.4 held over from No.1.

As the mock-heroic style of many of the chapter titles in Ws.1 and 2 do not explicitly refer to their subject, Dickens takes one step further by way of record. He adds a descriptive note or two beneath most of the chapter titles. In Ws.3, he expands that record to include an incident from each chapter, demonstrating a theme common to all three—the power of money, what it can, cannot and should not do. He also adds to the lower left-hand side a striking simile for use later, together with other details for chs.8 and 9. These final entries in Ws.3 signal a another important development. He is adapting the worksheet format to include—for the moment on the left-hand page—striking textual detail destined for individual chapters, as yet unwritten, and probably not yet fully imagined.

The next worksheet Ws.4 widens the focus and setting of the story. Paul is first dispatched with Florence to Mrs Pipchin’s, then to the Blimbers. With the substance of the instalment defined in (1), the structure of the narrative follows in (2) and (3) and the triangular relation of the father and the two children deepens in (4). However, Dickens’s imagination, now preoccupied with Paul, outruns number planning. He pursues the development of the previous worksheet, evident in its final left-hand page entries, by using a separate leaf (Ws.4a) that he eventually attaches to the bottom of the left-hand page of Ws.4. This leaf concentrates on chapter planning, as in Ws.3, but with the difference that it prepares for a sequence of incidents in just one chapter, and, in its final entries, visualises a small section of text. Rehearsing part of a chapter, it may have been used as a separate sheet during the composition of a mid-section of ch.12. Its entries, like some left-hand entries in Ws.3, could just as well belong in the right-hand half.

Finally, with his course set for the climax of No.5, Dickens temporarily sets aside his previous method of number planning. He decides to present Paul’s “illness only in the child’s own feelings”. He had anticipated as long as ago as the beginning of July that such an innovation would generate “a new and peculiar sort of interest” in the reader and involve “a little bit of delicate treatment”. 120 He supports the innovation—“a difficult, but a new way of doing it”—with an additional leaf Ws.5a, in which he plans the presentation of the ailing child’s inner life. The leaf, a unique chapter-cum-number plan, first serves as a map of Paul’s part in ch.14, and then, with one addition (6), is also used to intensify the effect of ch.16. It is later wafered into the position of a number plan on the unused left-hand side of Ws.5, with the incidental result that no mention is made in the chapter-cum-number-plan of the meandering ch.15 (partly planned on the right-hand half by Ws.58–11). The early chapters plans, like many later ones, reveal Dickens’s concern to plan for closure, particularly for the end—and for the approach to the end—of the closing chapter of each number.

The first five numbers are not planned as a narrative unit, but grow out of Dickens’s involvement with Paul. He consults Forster, before he embarks on No.3, about extending Paul’s life into No.5. Once he makes “number three a kind of halfway house between infancy and Paul being eight or nine”, Paul’s education can take up two numbers. Following that decision, ch.16 becomes the aim and endpoint of his story (Life 477K:9358) and the climax of the first quarter.

The notes preparing for the first quarter—assembling some materials, often roughly in chapter order, adding other possibilities, noting what is to be used or carried forward, and finally abbreviating number plans to concentrate on the planning of chapters—set a pattern, which recurs with some differences of emphasis in the next two quarters. Dickens also begins the two forward-looking procedures—querying and underlining (with a continuous single line)—that he will rely in later numbers, especially in the corresponding, less orderly, midway numbers of the second and third quarters (Ws.8 and Ws.13). As might be expected, querying disappears in the denouement of the fourth quarter, except for his hesitation over Florence’s meeting with Edith and over the inclusion of the Barnet Skettles. Single underlining is also reduced there to three predictable instances; the pursuit (Ws.172, 16 & 19 p.111), Toots (Ws.183 p.115) and the legacy thread (Ws.19&2012 p.119). However, although the single point-of-view chapter plan of Ws.5a is not used again in Dombey and Son, it does reveal Dickens’s enduring interest in the power of focalisation to move the reader. An innovation intended to intensify empathy for the dying child, it prepares for the more sustained ironized first person narratives of childhood in his later fiction.

Second quarter: Florence alone and the second marriage

In the number plan for Ws.6 p.63, Dickens declares that he must “throw the interest of Paul at once [editor’s italics] on Florence” (2). He knows what he plans to do, but finds it difficult to discover how to do it. There are signs of uncertainty in the changes of hand, the varied positioning of entries and the thinness of material concerning Florence. The opening ch.17 seems to preoccupy him, particularly the part that the father has in it. Dombey’s hostility towards Florence has to be sufficiently fierce to make the memory of it a source of guilt, and motivate the remorse implied by (6). Yet it must not result in so painful a scene that it precludes further development of their relationship.

Knowing that he has less time—February being a short month—in Ws.6 Dickens abandons chapter planning of the sort evident in chs.13–16. He reverts to record keeping, similar to but more detailed than the one-line entries of Ws.1–3. The summary for ch.17 (later 18) is the fullest record, entered after composition (see ‘Title and summary of ch.17’ p.65). As in the past, he relies on “invention” rather than “planning” to carry him through each chapter. In this way, despite difficulties, he completes Ws.6, even extending the worksheet’s function in one respect.

Progressive corrosion suggests that the left-hand entry concerning Cuttle’s watch is a final note, added after Dickens completes the summary of ch.19. He makes the note at this point, expecting that the detail will be used and perhaps further developed later on. Similar last minute ‘memo-ing’—tagging an idea by its isolated entry on the lower left-hand page—recurs in later worksheets of the second quarter, another step in the development of worksheet,

Though he seldom records how a number begins, in the opening ch.17 (later 18) he keeps a record of the start of ch.17 (later 18), inserting the household’s “state of mind” (Ws.613 p.63). In Ws.10 a similar late entry—but another afterthought and ‘memo’ on the lower left-hand half—reminds Dickens to enlarge on the way the servants act “as a sort of chorus” in the second half of the novel (see Ws.107 p.83). He adds the qualification “sort of” because he has by then already dramatised the way members of the household interact with one another as well as intrude rather than comment on life above stairs.

By transposing chs.17 and 18 at proof stage, Dickens may wish to avoid two successive chapters on the counter plot and, at the same time, bring immediate comic relief to readers of the one-volume edition, after the pathos of the previous chapter. Although he always strives to engage his readers in an opening chapter, which the first half of ch.17 certainly does, he may also, on reflection, want to move the chapter away from that position, because of his apprehension over the effect of its final scene. The transposition incidentally reveals that he enters the monthly update of his “List of Chapter Headings” before proofs arrived (see ‘Appendix C’ p.176). However, when they did, he immediately realised that, quite untypically, he had overestimated the length of his copy. He rushes from Paris to London to supply more text.

The worksheet for No.7 is prefaced by the lengthy (and unique) account, in bright blue, of the circumstances and motives of Mrs Skewton and her daughter. By establishing Edith’s background, it prepares for her ambivalent coolness prior to marriage. Below this prefatory account, Dickens makes just two entries in black, Ws.73 & 4 p.71. They prepare for what was initially intended as a very long opening chapter during which Dombey, on a visit to Leamington Spa, egged on by his travelling partner Major Bagstock, begins his rush into a second marriage. He then titles and composes the number in a bright blue ink, adding the title for ch.20 to the worksheet. The final items on the left-hand side—also in bright blue, entered adjacent to ch.22—are probably a hurried plan to extend ch.22, made during its composition. He appears to have approached his prepared ending sooner than expected (see ‘Additional plan’ p.73, for a reconstruction of his movements and the use of bright blue).

The only entry in the chapter description space (Ws.7 p.71) notes how Carker plants his spy Rob in Sol’s shop (15), a crucial plot device contrived early, on the presumption that Florence will probably go there, anxious for news of Walter. Once again surveying a completed but rather spare worksheet, he adds a final entry (5), a memo of the location of the backstory of Harriet. He anticipates her importance to the action, midway on the social scale between the rich and the destitute, and purposefully located on the great North road. She replaces her brother’s part in the story, who is now for the most part redundant with the change of plan for Walter. This entry (Ws.75) and Cuttle’s watch (Ws.65 p.63), the list of names (Ws.810 p.75) and the reminder about the servant chorus (Ws.107 p.83), are all final entries noted for their later potential, probably entered as Dickens surveys a completed worksheet.

The number plan and commentary for No.8 reveal the dilemma now facing him. On the one hand, he wants to give the novel a pleasing shapeliness by postponing the courtship to No.9, and therefore the wedding to No.10. On the other hand, he knows how difficult it will be to generate a narrative centred on Florence—especially in Dombey’s absence—from his experience of producing No.6. Of the ten entry groups in the number plan for No.8, only half are used to plan and compose its three chapters. Like the number plans for the other midway instalments of the first and third quarters, the plan is strategic, i.e. undertaken in the light of what is to follow (cf. Ws.3 and Ws.13). A letter to Forster adds to our understanding of his view of the impasse, and incidentally how he now construes preparation for composition as planning and invention, in that order:

I have only just begun [No.8]. I have been trying for three or four days, but really have only just begun. I am particularly anxious not to anticipate in this No. what I design for the next, and consequently must plan and invent for it. […] Deepest of despondency (as usual in commencing Nos.) (L5: 55).

The curtailed worksheet for Ws.8 (p.75), like that of Ws.7, shows that, if short of time and/or in adverse circumstances, Dickens may jettison chapter descriptions altogether, and fall back on chapter titling alone as the principal reminder of contents, supplemented of course by the relevant number plan entries.

Misfortune dogs him in the months following his dash to London to complete No.6: the serious illness of Charley, his eldest son, at school in London, which enforced the family’s return in March during Ws.7; the difficult birth of Sidney, his seventh child, which so shocked Dickens that he is unable to work on Ws.8 for several days in April; then in May, a third mischance befalls him. A severe horse-bite leaves a nervous weakness in his writing arm (the right), delaying his start on Ws.9. His letters at the time confirm that, although he may plan and make a start on the opening ch.26 earlier in the month, he is physically unable to write at any length, until after he leaves for Brighton on 17 May to recover from the accident.

The number plan for No.9 is the shortest so far, Dickens perhaps hoping that it can be chapter-planned throughout, as in the penultimate and final worksheet for the first quarter. The weakness in his writing arm helps to explain number plan’s brevity and the planning together of two final chapters. The weakness may also account for the unusual large rounded hand of all three chapter titles, probably entered after the strain of writing the number. Hand and layout suggest that they are entered together, into the spaces left for them by the plans, a gapping tactic that he seems to have used for the first time in the ‘Plan for ch.13’ (see Ws.4 p.53).

Throughout Ws.9, he makes all entries in the worksheet in black, whereas he uses a bright blue ink to compose each chapter, except for the opening pages of ch.26. The commentary on Ws.9 shows how the two changes (moving from black to blue and back twice) enables Dickens to preserve his supply of the quick-drying bright blue for composition. In both number and chapter plan, he emphasises, by underlining, the significance of the preparatory ploy that connects Carker with Edith “before the wedding” (Ws.92, 13 & 14 p.79).

Still “bring[ing] on the marriage gradually” (Ws.92), in Ws.10 (p.83), Dickens abandons early an attempt in the light of his experience of No.7 at a two-chapter plan. He divides the marriage material in entries (4) and (6), so that he can end the second quarter with a wedding climax. Concerned as much with what follows the instalment as the instalment itself, the number plan prepares for the later development of Feenix, Miss Tox, Harriet, and the servant chorus. A detail concerning the marriage “coming off” (5) may be a left-hand side addition to the adjacent end plan for chapter thirty, made there because of the lack of space on the right-hand side. However, the contrast of hand between (5) and (18) and some similarity of entry (5) to entries (4) and (6) suggest that it is noted during number planning, because of its special significance as a crucial moment in the characterisation of Dombey.

Dickens’s initial entry for ch.30 is a note of the text for the closing tableau, an end plan comparable to the endings of the chapter plans for Ws.4a and 5, and to the single entry end plan for ch.55. Planning is suggested by the deletion and re-ordering of “kneeling” and the insertion of “lying” (18). However, the note “Preparations for Cousin Feenix” (17), with its often-overlooked diagonal slash, is probably another memo to himself of the sort that records the location of a detail for future use. Referring to Feenix’s association with the Brooke Street house, it also anticipates his later role as the senior family member at the wedding and beyond.

The two contrasting uses of the chapter description space are nicely illustrated in the entries for chs.29 and 31. As a summary, the notes for ch.29 are an orderly and stylish list, uniform in hand with title and carefully laid out, describing the content of the chapter in general terms. As a plan of a special sort, the notes for ch.31 delineate the structure of the day, giving a salient-point outline, which Dickens can elaborate from his easy recall of many imaginary rehearsals of the chapter. Apparently observing events as they happen, he lays down a tightly structured through plan to help him manage the narrative, and pace it to its measured end. The imperative “Begin” and the elided directive “back to dawn” confirm planning intent. Far from being occasional, as Butt and Tillotson imply in their summary (Butt and Tillotson, p.27), the detailed through plan will be matched by another quarterly climax at the end of No.15.

The worksheets of the second quarter as a whole reveal Dickens’s determination to control the shape of the story, even if it means writing the occasional weaker chapter. He does so by extending the portrayal of the grieving Florence alone and without family support, sharing the narrative between Florence in Nos.6 and 8 and Dombey in Nos.7 and 9. He then plans to “bring […] the marriage on gradually” in Ws.9, so that a climax can be reached in No.10. Despite the disruption caused by family illness, his wife’s difficult labour and his own accident, he always manages to complete each worksheet, though obviously hindered by circumstances and by difficulties in the story itself. Nevertheless, from Ws.6 to Ws.8, the number plans successively lose structure and extension. Compelled to “invent” rather than “plan” he very soon abandons chapter descriptions, whether plan or summary.

In Ws.9 and 10, Dickens recovers the development of the worksheet that he reached in Ws.5. Reviving an important device—begun in chs.13–15 (Ws.4 and 5)—in chs.26, 27 and 28, he leaves a space blank for chapter title and plans the chapter. Having composed and titled the chapter, and perhaps revised it during composition, he enters the title in the space left for it in the worksheet.121 As before, Dickens identifies the lower left-hand space as an opportunity to memo ideas for future numbers (Ws.107). Once more in ch.30, he leaves recapitulations and lead-ins to invention and, by planning endings, anticipates the scope for narrative that precedes it (see ch.30). However, in the unusually long climactic chapter that closes the quarter, he through-plans the whole from dawn to dawn, ending as before with Carker on horseback. He finds the involvement of Carker, Dombey and Edith particularly absorbing, judging from the number of entries that concern them.

Third quarter: Marriage breakdown and Cuttle’s life in the shop

Delaying the Dombey story in No.11, Dickens brings on the Mrs Brown subplot that will lead to the pursuit of Carker, to his death and ultimately to Dombey’s ruin. Throughout the third quarter, he skilfully counterpoints the main plot with his many supporting intrigues, with the notable exception of No.14, where he once more interweaves narratives concerned with Dombey and Florence. The more numerous entries in each number plan reflect the growing complexity of the novel, as he introduces, advances or delays the various threads.

While the plots thicken in the third quarter, Dickens is also working quite deliberately on another sort connection between entries. The notes show how alert he is to pointedly draw out the various contrasting parallels of the third quarter: the “companion pictures” of the homes of the two brothers (Ws.111 p.87), the “contrast” of the two mothers and daughters (26); in Ws.12 (p.91), the “at home” of Dombey and that of the Toodles (14) and (22); and the “New Voices” in Mrs Skewton’s death “in contrast to Paul’s” (Ws.1334 p.95). Finally, before getting far into the composition of No.15, he makes his calculation of Florence’s age (Ws.6a), and checks it against the timing of the second anniversary of Dombey’s wedding, so that Edith can elope on the day of the second anniversary of “her wedding-Day” as part of her revenge (Ws.152 p.103).

There is an understandable tendency in accounts of the working notes to emphasise the separateness of the left-hand number plan from the right-hand chapter plan—a separation which is strengthened by the use of the word ‘page’ to describe either half. Chapter plans are expected to derive from number plans, as they usually do. In the first quarter, we have seen how some chapter plans, distinct from the more frequent right-hand chapter records, are entered on the left-hand half and used in a specific chapter during composition (Ws.38–11 and Ws.4a). In the second quarter, one left-hand entry Ws.105 (p.83) is obviously intended for a specific chapter. In that instance, a chapter plan detail—Mr Dombey musing at table—displaced to the left-hand half later leaks back to the right-hand half during composition. Conversely, the chapter plan Ws.5a, and perhaps Ws.4a as well, are probably employed as separate sheets during the composition of individual chapters, before they are attached to the left-hand side.

In Ws.11–14, the relation between the left and right-hand side becomes more involved, largely because each number and chapter plan is longer and more detailed. Dickens sometimes goes between the two, treating them as interdependent rather than derivative. The plan for the opening ch.35 of Ws.12 p.91 is complementary to the corresponding entries in number plan; there is little overlap between the left-hand entries (2) and (3) and the right-hand entries (12)–(15). In Ws.13 (p.95), while the first item of entry (5) “Progress of domestic unhappiness” describes the general situation of the plan for ch.40, the second item “extravagance” is unmentioned but presumed in the chapter plan and written into the chapter during composition. In the same way, Bagstock’s presence—noted in the number plan (4)—is woven into the final section of the chapter but not mentioned in its plan. In Ws.14 (p.99), the number plan for ch.42 makes it clear that Dombey’s intention is “to reduce proud Edith” so that, in the chapter plan, Dombey’s “instructions” need not be defined.

In Ws.11, however, the relation is more elaborate than any of the above. The number plan entries that relate to the opening chapter of the quarter ch.32 are unusually extended in entries (2)–(5). Dickens closely interweaves the left-hand entries (2)–(5) for ch.32 with the right-hand entries (12)–(16), so that in composition his entries become re-ordered as follows—(2), (4), (12), (13), (3), (15), (16)—while (14) is threaded into Toot’s entry at (4) and his exit after (3). The “Glimpse of the chicken” entry (14) seems to reply to the otherwise unanswered entry (5) “Mr Toots and the chicken - qy”. As readers, we can only assemble the two plans in the order suggested by their substance and appearance on the page. Dickens, on the other hand, can in his imagination separate and combine the materials of each entry, until he is satisfied with the narrative they generate. Although Dickens’s summaries, like his plans, sometimes presume the substance of an entry in the number plan—compare for example Ws.41 & 10 (p.51)—none except ch.17 (later 18) have as intricate a relation to their number as the plan for ch.32. In this instance, the process being so intertwined confirms that the chapter description for ch.32 is a chapter plan.

With regard to ink changes in the quarter, a very limited supply of bright blue ink is reserved for the final ch.34 (cf. Nos.7 and 9). The commentary of Ws.12 again assumes that the use of blue—on this occasion a faint watery blue ink—is entirely consecutive, like the bright blue of Ws.7 (setting aside the unique entry Ws.72). The assumption again results in a more economical solution to the order-of-entry conundrum. Consecutiveness in the use of faint blue confirms that the title and description of ch.36 (later 37) follows its composition (and is a summary), and that the title and description of ch.37 (later 38) precedes its composition (and is a plan). Thus it also confirms that the accompanying indications used to identify the descriptions—similarity of title and description in ch.36 (later 37) and the directive and deletion in ch.37 (later 38)—are generally reliable.

The haphazard entries of Ws.13 (p.95) are similar to those of other midway worksheets, with the difference that almost all of its many entries find a place in the number in hand. Number planning is more tightly focused. The timing of related threads (Susan’s dismissal and the installation of Pipchin) becomes more pressing as the crisis approaches. Nevertheless, as in the number plans of the other four worksheets of this quarter, some entries look to later instalments (see (13) and (14)).

Generally the chapter planning in the third quarter is more consistent in length, though still varying in the extent of its detail. The distinction between end-plans and through-plans is less evident. Most cover a series of salient points in each chapter, as though Dickens has now found the range of predictive allusion that is most useful to him. Having marked so emphatically the close of the first two quarters, he seems to have anticipated doing the same in the third. The notes show him planning to slow Carker’s involvement in the marriage break-up (Ws.126). At first in Ws.15 (p.103), he plans to end with a climatic ch.48 (later 47), comparable to chs.16 and 31. He explains why he had to alter this initial plan; he re-adjusts their order, to leave the reader in a “pleasanter” frame of mind at the end of the number, dwelling on his reasoning as if—reluctant to lose a close parallel with the final chapters of Nos.5 and 10—he needed to reassure himself of the rightness of the decision (Ws.156 p.103).

In contrast to previous climactic ch.31 that closed the second quarter, ch.48 later 47 (p.103) has only one indication of planning intent, the substitution of “matter” for “reflection”, implying that the substance of the digression should be more a matter of fact than opinion. The exposition concerning the development of Florence and the description of events that follows might be found in a summary, with the exception of the final sequence. Dickens attends to the close, anticipating that its outline will be a helpful aid to smoothing the transitions in a rapid and accelerating narrative. His concern for this basic but important aspect of the storyteller’s craft—the management of the pace of different transitions—becomes explicit in the chapter plans of the double number (see Ws.19&20a33 p.123).

Although in the third quarter the scope of the worksheet entries enlarges with the entanglements of the story, there are no further developments in the sort of entry that Dickens makes there, other than those that show his interest in drawing out contrasting parallels between groups separated by social class and between events separated by time. As the worksheets accumulate, we can begin to see more clearly how he may use them retrospectively. He would certainly look back to pick out those entries that explicitly cue material for the next number (Ws.83 & 4 and Ws.132 & 14 pp.75 and 95) and those entries made “with an eye to the future” (Ws.118 p.87), particularly those to do with “the Machinery of the Tale” (e.g. Ws.715 or Ws.1512 pp.71 and 103). He might watch the left-hand pages for those queries or underlined entries that, for a variety of reasons, might need further attention. Finally, when he needed to check the temporal consistency of the narrative, it seems very likely that he used both the left and right-hand of the accumulating worksheets, as a guide to accessing and tracking detail in his collection of the more distant back numbers. The small sheet Ws.6a undertaken at the start of No.15 shows how he uses worksheet and back number to calculate Florence’s age and the timing of the elopement. No doubt he would do the same to check continuity of other details, particularly where the effect of retrospection intensifies pathos, for example, in the many departure scenes.

The later worksheets from Ws.9 to Ws.16 show that, in the creation of a chapter, from the imagined narrative to the finished text, there may be a continuing process of change. Beginning with an imagined narrative, Dickens has many opportunities to rehearse and change it. He may adjust the narrative to his number plan. He may eventually weave it into a putative chapter plan. He may revise the plan during its notation, hence the occasional query, deletion and revision. He may expand on what he has planned on the page, as he composes. He may also adjust its order, alter its emphasis, or insert new materials. Finally, even at proof stage, he has the opportunity to divide, transpose, add, correct or cut. The operation of such a varied cumulative method of working—apart from his powers of imagination—rests on an unusually retentive memory for detail and confident security of recall, as discussed in ‘Memory, speech-making and planning’, p.134.

Fourth quarter: Denouement

The last quarter of the novel falls into two sections, the first leading up to Carker’s death and Florence’s wedding (Nos.16–18), and the second to Dombey’s ruin and Florence’s reconciliation first to her father and then to Edith (Nos.19&20). Both sections are treated in a distinctively different way in their respective worksheets.

Number planning, already shrinking in Ws.15, diminishes as plotlines advance and the denouement becomes more predictable. In Ws.16 and 17, right-hand half entries are written in a fluent, even hand with a decisiveness that comes from Dickens’s concentration on a closed set of problems. Forward-looking entries in the previous quarter suggest that he already has in mind how many of the intrigues are to be resolved and the few past mysteries explained, but in this quarter, he attends to when and in what order.

In Ws.16 (p.107), number planning is restricted to the romance plot, represented by the single entry “Return of Walter”. In the number plan for Ws.17 (p.111), entry (1) sets up the chase, entry (2) prepares for the part Harriet will play later, through the connection to Morfin, and for her role in relation to Alice, and entry (3) announces the alteration to Dickens’s intentions for Edith. Carker’s death opens Ws.18. Dickens then devotes the rest of No.18 to the counter plot, restoring the community of the now crowded Shop and preparing for the marriage of the lovers (Ws.182–5 p.115).

In the three worksheets Ws.16–18, it is often difficult to detect with any certainty the function of the chapter descriptions, largely because so many entries are very brief. Nevertheless, whereas most chapter descriptions in the third quarter are chapter plans, in the last quarter before the double number, plans and summaries seem more evenly divided (see ‘Appendix B’ p.171). Dickens, with a clear idea of what remains to be done, has less need for chapter planning. For some chapters—those especially concerned with the “Machinery”, for example the chapters of No.17—he borrows from the conventions of melodrama, preferring to control the detail of how to resolve the various plots in his imagination alone, as he did throughout previous novels (see the letter to Gaylord Clark, p.135). After the composition of each chapter, he keeps a brief, orderly record, presumably to provide a quickly accessible check on what he has covered.

Just because of the way these bare summaries pare down narrative, they often reveal Dickens’s debt to theatre. They may give dramatis personae and setting, entrances and exits, forshadowings and climaxes, e.g. “Alice & Good Mrs Brown”, “French men laying the supper”, “To them Mr Dombey”, “He [Morfin] shadows forth Mr Dombey’s ruin” and “Scene between them [Edith and Carker]”.

Nevertheless, many chapter descriptions in the final quarter can be identified as plans. The planning of ch.51, for example, a preparatory chapter that motivates the pursuit, shows planning intent by its deletions and revisions, by the re-ordering of its entries in composition and by making good an omission, the return of Mrs Chick to query the whereabouts of Florence. The description of ch.55, though brief, prepares for composition by a draft of the closing text (10), then, judging by the contrast of hand and layout, notes back in time to Carker’s twofold “progress” towards Death (9)—referring to the emotional logic of the narrative, as well as his physical journey. The teasingly oblique title follows, its underlines positioned midway between title and the text below. The style of the title’s entry in the manuscript confirms that Dickens devises it early; he may enter it there, as he begins to write the chapter. Dickens may also plan the middle ch.56. He appears to insert the title during composition; so in the worksheet, he leaves a generous gap, then plans by tilting the line, cramping his entries but keeping each group distinct and the order of incidents clear, and closing with the Chicken’s final delivery.

Planning the double number

Dickens’s worksheet for the double number is his plan for concluding the main plot (the failure of the Firm and the bankruptcy of Dombey), its inner plot (the relation of Dombey and daughter) and for winding-up the storylines of most named supporting characters.

In the number plan (Ws.19&20 p.119), he goes to the heart of the novel, preparing for the final stage in the relationship of father and daughter with entry (2) the birth of her child that moves Florence to relent and forgive, and entry (3) the repeated rhetorical device for ch.57 “Let him remember” prepared for in the left-hand side of Ws.6 (p.63). The power of memory to re-value the past and transform the present leads to Dombey’s breakdown and to his rescue from suicide by Florence. With entry (4), Dickens is anticipating that the intensity of the reconciliation will need to be balanced by comedy. He details a broad comic inversion of male power in the main plot, and of romance in the counter plot, by winding up the MacStinger thread with the helpless Bunsby being processed like a slave towards marriage—to Cuttle’s disbelief and discomfort.

The remaining left-hand entries are a unique rollcall of most named characters (excluding those mentioned in the number plan so far) in order to re-use or revive them in a way that completes their story. The proofs show the close attention Dickens gives to completing this curtain call of all the players (see commentary on Ws.19&20a p.125).

Turning to the right-hand half, with the same corroding black as that of the rollcall, Dickens plans ch.58. After its composition, he plans ch.59 in a denser black, then uses an unusual greeny blue ink to compose ch.59. When he returns to the worksheet and wafers Ws.19&20a into position—assuming his use of the ink is consecutive and unbroken, as seems likely—we can track his greeny blue entries from then on. He titles chs.58 and 59, titles and plans ch.60, enters a key idea for the next (as yet unnumbered) chapter, and lastly enters the number and title of the final chapter ch.62, all in greeny blue, after which he returns to black for the last time, to plan and compose ch.60. Without the ink change, the breaks within chapters and the movement between them would probably go undetected. This striking example of how an unbroken use of a coloured ink and quill affects entry order confirms comparable outcomes of the other isolated colour changes noted in Ws.7 and 12.

Many of the indications used to identify chapter planning in previous worksheets also appear in what is generally agreed to be self-evident chapter planning in the double number:

• the directives as in entries (17), (33) and (45)
• the preparation of text as in entries (22), (32) and (45)
• the inclusion of important detail in the manuscript that is omitted in planning, for example, the omission of Mrs Brown’s back story in ch.58, or the omission of the apt part that Polly plays in ch.59, or of the role in ch.61 that Walter, as guide and protector, has in arranging Florence’s meeting with Edith, and accompanying her to Brook Street
• the re-ordering of a plan in composition (see ‘Composition and titling of ch.62’ in Ws.19&20a p.125).

The re-ordering of earlier chapter plans in composition—in ch.26, for example, where the action follows Bagstock from the hotel to Mrs Skewton’s and back—are minor adjustments, however, compared to those of ch.62. The difference arises from the greater compression of planning and composition in the double number. Dickens anticipated that managing such a variety of different problems in the double number would require a longer period of undisturbed concentration, which gave him the opportunity in the composition of ch.62 to reorder, recombine and add to what he had planned.

Two general planning procedures occur, also confirming the practice in previous worksheets, both associated with the use of greeny blue ink. They are the delay in titling chapters (chs.58–60) and the planning of two related chapters at the same time (chs.60 and 61). In the worksheets for single instalments, Dickens plans chs.33 and 34 together, and occasionally delays titling until a later chapter (see for example ‘Appendix B’, ch.26 p.169).

Dickens attends to planning rapid transitions in the double number, just as he did earlier worksheets. In ch.60, because of the number and variety of incidents, he points up how the narrative is to be carried from place to place by Cuttle (see entry (33) in Ws.19&20a p.123). For much the same reason, the management of transition becomes of special concern in planning the crises of climactic chapters in previous quarters (see ‘Planning for transitions’, p.140).

Mention has been made earlier how, from Ws.4 onwards, when Dickens plans chapters, he regularly defines their endings. In the more detailed chapter plans for Ws.5, he begins each chapter plan by identifying its end. When he returns to chapter planning in Ws.9, whether the chapter plan is an outline or more extended, he anticipates the detail of its ending. The procedure is especially evident in the closing chapter of each instalment.

However, in the double number, except for the final ch.62, planning each chapter’s end is not a priority. In the absence of a lengthy number plan for the double instalment, chapter plans have to carry considerably more information than most of the plans for the single issues. Consequently, Dickens, while adding more matter as the opportunity arises in narration, also appears to rely on his memory to recall the retrospective allusions that end each chapter.

For example, the closing subject of the plan of the first chapter of the double number ch.58 “Alice’s repentance and death” (18) is expanded in the text to include Alice’s last wish that her mother reveal her blood relation to Edith, which is unmentioned in the chapter plan (though of course regularly hinted at earlier in the novel). The revelation leads to the long cadence to Alice’s death, in which Dickens pleads for compassionate understanding of the harsh environment of “the mortal house on which the rain had beaten [...] in the wintry wind”, an ending that recalls the ending of ch.33 entitled “Contrasts” in which Alice (unnamed) kisses Harriet when she leaves (465511, cf. 786871).

Similarly, in the longest chapter of the number ch.59, Dickens ends not on the Florence’s rescue of her father, the last note in its chapter plan (26), but on Miss Tox, who now perhaps for the last time coaxes the “bullet-headed” Robin into respectability, and on Polly. Unmentioned in the chapter plan, the latter is crucial to the chapter’s end. He cues her presence by means of Mrs Pipchin’s summons of a person she remembers as “Richards” to be her replacement—as she prepares to ride back to Brighton (rejoining Berinthia and Pankey) by Fly van in the comfort of Dombey’s study chair, the “dead bargain of the sale” (793–94879–80). The chapter ends by repeating another contrast, the “shrill delight” awaiting Polly at her home in comparison with Dombey’s deserted mansion “frowning like a dark mute on the street” (804892). The same extraordinary combination of innovation, reference and allusion characterises the end of all the other chapters; Dickens applies his energies and inventiveness to redoubling the reader’s sense of a shared experience that is coming to a close.

While he revives and reuses recollection, he is also aware of the contours of each chapter, as he nears the boundary of the third printers sheet and the forty-eighth page of print. The critical chapter in that connection is ch.61. He accelerates Dombey’s convalescence (37), so that he can devote the rest of the chapter to the longest unified passage of the double number, the final meeting of Florence and Edith (pp.613–20 in the part issue). Estimating forty-two MS pages for forty-eight of print and knowing that even a short final chapter requires a minimum of four MS pages, he cuts and pastes on the final page of ch.61 MS p.38, probably to shorten the last exchanges of Florence and Edith. However, having once saved space, he then cannot resist extending Feenix’s gloriously comic pastiche of rhetoric and allusion by cramming in seven very closely written lines at the bottom of the page. He signs off his roll call (3)-(12) and its query of “Edith and Florence - certainly Edith and Cousin Feenix” (5), entering a heartfelt celebratory “Yes. All three”, doubly underlining and marking the final entry of the worksheet (see Ws.19&20 p.119).

In executing his plan for the last chapter of the double number, true to his commitment to carry out “his care of him [Dombey] and his to the last”, he radically changes the plan for ch.62, altering its emphasis and order. Instead of narrating the story of his protagonists’ good fortune and success, he presents their future in three scenes introduced by a refrain concerned with “buried wine”, derived from entry (44). The refrain, repeated twice, is written on the back of the manuscript, and coded for insertion, with his instruction to the compositor to leave a “white line”, marking the passage of time between scenes, which makes possible, among other happy outcomes, the birth and growth of Florence’s second child.

In the manuscript, the anticipated close “End with sea [...] and the invisible country far away” (Ws.19&2045) is rewritten and lengthened. Dickens adds a paragraph on the significance of the voices in the waves to Dombey, speaking of his altered heart and Florence’s “eternal and illimitable” love. Thus having given her love transcendent as well as moral significance, he addresses in a second paragraph what it might mean if her love were ultimately to be refused. The paragraph seems to imply that it is better to die young like Paul than to live on to become an aged Dombey, unaltered and redeemed by memory. 122 The tension between the two paragraphs may contribute to the cancellation of both.

Although Dickens did overwrite the number slightly, the deletion of the last two paragraphs could perhaps have been avoided, even with the late additions (see endnote 99). However, by their deletion he avoids contention, ending not on Dombey’s “devotion to her little child – as if it were another Paul” or on the two children “as they go about together” but on his special attachment to little Florence, for reasons “known to no one but Florence”. The paradox of the ‘untold’ story, implicit in Dombey’s special relation to his granddaughter, is an oblique reminder—like the retrospective planning of the double number—of a story that has been told and in the final telling told again. Aware of the hazards of blank verse, he concludes with a sonorous heartfelt line “and smooths away the curls that shade her earnest eyes”.123