Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son was Dickens' seventh novel.  It was first published in installments that began in 1846 and ran through 1848.

Dombey and Son - Dickens' Life At The Time

• 1844 - His son Francis Jeffrey (Frank) is born.  Dickens and family travel to Italy.  Treated Madame de la Rue with mesmerism.
• 1845 - Alfred, his sixth child, is born.
• 1846 - Dickens and his family travel to Lausanne, Switzerland.  Publication of Dombey and Son begins.  In November the Dickens family leaves Lausanne and travels to Paris.
• 1847 - In February the Dickens family leaves Paris ahead of schedule and return to England because Charley Dickens has scarlet fever.  On April 18 Sydney Dickens is born to Charles and Kate.
• 1848 - Dickens' sister, Fanny, dies in September.  The Haunted Man, his last Christmas book is published.

The Beginning of Public Readings

While Dickens was in Lausanne he gave a reading of the first installment of Dombey to some of his friends.  It went so well that the later wrote to his friend John Forster, "a great deal of money might possibly be made (if it were not infra  dig) by one's having Readings of one's own books."  This germ of an idea became Dickens' public readings.  

In 1853 Dickens gave the first public reading of one of his works.  He read A Christmas Carol for a charity event.  The readings were a combination of oratory and passionate acting.  They were very popular.  In 1858 he began giving professional readings and continued to do so throughout his life.

Dickens was an electrifying performer.  One of his most popular performances was Sikes and Nancy from Oliver Twist.  It was an exceptionally dramatic selection in which Dickens acted out Nancy's murder.  

When Dickens was performing he threw himself into the characters heart and soul.  So much so that the performances began to endanger his health.  In 1869 his doctor advised him against giving further readings. The strain to his system was too great.  Dickens arranged a farewell tour and gave his last reading in March of 1870.  It is thought that the effects of the readings was one of the factors leading to his death.  

Mems

Dombey and Son is the earliest novel of Dickens for which a complete set of working notes survives.   Dickens called these notes "mems" witch is short for memoranda.  The mems allowed him to keep track of complicated plot lines and the many characters that populate his novels.  

These working notes for Dombey and Son reveal that young Paul Dombey  was doomed to die from the first moment that Dickens created him.  Although he did live for one chapter longer than Dickens originally intended.  Walter Gay was originally intended to go bad was saved from that fate.  Edith, the second Mrs. Dombey, was bound for adultery and death, but Dickens spared her character at the urgings of his friend Lord Jeffrey. 

Themes of Dombey and Son

In her book, The Friendly Dickens, Norrie Epstein states that "Dombey and Son is the closest Dickens ever came to writing a feminist novel."

In the eyes of Mr. Dombey, marriage wasn't about romance.  It was more like a business arrangement:

Mr. Dombey would have reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself must, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any woman of common sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner in such a house, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex.

Mrs. Dombey dies shortly after giving birth to her second child, a long-awaited son.  The eldest Dombey child was a girl and Mr. Dombey didn't see much use in daughters:

But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the House's name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of base coin that couldn't be invested--a bad Boy--nothing more.

Throughout the novel Florence represents the virtues of love, understanding and tenderness.  While Mr. Dombey represents business and logic.  At the end of the novel Mr. Dombey finally turns to the love and affection that his daughter has been offering him all along. 

"And so Dombey and Son, as I observed upon a certain sad occasion," said Miss Tox, winding up a host of recollections, "is indeed a daughter, Polly, after all."

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