of childhood to the notion that a stranger may be observing and judging one’s Christmastime recollections. The 1850 number establishes important foundations and traditions from which the future numbers consistently draw but that the 1851 number does not necessarily enhance, leading one to feel a keen need for the kind of narrative organization that Dickens devises for 1852. Had the numbers stagnated as loose assemblages of fairly random thoughts about Christmas, their future would probably have been limited and unimpressive. Beginning in 1852, however, the framing that emerges significantly advances what the multivocal collections are able to accomplish.
2
Reading in Circles: From Numbers to Rounds
(1852–53)
A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1852) and Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1853) are the first Christmas numbers for which Dickens uses a loose concept to hold the contributions together. Although the Christmas fire acts as a reliably familiar symbol, the relationships of the people telling tales around it and the stories of the Rounds are fraught with complication. The contributions for the two Rounds, which come from thirteen authors, range from parables to ghost stories to poems of intense loss. Each piece bears the title of its teller: the host, the guest, the schoolboy, and Uncle George, for instance. In drawing upon oral storytelling modes with the round structure, Dickens creates a narrative atmosphere in which collaboration exists as part of a repetitive, polyphonic form.
Attention to the complicated narrative structure of these numbers reveals a Dickens whose contributors’ voices often destabilize his own. Considering the vocal qualities of the round as a form illuminates a new interpretive angle for the musical metaphor in Dickens’s role as the “conductor” of Household Words. Calling the 1852 and 1853 collections Rounds also implies a circular form that links each segment to the others through the others; this circle has a center, but its top changes depending on the tilt of one’s ear. Laurel Brake speaks of the periodical press “articulating eloquently . . . a cacophony of presence and absence.”1 The sometimes-jarring juxtapositions of tales in these collections can certainly feel cacophonous, and the loudest voices in the din sometimes come from the unnamed contributors. Those names may have been absent from the title page, but the noise that they make, and their existence as part of the “Dickens” of the Christmas numbers, prompts one to reconsider the pitch of that iconic voice.
A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire
The first Christmas number to have a unique title, the 1852 compilation suggests that a blaze for the holiday might differ uniquely from other fires, but for its content, Dickens seems to have realized that the previous numbers had exhausted the numbers’ ability to keep specifically Christmas-themed writing interesting. In a letter to Reverend James White, Dickens shares his plan for the 1852 issue: “I propose to give the number some fireside name, and to make it consist entirely of short stories supposed to be told by a family sitting round the fire. I don’t care about their referring to Christmas at all; nor do I design to connect them together, otherwise than by their names.”2 Dickens’s declaration that he does not aim to “connect” the stories beyond the names might nudge future readers (and scholars) who value the intentionality of an author away from a cohesive approach to the text. That the writers did not discuss a shared strategy for their stories can lead to a view of the numbers as miscellanies—bits of discrete fiction that one can easily pluck apart. Dickens had edited Bentley’s Miscellany from its launch in January 1837 to February 1839 and fostered a much more unified vision for Household Words, but even he might seem to have encouraged a fragmented approach to the Christmas collections when he republished some of his own pieces without all of their original counterparts.3 The form itself, however, and the mandate of the collection titles lead in a different direction; threads of connection between and across all nineteen stories in the two Rounds are abundant. Closely examining the linkages between the stories not only results in stronger textual interpretations but also subverts the notion that Dickens is a figure with a single, stable voice.
Nine authors contribute to A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire, and each title locates a speaker around the fire while isolating an identifying characteristic. The titles are more complicated than what Dickens describes to White and include nonrelatives, such as the deaf playmate, which evidences a flexible editor adjusting the frame in response to the contributions he receives. The finalized titles also signal that the assembled speakers are not complete strangers without explaining each relationship precisely. Even after some of the narrators address one another, the narrative revels in the ambiguity of this set of relationships. The number’s aesthetic lies partly in its awareness of the rich potentialities embedded in the titles, and the Round even teases its own frame with the broadly titled “Somebody’s Story.” The musical aspect of the collection’s title resonates with the structuring of Dickens’s phenomenally popular A Christmas Carol (1843), whose chapters are called staves, but nine years after the Carol, Dickens imagines singing that is both individual and communal in place of a single song. The initial speaker in a round may contribute an individual voice, but each part in a round can also be sung by the group, and the structure is decidedly circular.4 The fact that voices in a choral round literally overlap encourages readers to break out of a linear mode of reading and invites them to hear the story’s converse.5
The Round’s opening paragraphs immediately draw attention to complicated narrative positioning. “The Poor Relation’s Story” begins:
He was very reluctant to take precedence of so many respected members of the family, by beginning the round of stories they were to relate as they sat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire; and he modestly suggested that it would be more correct if “John our esteemed host” (whose health he begged to drink) would have the kindness to begin. For, as to himself, he said, he was so little used to lead the way, that really—But as they all cried out here, that he must begin, and agreed with one voice that he might, could, would, and should begin, he left off rubbing his hands, and took his legs out from under his armchair, and did begin. (1)
This narrator’s speech temporarily but conspicuously bridges class divisions within the family as the “poor relation” humbly addresses his wealthier relatives and sets up a model for cross-class storytelling from other speakers. More significantly, the listeners encourage him “with one voice,” increasing the feeling of intimacy and closeness among the future narrators and establishing immediately that their voices will overlap. “The Poor Relation’s Story,” written by Dickens, also shows Dickens enlisting his contributors as cheerleaders; he makes them responsible for his narrator being the one to start the round, casting himself in a modest role that hardly matches his confidence as an artist and as an editor.
Shifting into a first-person voice, Michael (the poor relation) continues to reference “the assembled members of our family,” and understanding the possible relationships between those members becomes increasingly complicated as the round continues (1). The aged poor relation shares a tale in which he fantasizes about the life he might have lived if various people had not treated him poorly. A gullible and benevolent man, Michael loses his professional and personal well-being when his wealthy uncle disowns him for proposing marriage to a woman with no fortune. She marries a rich man instead, and Michael’s business partner takes advantage of his trust to force him out. An opposite trajectory of events constitutes his fantasy, and the tale concludes with the disheartening reality that John, the host, provides Michael’s actual financial support. Moving immediately to another contribution from Dickens that continues to develop family bonds among the storytellers, “The Child’s Story” presents a version of the parable of the seven ages via a traveller who experiences all phases of life in a single compressed day.6 The short piece features no real climax, but its conclusion reminds one of the relationships between listeners. The fictional traveller is surrounded at the end of his journey by the people he has lost to death, and their respectful love for
