The Material and the Spiritual in Dickens’ A Child’s History of England

Abstract

This essay argues that Dickens’s treatment of spiritual matters in A Child’s History reflects religious turmoil particular to the years of its composition (1850-3). These years coincide with the so-called “papal aggression,” the passage of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and with the introduction of spiritualism to England. These years also coincide with the year of the Great Exhibition, a high note in the Victorian celebration of the material and technological. In A Child’s History, these spiritual and material matters come together in surprising ways. Because Dickens depicts both the druids and Catholics as charlatans who use advanced mechanical knowledge to deceive worshippers, his Child’s History provides a window into anxieties surrounding technology as it became more and more central to Victorians’ lives in the post-Industrial world. This confusion was a byproduct of rapidly developing technology, and Dickens’s portrayal of material and spiritual conflations highlights his concerns about the public’s understanding of technological advancement in his own era.