Writing Letters to Come to ‘Terms’ with Domestic Economy: Household Management in Dickens’ Early Correspondence

Abstract

In Dickens’ letters, family business dovetails with the negotiation of publishing contracts, as well as with diverse other financial transactions. These business cum private matters partake of Dickens’ epistolary biography. This essay shows how a sample of Dickens’ early correspondence exemplifies this combination of domestic and financial issues. It focuses on the economic misfortune brought about repeatedly by Dickens’ father upon his family, as well as – from a more positive perspective – on Dickens’ prospective domestic economy with his future wife, Catherine Hogarth. This essay considers how, through the very form and content of these letters, Dickens endeavored to come to ‘terms’ literally and literarily with domestic economy. What unfolds before our eyes as we read through these letters is Dickens’ household management in progress, which in turn yields a kind of economic and business knowledge that deserves closer scrutiny. These new insights into Dickens’ letter-writing provide possible connections between literature and economics.