Really fascinating information here today -
Pat H - I loved reading about your attempt to trace the origin of the opium plants.
Nasty-looking gunky brown goo--none of us was even slightly tempted to try to figure out how to sample it.
Too bad you hadn't been reading Edwin Drood at the time - you might have learned to heat and mix it until it was the right consistancy to put in your pipes and smoke it!
I gather it is now illegal to do such a thing - even in the name of science?
Andy - pack warm duds for upstate NY next week. I still can't figure why Dickens would have risked his life in that freezing cold river outside of Albany in the winter - to save the drowning livestock. What does this say about him? He loves animals? I do too, but wouldn't risk my own life for even one sheep. Well, maybe to save my little Gaela - but these were sheep and pigs!
We know Dickens had some dogs - and of course his pet raven, Grip. I think a raven is a weird pet too,
Ella. Thanks for Poe's poem - it was good to read it again. Matthew mentions Poe's conversation with Dickens - concerning William Godwin's novel - in which he wrote the second half of
Caleb Williams before writing the first part?
I noted it, thinking there was some reason for bringing it up here - and sure enough, I see it again in the Fifth Installment, so I won't go into it more here. The whole idea of writing the second half of a novel, before writing the first part caught my attention though. Why mention it here? Did Dickens like this idea - and return to America to write the second half, the ending of Edwin Drood BEFORE he wrote the 6 installments that we consider the first part?
Matthew, is it a fact that this is how William Godwin wrote his novel? And is it a fact that Dickens spoke to Poe about this - or is this part of your storytelling?
JoanK - you've got me interested in reading Dickens'
American Notes now. Of course he'd be interested in "the abject state of the press" and the lack of International copyright law in America. He's losing a lot of money. It seems he was more interested in this subject during his first trip - by 1867 he seems to have given it up as a lost cause, wouldn't you say? As Marcie says, he wasn't seeing any of the profit from the sale of all those products based on his characters - like the Dickens' Christmas game.
Also on my desk top I see a note regarding the George Parkman murder case -
Andy brought us a link describing the trial and how Parkman's body was identified and his murderer convicted - from his dentures. DIckens was quite interested in this case as related by Oliver Wendal Holmes - it seems to have had an effect on Dickens own story, though we never did see anything about Edwin Drood being identified by the ring in his pocket that did not dissolve in the lime pit.
I'm wondering whether any of this conversation with Holmes is fact - and if Holmes really did accompany Dickens to the basement of the Medical College.... 
