QUITE UNWORTHY

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 214, 10 September 1928, Page 7

QUITE UNWORTHY

ATTACK ON DICKENS. Son Declines To Answer "Gross Travesty." THE ROBERTS NOVEL. (Australian Presß Assn.—United Service.) (Received 11 a.m.) LONDON", September 9. Judge, Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, son of Charles "Dickens, has reconsidered his intention to traverse the charges against his father contained in Mr. C. B. Roberts' novel, "This Side Idolatry." He says: "Having read as much of it as is necessary I have come to the conclusion that the book is so utterly unworthy of the slightest consideration and such a gross travesty that I must decline to serve the author's purpose by affording it publicity.

"I only desire to add that if anyone had dared to publish such a book 58 years ago when my father died, hundreds of people would have given it the lie. Unhappily they are dead and their evidence is not forthcoming and luckily, having regard to the nature of this book, such evidence is not needed."

Author's Retort. To this Mr. C. B. Roberts replies that he is not surprised that Judge Sir, Henry Dickens has abandoned his previous intention because he had already rebutted every charge of inaccuracy. When the existing material was released from the family ban his interpretation of Charles Dickens' character would be found correct. " He was accused of bad taste by writing a novel around the dead, but it was a legitimate form of historical novel. Moreover Charles Dickens caricatured Leigh Hunt in Skimpole, his own father in Micawber, his mother as Mrs. Nickleby, and Maria Beadnell as Flora Finching, when they were alive.

DICKENS SLANDERS

Attempt To Construe Facts In Worst Way. ALLEGATIONS REFUTED. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) LONDON, September 9. Mr. Frank Johnson, a member of the council of the Dickens Fellowship, says the keynote of Mr. C. B. Roberts' book, "This Side Idolatry," which severely criticises Dickens, is an attempt to construe facts in the worst possible way, by raking over a muck-heap of old slanders.

He says: "A typical instance of Mr. Roberts' methods is his statement that Dickens clandestinely met his old love, Maria Beadnell, the original of Dora in 'David Copperfield.' The truth is that Mrs. Dickens arranged the meet ing. Dickens was so disgusted at her attempted coquetry that he caricatured her as Flora Finching in 'Little Dorritt.'" So far as the trouble between Dickens and his wife is concerned, Sir Henry Dickens (the novelist's son) is holding back letters about it only because he does not want the subject raked up. When they are eventually published it will be seen that the whole thing was quite innocent.

Sir Henry Dickens, commenting on the book, expresses his indignation at the attacks on his father's character, but he says he desires to say no move at present. He will reply fully in a few days. While he is compelled regretfully to give further publicity to Mr. Roberts' book, Sir Henry says it is better to stamp out the allegations now, and vindicate his father's memory, as did Viscount Gladstone in the case of the book by Captain Peter Wright.

Writing in the "Observer" the editor, Mr. J. L. Garvin, says: "The author of 'This Side Idolatry' has collected every ill-natured thing ever whispered about Dickens. Using his own defamatory method he has presented a picture of a hypocrite and a cad. Nevertheless, although it is offensive the book will l>e useful if it compels the publication of letters too long withheld. Attacks are bound to come in the absence of a new. franker and more moving biography.

"There is something to be explained in connection with the deep tragedy el' incompatible temperaments. It was the fault of neither Dickens nor his wife. The marriage of fervent genius with solid prose can be a terrible thing.

"Dickens was not the first man who at the age of 24 fell in love with a family of sisters and married the wrong one. Compared with most historic and imaginative geniuses Dickens was almost a monster of innocence. Ho showed it in every book he wrote."