Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- Notes on references
- PART I LIFE AND AFTERLIFE
- PART II SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
- 12 Popular culture
- 13 The rise of celebrity culture
- 14 The newspaper and periodical market
- 15 Authorship and the professional writer
- 16 The theatre
- 17 Melodrama
- 18 The Bildungsroman
- 19 Visual culture
- 20 The historical novel
- 21 The illustrated novel
- 22 Christmas
- 23 Childhood
- 24 Work
- 25 Europe
- 26 The Victorians and America
- 27 Educating the Victorians
- 28 London
- 29 Politics
- 30 Political economy
- 31 The aristocracy
- 32 The middle classes
- 33 Urban migration and mobility
- 34 Financial markets and the banking system
- 35 Empires and colonies
- 36 Race
- 37 Crime
- 38 The law
- 39 Religion
- 40 Science
- 41 Transport
- 42 Illness, disease and social hygiene
- 43 Domesticity
- 44 Sexuality
- 45 Gender identities
- Further reading
- Index
33 - Urban migration and mobility
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- Notes on references
- PART I LIFE AND AFTERLIFE
- PART II SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
- 12 Popular culture
- 13 The rise of celebrity culture
- 14 The newspaper and periodical market
- 15 Authorship and the professional writer
- 16 The theatre
- 17 Melodrama
- 18 The Bildungsroman
- 19 Visual culture
- 20 The historical novel
- 21 The illustrated novel
- 22 Christmas
- 23 Childhood
- 24 Work
- 25 Europe
- 26 The Victorians and America
- 27 Educating the Victorians
- 28 London
- 29 Politics
- 30 Political economy
- 31 The aristocracy
- 32 The middle classes
- 33 Urban migration and mobility
- 34 Financial markets and the banking system
- 35 Empires and colonies
- 36 Race
- 37 Crime
- 38 The law
- 39 Religion
- 40 Science
- 41 Transport
- 42 Illness, disease and social hygiene
- 43 Domesticity
- 44 Sexuality
- 45 Gender identities
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
Born in the naval town of Portsmouth, Dickens was 3 years old when his family moved to London in 1815. After nearly two years residing in Norfolk Street (now Cleveland Street, w1), just north of Oxford Street, the family moved out of London to Chatham in Kent, returning five years later to the new housing development in Camden Town. While the family's movements were certainly exacerbated by John Dickens's shiftlessness, his employment as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office was also subject to the vagaries of historical circumstance. It was the ending of hostilities at the close of the Napoleonic wars that led to his recall from Portsmouth to London. The end of the wars also marked the beginning of a distinctive period of demographic change in Britain. Over the next generation, during which Dickens came to maturity, many factors would reshape the demographic map. These included the development of new transportation networks (roads, railways and steam ships), industrialisation, a shift of political interest from country to city linked to parliamentary reform, a boom in foreign emigration, and the rapid expansion of towns and cities. Dickens's works both reflected and reflected on the changing national map and told influential stories about a society that was shaped by the movement of people to and within cities.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Charles Dickens in Context , pp. 268 - 275Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011