Matthew Pearl - The Last Dickens

Dickens, standing at his mahogany table at the platform to test the acoustics, glanced toward the spot of Dolby's outburst.

“Chief, you sound first rate from this spot!” said Dolby. “I'll move to the other gallery and listen from there.” Then, turning back to Tom, he said quietly, “Did you know when my predecessor died, it was the Chief himself who wrote the lines on his tombstone?”

“No,” returned Tom. Did Dolby plan on needing a tombstone soon?

Tom thought for a moment of walking right up to the platform and telling the Chief himself his concern. Perhaps Dolby sensed this, as he gave him new orders.

“Remember, Branagan, the special guest is to be seated before anyone else. If there is one thing you will learn from the Chief while in America, it is a consideration for others,” he said. The special guest Dolby referred to had earlier written a letter to Dickens saying she was paralyzed and asking whether the doors to Tremont Temple could be opened for her early. Dickens had complimentary tickets sent to her and had instructed Dolby to make arrangements to ensure her comfort.

When the paralyzed woman arrived, almost weeping with excitement, Tom lifted her inside. As he did, he could see the hundreds of people waiting outside the building for the doors to open. The tangle of carriages in the streets around the theater had in fact nearly stopped the whole business of Boston. Those who didn't have tickets loitered around the building staring with resentment at the theatergoers pushing their way inside where Tom and police officers finally directed them to seats. At one point, there was a sudden sound like an explosion from one of the galleries.

Tom raced to the spot. The sound had come from a man who had sat on his neighbor's opera hat that had been left on the wrong seat, popping it and sending the crown into the brim. An argument between the two blue bloods ensued over who was to blame, then over the price of the hat, then moving to how the hatless gentleman was ever to hail a hackney coach later with his head uncovered like a tramp.

Dickens finally climbed the platform at fifteen minutes after eight, a dark suit chosen by Henry set off by a white and red flower on the lapel. A roar of applause, shouts of welcome, a waving sea of handkerchiefs, and Dickens bowed left, right, ahead. The only sounds that could quiet the audience were the novelist's first words:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I shall have the honor and pleasure of reading you this evening some selections from my work…”

And so began the tour. Dickens would choose extended scenes from two different novels for each reading and act out a condensed, dramatic rendition of each. The characters came alive as he gave each one their own voice, manner, and soul; he was author, character, actor. The performer never came to a full stop in the readings, making the next sentence always the most anticipated. Nor did he slow down or pause for emphasis on a moment of subtle wit or meaning, trusting instead in his audience. All the while, Tom guarded the doors. He kept Dolby's commands in his head, though he could not stop himself from wondering what the hotel intruder would look like and if he were present somewhere in the mass of faces.

At one reading, while Dickens performed Magwitch from Great Expectations running through the marsh, Tom was examining the rapt members of the audience at Tremont Temple when he heard a sound. Like an unintelligibly quick whisper-no, like a cat scratching on wood. He tried to identify the source, but it wasn't from a single place. It was on all sides. There were a few members of the audience scribbling rapidly with pencils-faster than he had ever seen anyone write.

Upon Tom's reporting his intelligence at breakfast the following morning to Dolby, the manager escorted him to the publishing office down the street and asked if they might see Mr. Fields.

“Scribbling, you say?” Fields asked, hands wide on his hips. “Men from the newspapers, perhaps?”

Tom said that he did not think so; the members of the press had been given seats by Dolby in the front rows, while these men and women were dispersed throughout the various galleries and in the standing-room area.

Osgood had walked into the Authors’ Room while Tom was explaining what he saw. Hearing Tom's description, he shook his head. “Why didn't we anticipate this? The Bookaneers! ”

“Pray explain what you mean, Mr. Osgood,” said Dolby, who was sharing a sofa with Tom.

“As you know, for the purposes of these readings the Chief has condensed his novels, rather brilliantly so, to each fit one hour. You see, Mr. Dolby, other publishers no doubt hope to pirate ‘new editions,’ bagmen's editions, to erode our own authorized sales of his books. Harper, I am certain, is one of the culprits.”

“But a Bookaneer, Mr. Osgood?” asked Tom. “What is it?”

Osgood considered how to explain to the porter. “They are literary pickpockets, of a sort, Mr. Branagan. The piratical publishers hire them to perform such tasks as stalking around the harbor for advance sheets coming from England, to come by through bribes or even theft. Though they may appear to be common ruffians, they are by constitution cool in demeanor and highly intelligent. It is said from a brief glance at a single page of sheets, they can identify an author and the value of an unpublished manuscript.”

“I suppose that is not such an extraordinary feat,” Dolby offered.

“A brief glance, Mr. Dolby,” Osgood continued, “through a spyglass , from fifty feet away. Each are said to know three or four languages of the nations with the most popular authors today.”

“What draws them into such a shady line of work, if they possess such natural talents?” Dolby asked.

“They are well paid for their endeavors. Beyond that any guess of their motives is speculation. It is known that one of them, a woman called Kitten, served as a spy during the War of Rebellion and could signal entire paragraphs’ worth of information to collaborators through lanterns and flags. Another of their nefarious herd is said to have learned lip reading from a deaf mute. Several of them are also expert shorthand writers in order to record overheard conversations between publishers that would be paid for by rivals-and it is whispered that some of the Bookaneers are responsible for writing the more vicious examples in the field of book criticism. I would bet our rivals sent several Bookaneers to the theater in order to copy down what the Chief was improvising. Mayor Harper will stop at nothing to best us, and his brother Fletcher, whom they call the Major, counsels him into ever more conniving schemes.”

“I have noticed the Chief devise new lines-brilliant lines, I should say-in his reading from the trial of Pickwick,” Dolby added, nodding his head. “It is like he is writing a new book in front of our eyes, which these pirates can now steal out of the air and profit from! What can we do, Mr. Osgood?”

“Your associate,” Osgood said, indicating Tom Branagan, “could escort any of these pencil-wielding John Paul Joneses out to sea, to start.”

“Yes. But it is unlikely we can stop all of them, even with such a brawny young man on our side,” Fields pointed out. “They have already seized some of the ‘new’ text in their notebooks!”

“I have an idea.” This was spoken timidly from the back of the room. It was a lanky young lad who had been patching a crack in the wall from a fallen picture frame.

Fields frowned at the interruption, but Osgood waved the young man closer. “My new shop boy, gentlemen. Daniel Sand.”

“If you'd permit me,” said Daniel. “You gentlemen have what the pirates do not: I mean Mr. Dickens himself. With his personally condensed copies, you may publish special versions of the editions at once.”