...summed up pretty fairly by Mrs Skewton in Dombey and Son. '"Those darling bygone times, Mr Carker. . .with their delicious fortresses and their dear old...truly charming ! How dreadfully we have degenerated ! " '"Yes, we have fallen off deplorably", said Mr Carker.' The irony of Dickens is directed to the...

...and a very cheerful place.' Then there are Toots, and Susan Nipper, and Dr. Blimber, and last of all Cleopatra. ' Those darling bygone times, Mr. Carker,'...are almost tempted to place her in the first rank of Dickens's creation among the immortals. Oliver Twist contains six immortals, if not seven : Fagin,...

...romanticizing the past in Dombey and Son when Mrs. Skewton enthuses about "those darling bygone times ... with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old...dungeons, and their delightful places of torture ... and everything that makes life truly charming!"29 But there was generally an overwhelming interest in Britain's...

...Dombey and Son (1847-8). Those darling bygone times,' she exclaims to Mr Carker in Warwick Castle, 'with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old...makes life truly charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated!'1 To write a Gothic romance would be as foreign to Dickens as to idealise the Middle Ages,...

...escort Edith : which he did, stalking before them through the apartments with a gentlemanly solemnity. and their delightful places of torture, and their...truly charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated ! " " Yes, we have fallen off deplorably," said Mr. Carker. The peculiarity of their conversation was,...