Dickens' Women by Miriam Margolyes

writer, and authoress of Uncle Tom’s Cabin . It is called ‘Christmas in Poganuc’ and features a blonde, blue-eyed little girl, of nauseating cuteness, called Dolly. Dolly features prominently in ‘People of Poganuc’, Mrs Beecher Stowe’s semi- autobiographical collection of stories which was published in 1878.
    Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published serially across America from 1850 to 1852. Dickens may have been less than enthusiastic about Mrs Stowe’s talents as a writer, but he ardently praised her virtues as a campaigner, and in an article in Household Words , written jointly with Morley, he declared Uncle Tom’s Cabin to be ‘a noble work; full of high power, lofty humanity’. Then he dipped his pen in its most brilliant, satirical ink, and with all the power of his wicked genius he created Mrs Jellyby, the anti-slavery campaigner in Bleak House (published 1853).
    â€˜Mrs Jellyby,’ said Mr Kenge, standing with his back to the fire, and casting his eyes over the dusty hearth rug as if it were Mrs Jellyby’s biography, ‘is a lady of very remarkable strength of character, who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted herself to an excessive variety of public subjects, at various times, and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa; with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry – and the natives – and the happy settlement on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population.’
    Mrs Jellyby is introduced in Chapter Four of Bleak House , headed ‘Telescopic Philanthropy’. When Esther, Amy and Richard arrive at Mrs Jellyby’s house,

    There was a confused little crowd of people, principally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped, which had a tarnished brass plate upon the door, with the inscription, JELLYBY.
    â€˜Don’t be frightened!’ said Mr Guppy, looking in at the coach window, ‘One of the young Jellybys gone and got his head through the area railings.’
    Numerous other little Jellybys, dirty and neglected, tumble down stairs and meet with multitudinous accidents, ‘notched on their arms and legs’, and are gently ignored by their mother, who is calm and pretty ‘with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if – I am quoting Richard again – they could see nothing nearer than Africa!’
    Mrs Jellyby had very good hair, but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled, dropped onto her chair when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn’t nearly meet up across the back, and that the open space was railed across with a lattice work of stay-lace – like a summer-house…
    â€˜You find me, my dears, as usual very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies, and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.’
    As if she were not joy enough Mrs Jellyby is joined in the story by Mrs Pardiggle. In a brilliant commentary on charityladies, Dickens gives to Mr Jarndyce the observation that ‘there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who did a little and made a good deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal, and made no noise at all.’
    Mrs Pardiggle, it is made clear, belongs to the first category.
    She was a formidable style of lady, with spectacles, a prominent nose, and a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a