Chapter 9

Dickens as an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to Lausanne in May, 1846, and begins "Dombey"; has great difficulty in getting on without streets; the "Battle of Life" written; "Dombey"; its pathos; pride the subject of the book; reality of the characters; Dickens' treatment of partial insanity; M. Taine's false criticism thereon; Dickens in Paris in the winter of 1846-7; private theatricals again; the "Haunted Man"; "David Copperfield" begun in May, 1849; it marks the culminating point in Dickens' career as a writer; _Household Words_ started on March 30, 1850; character of that periodical and its successor, _All the Year Round_; domestic sorrows cloud the opening of the year 1851; Dickens moves in same year from Devonshire Terrace to Tavistock House, and begins "Bleak House"; story of the novel; its Chancery episodes; Dickens is overworked and ill, and finds pleasant quarters at Boulogne 102