Little Dorrit is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Clennam encounters her after returning home from a 20-year absence, ready to begin his life anew.
Edmund Curll was an English bookseller and publisher. His name has become synonymous, through the attacks on him by Alexander Pope, with unscrupulous publication and publicity. Curll rose from poverty to wealth through his publishing, and he did this by approaching book printing in a mercenary and unscrupulous manner. By cashing in on scandals, publishing pornography, offering up patent medicine, using all publicity as good publicity, he managed a small empire of printing houses. He would publish high and low quality writing alike, so long as it sold. He was born in the West Country, and his late and incomplete recollections say that his father was a tradesman. He was an apprentice to a London bookseller in 1698 when he began his career.
Fleet Prison was a notorious London prison by the side of the River Fleet. The prison was built in 1197, was rebuilt several times, and was in use until 1844. It was demolished in 1846.
St George's Fields was an area of Southwark in South London, England.
John Ker, born John Crawford in Crawfurdland, Ayrshire, was a Scots Presbyterian linked with Cameronian radicals who between 1705 and 1709 acted as a government informer against the Jacobites. Dogged by financial issues most of his life, he died in King's Bench Prison in 1726.
The Mint was a district in Southwark, south London, England, on the west side of Borough High Street, around where Marshalsea Road is now located. It was so named because a mint authorised by King Henry VIII was set up in Suffolk Place, a mansion house, in about 1543. The mint ceased to operate in the reign of Mary I and Suffolk Place was demolished in 1557. In the late-17th and early-18th centuries, the area was known for offering protection against prosecution for debtors due to its legal status as a "liberty", or a jurisdictional interzone.
The Clink was a prison in Southwark, England, which operated from the 12th century until 1780. The prison served the Liberty of the Clink, a local manor area owned by the Bishop of Winchester rather than by the reigning monarch. As the Liberty owner, the Bishop kept all revenues from the Clink Liberty, and could put people in prison for failing to make their payments. As the Bishop, he could also imprison heretics. The Clink prison was situated next to the Bishop's London-area residence of Winchester Palace. The Clink was possibly the oldest men's prison and probably the oldest women's prison in England.
A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe. Destitute people who were unable to pay a court-ordered judgment would be incarcerated in these prisons until they had worked off their debt via labour or secured outside funds to pay the balance. The product of their labour went towards both the costs of their incarceration and their accrued debt. Increasing access and lenience throughout the history of bankruptcy law have made prison terms for unaggravated indigence obsolete over most of the world.
John Dickens was the father of the famous English novelist Charles Dickens and was the model for Mr Micawber in his son's semi-autobiographical novel David Copperfield.
The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London. It was notable for having been the first steady employer of essayist William Hazlitt as a political reporter and the first steady employer of Charles Dickens as a journalist. It was the first newspaper to employ a salaried woman journalist, Eliza Lynn Linton; for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew that were collected and published in book format in 1851 as London Labour and the London Poor; and for publishing other major writers, such as John Stuart Mill.
Frederick William Dickens was the son of John and Elizabeth Dickens and was Charles Dickens's younger brother, who lived with Charles when he moved on to Furnival's Inn in 1834. He was the inspiration for two different Freds in his brother's books: the jovial nephew of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and the dissolute brother of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop.
Poultry Compter was a small prison that stood at Poultry, part of Cheapside in the City of London. The compter was used to lock up minor criminals and prisoners convicted under civil law and was run by one of the City's sheriffs. It operated from the 16th century until 1815. It was pulled down in 1817 and replaced with a chapel.
Alfred Lamert Dickens was an English railway engineer and the younger brother of the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens.
Marshalsea Road is a major street in Southwark, south London, England. At the northwest end is the Southwark Bridge Road. At the southeast end is Borough tube station on Borough High Street. Continuing across the street are Long Lane and Great Dover Street. At the northeast corner is the historic St George the Martyr church, where the Charles Dickens character Little Dorrit was married in Dickens' book of the same name. The area around Marshalsea Road has many Dickens associations.
The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners—including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition—it became known, in particular, for its incarceration of the poorest of London's debtors. Over half of England's prisoners in the 18th century were in jail because of debt.
Moses Pitt was a bookseller and printer known for the production of his Atlas of the world, a project supported by the Royal Society, and in particular by Christopher Wren. He is also known as the author of The Cry of the Oppressed (1691), an account of the conditions in which imprisoned debtors lived in debtors' jails in England.
The Massacre of St George's Fields occurred on 10 May 1768 when government soldiers opened fire on demonstrators that had gathered at St George's Fields, Southwark, in south London. The protest was against the imprisonment of the radical Member of Parliament John Wilkes for writing an article that severely criticised King George III. After the reading of the Riot Act telling the crowds to disperse within the hour, six or seven people were killed when fired on by troops. The incident in Britain entrenched the enduring idiom of "reading the Riot Act to someone", meaning "to reprimand severely", with the added sense of a stern warning. The phrase remains in common use in the English language.
The Debtors Act 1869 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to reform the powers of courts to detain debtors.
The True Sun was a London, pro-Whig, evening newspaper that was first published on 5 March 1832 and ceased publication in December 1837. It was published daily except Sundays.
Maria Barrell née Weylar was a poet, playwright and writer of periodicals. Whilst confined in debtors' prison she wrote about the plight of bankruptcy and campaigned to Parliament for legislative reform. Having faced financial issues for much of her life, she died in Newgate Prison awaiting deportation to Australia.
