3. Victorian poetry and poets

Great Exhibition - 1851 celebration of technology housed at the Crystal Palace built in Hyde Park by Joseph Paxton. The exhibition was the idea of Prince Albert, who conceived it to celebrate the Industrial Revolution. Dickens visited the Exhibition in 1851. The Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham, in south London, in 1854 and accidentally burned down in 1936.

Great Fire - fire which destroyed much of central London in September 1666. (Read contemporary account in the London Gazette)

Inimitable - nickname given to Dickens by his early schoolmaster, Mr. Giles. The term means 'impossible to imitate, unique'. Dickens later referred to himself as 'The Inimitable'.

L.L. - Literary LadiesLowestoft - seaside town in Suffolk. David Copperfield goes to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to meet Mr. Quinion.

maid-of-all-work - maid, usually a young girl, hired as the only servant in the house. Charlotte is maid-of-all-work for Sowerberry, the undertaker, in Oliver Twist.

N.B. - nota bene - note well, take notice

Newgate Calendar - stories about sensational crimes committed by inmates of Newgate Prison. The first edition came out in 1773 and the last in 1826. Dickens used the term "Newgate Calendar" to refer to crimes of every sort.

Walker - an expression that expressed disbelief. In A Christmas Carol, when the reformed Scrooge asks the boy in the street to go and buy the prize turkey, the boy exclaims "Walk-er."

workhouses - also known as the union, poorhouse, or simply "the house." Publicly supported institutions to which the sick, destitute, aged, and otherwise impoverished went for food and shelter. After the New Poor Law was passed in 1834 the workhouse became little more than a prison for the poor. Civil liberties were denied, families were separated, and human dignity was destroyed. The meager diet instituted in the workhouse prompted Dickens to quip that the poor were offered the choice of "being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it."