The Hooverville Writers' Hexagon: The Hooverville Hexagon: The Truth Is Still Out There, But Not for Long

The Fight for Consensual Reality Goes On

Twitter is the online proof that when humans proposed 'a new republic of letters', the gods laughed. Today all the instant experts (just add clickbait) are arguing about whether the works of Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickens were meant to be enjoyed by hoi polloi ['οι πολλοι].

The responses, of course, are largely unencumbered by the thought process and completely uninformed by anything like a background in the subject under discussion. It's amazing how much these people know: only a few days ago, they were explaining the Odyssey to us. (But I'll bet they still don't know that the hoi in hoi polloi means 'the'.)

What I can't stand is what appears to me to be an open conspiracy to reduce shared reality to the level of a shifting consensus shaped by the whim of for-profit enterprises. Just now, and apropos of the 'literary' debate, I wanted to chase down the source of the claim that, when Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop was serialised, anxious readers literally stormed New York harbour when the ships came in, shouting 'Is Little Nell dead?' It's a great story – one version gives the number of would-be readers at 6000 – but where did it come from?

If you know, please tell me. But I'm not accepting sources without proper footnotes, or later than 1999. Because I suspect this is getting passed around without any fact-checking. So I went to the Library of Congress newspaper files. I'm still checking contemporary accounts from New York. I haven't found the 'swarmed the dock' story yet, but I can confirm that Dickens was a superstar. Read this from the New York Herald in 1842. President John Tyler hosted Dickens and Washington 'Sleepy Hollow' Irving, and there was a huge crowd.

Fact is always more interesting than rumour. Don't trust me on this – do your own research. But do it right.

PS I've come to the conclusion – after reading more than I ever wanted to about the death of Little Nell – that the crowd-at-the-docks story is probably apocryphal. It's usually referred to as 'a rumour' or 'a legend', or simply, 'I got it off Wikipedia.' But Dickens sold 100,000 copies of that magazine a week.

On an unrelated note: please share this link with everyone you know and click on us daily. As of yesterday, this blog has had 500 mouseclicks and climbing.

Beauty Spot of the Day:

Elizabeth Castle, Jersey

From our correspondent Bluebottle

By far the most prominent structure in St Helier is Elizabeth Castle, located on a tidal islet in the middle of St Aubin Bay. This is quite a recent castle, with the earliest fortification dating back only to 1551, renamed by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1600 to Elizabeth Castle in honour of the queen. The initial gun battery expanded over time to become a vast 15-acre complex.

The castle remains accessible by causeway at low tide and is cut off for 8 hours a day, with the causeway up to 12 metres (40 foot) underwater, as Jersey has the third largest tidal range in the world.

During the Civil War Jersey declared for the King, with Charles II visiting Jersey in 1650 and 1651. After a seven week siege, Elizabeth Castle became the last place in the UK to surrender to Parliament. In 1781 the French attacked Jersey in order to distract Britain from the Siege of Gibraltar, only for this invasion to end in disaster.

During Jersey's occupation during the Second World War the Germans built bunkers and gun emplacements on the castle site, with a concrete observation tower built in the upper keep with anti-aircraft gun on top. In fact it is the last castle to see active combat, undergoing bombing raids on 10 August 1944.

Of older historical significance is St Helier's Hermitage. Originally on a separate islet but later joined by recent 19th-century harbour works is the rock on which St Helier lived, now the site of a 12th-century chapel. St Helier was decapitated on the rock in 555AD and according to legend, picked up his severed head and walked 200 yards before dying. [Ed. This was a boss move.]

Elizabeth Castle is now a major tourist attraction; visitors can travel by an amphibious bus if the causeway is underwater or they would prefer to avoid the 0.7 mile/1.1km walk.

And now…the video:

To FWR, Who Wanted the Batmobile

Galaxy Babe saw it and got the picture for us.

Good thing Cleethorpes has a Comic Con.