Dickensian Scots

The letter from Hamish Allan about Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (29 December) was most interesting to me as I am translating that English classic into Scots.

There are several personal connections between Scots and Dickens. His first publisher, John Black, was a Scot, as was George Hogarth, who became editor of one of Dickens’ early journals and later became his father-in-law. He had been Walter Scott’s lawyer and his own wife’s father was an intimate of Burns, publishing his songs. These relationships were important to the young Dickens.

The theme of financial failure was always to the fore in Dickens: an uncle and his own father had such problems.

Hogarth, his wife’s father, had also been bankrupt, and the travails of Scott in working off his debts were always in Dickens’ mind.

When visiting America – his minder there was another Scot – he attacked his hosts for having no copyright law which, he told them, would, if in force at that time, have protected Scott from financial failure. This anxiety gave an edge to Dickens’ writing, though his main theme in A Christmas Carol was the war against poverty in Victorian Britain. The sculptor who did the first bust of Dickens was a Scot, Angus Fletcher, and he was friendly with Carlyle and, when younger, the painter, Wilkie.

IAIN WD FORDE Main Street, Scotlandwell

Kinross-shire