Previously in this series: How to tell if you are in a Muriel Spark novel.
You have no legs and your name is alliterative.
Your father and mother have died at least once in the last year.
Your only friend is a prostitute with a terrible wracking cough, and you have never had anything to eat even once.
You are a thinly veiled caricature of Hans Christian Andersen.
Someone you have always believed to be dead is not dead at all, and has become very rich raising cattle in Australia, and wants to give you all of his money.
Everyone you know is covered in soot, or has died in a tragically ironic railroad accident.
Your ambitions are thwarted.
Your greatest wish is to someday see the ocean or have a pair of shoes you can call your very own. You work as a slave for a woman who is ten feet tall and breathes fire.
You are amazed to discover your long-lost brother in an unruly mob, but he does not want you to recognize him.
The only thing more evil than a headmaster is a landlord.
You are a duke who regularly ties orphans to the wheels of his carriage; you laugh uproariously while men grind their teeth and imagine your death.
A sweet, poor girl is desperately in love with you, and you neither appreciate nor deserve her.
You are an adept at recognizing handwriting. You have only to see a letter once, but you will remember the hand that wrote it for the rest of your days.
There is a clove-studded ham as big almost as you on the table. You are separated from it by a window, and an entire world.
The grim Spectres of Want and Poverty are at your door!!!!!!!
Every week, your serial adventures end in yet another nail-biting cliffhanger.
A sinister man you find hiding in the ash-heap one afternoon claims to be your benefactor. You do not see him again for fifteen years, until your fortunes have quite changed entirely.
You walk home with a man you have only known for six months from church, and catch a cold as a result of your moral laxity. The cold turns into pneumonia, and within a fortnight your beauty is quite ruined; you are lucky to have escaped with your life. The young man in question hangs himself.
You are either ruddy, stout, or flint-eyed.
A foolish woman owns a small, ridiculous dog.
A coachman treats you saucily.
There is a secret in your family, that if you were to find it out, the shock would kill you.
You never meant to tell this story, on any account, but all those who could be offended by your humble words therein have long since gone to their torment or their reward, as the good Lord would have it.
A strange man dies the night before his execution, but he dies at peace with himself and the world around him.
A man whose name is almost exactly Murder is trying to kill you.
Every day you are beaten until you are killed.
Tags: books, charles dickens, how to tell what novel you’re in, loving parodies
Related Posts
How To Tell If You’re In A Dashiell Hammett Novel
How to Tell If You Are in a Muriel Spark Novel
How To Tell If You’re In A Hemingway Novel
Missed Connections in a Gabriel García Márquez Story 
Sorting 19th Century British Novelists Into Hogwarts
What Happens When You Tell People You’re Reading Only Women?
Perfection.
A foolish woman owns a small, ridiculous dog.
This describes a shocking number of people I know and also people in my apartment complex. Am I secretly in a Dickens novel? If so, should I start smearing dirt on my face now?
Beware the next time you have a cough. It’s the consumption.
‘You had a child out of wedlock. As no happy ending can possibly be imagined for such a foolish, fallen woman, you drown yourself’.
‘You are married to a silly, foolish woman who is a thinly-disguised and cruel caricature of Dickens’ wife. After she dies (from excessive stupid femininity) you marry an idealised version of Dicken’s mistress’
Alternately, if you are sufficiently morally pure, one or more of your father figures will offer you his hand in marriage.
That first one is for every Victorian novel.
Everyone you know is covered in soot
This is how I picture every person in 19th century England.
And every building. And every animal. And every giant ham.
If you are extraordinarily lucky, you have a friend who will share his Aged P with you.
I love Wemmick and the Aged! I wish I had a castle like that.
The wedding of Wemmick and Miss Skiffins is what I would’ve wanted for my own wedding, if I didn’t have so many dang loved ones. (<3 u, loved ones.)
SHRIEK OF JOY. Aged P!!!!!!!!!
Ohhh how the window separates me from the clove studded ham. I’LL GET YOU DICKENS!
Your fate is encoded in a knitted scarf & no matter how you strive you cannot escape it.
HEADS WILL ROLL!!! *cackle cackle cackle*
Dr Who was in a Dickens novel? he really gets around.
yes yes Yes Yes YES
oh christ, Charles Dickens. You know what he did to Hans Christian Andersen, right? Well what am I saying, obviously you do, it is right there. GOD imagine being poor desperate neurotic neurasthenic neuralgic Hans Christian thinking you are among friends because who would let you go on being a houseguest that long if they didn’t like you, like every day he woke up and they didn’t throw him out it was more proof that other people liked him and god was not always cruel, and all the while they were all snickering and making fun of him behind his back. Hans Christian do not cry, you have more genius in your little finger than Charles Dickens has in his whole beard!!
Well what were they supposed to do, snicker and make fun of him to his face? Throw him out on his ear? Dickens liked Andersen perfectly well until he overstayed his welcome. Dickens had deadlines and his wife had a lot of children to mother; Andersen might have noticed they were busy, made a short visit, and stayed in everyone’s good graces, if only it were not Andersen’s fate to be convinced people loved him more than they actually did.
hahaha. I think it was a culture clash, too. People in Denmark, then and now, are much more direct and blunt about saying what they are thinking than in Britain. He probably was confused by their politeness/mixed signals.
It’s a shame though. HCA is kind of unbearable in his autobiography, but he *did* have a really really hard life, like Dickens, and was saved from starvation basically as a child because people saw he was bright and gave him food and raised money charitably for his education. Life was really hard in Scandinavia back then.
Fair enough! It would probably take a lot of provocation for a Victorian English family to actually *tell you* that they want you to go away, instead of, say, passing you the butter last and expecting you to take the hint.
There was also that time Kierkegaard wrote a scathing review of an Andersen novel, which makes me want to say to him, what are you doing Soren, you are the two famous Danes of your century and Andersen is frankly going to be loved a lot more than you, you might as well be nice. (I just googled this story and discovered Kierkegaard later sent him a copy of Either/Or, to which HCA replied, “You have given me really great pleasure by sending me your Either/Or. I was, as you can well understand, quite surprised; I had no idea at all that you entertained friendly thoughts of me, and yet I now find it to be so. God bless you for it! Thank you, thank you!” Oh, Andersen!)
Now I’m trying to remember in what order I am passed the butter by friends and family. It is deeply worrying.
What did he do? Scandals of Male Writers in Victorian England!
He accepted HCA’s worshipful and smothering devotion as his due without returning it in the slightest. what a cock, right?
“who would let you go on being a houseguest that long if they didn’t like you” anyone who doesn’t want a sobbing HCA on their doorstep
as if that would be a hardship after hosting him for a couple weeks, he sobbed like other people breathe. but to the greatest genius all is forgiven.
did you ever read his travel journals, they are great but he has a hard time finding someone to commiserate with him about how his penis hurts. at least you understand, journal, he said.
Any other Bleak Expectations/ Bleak Old Shop of Stuff fans out there?
I remember loving Bleak House extraordinarily but I also do not remember a scrap of what happened in it, other than Esther is a dishrag. and I sort of suspect I only remember that because people say it, not because I thought so myself from the reading.
awfully good book though
I love Bleak House so so much (I also love Nicholas Nickleby–those are my two favorites, and I also like Our Mutual Friend pretty well and can make it about 2/3 of the way through Little Dorrit happily and then get annoyed), and I’m ashamed to say that it took watching that 14-part series of Bleak House that came out ten or so years ago to make me really like Esther. But it helps. I sort of see a veneer of Anna Maxwell Martin over the book Esther, and it makes her a lot less dishraggy while not substantially changing her.
Yeah, I saw the miniseries of Bleak House before reading the book, and about halfway through I was like, “Oh I guess Esther is written completely straight and not snarky and awesome like Anna Maxwell Martin. I am disappoint.” I feel like in the miniseries she is always giving amused glances that belie any dishragginess to her character.
Yes! Ah, Harry Biscuit, how I miss you and your amazing inventions.
It is iced coffee season, finally, and there is Dickens on the Toast. What a time to be alive. <basks>
Would you say the time is, perhaps, the “best”?
Almost everyone you know has some sort of catchphrase.
Don’t know what I loved more, the saucy coachman or the parents who die “at least once a year.” May I modestly suggest a couple more:
You slink around professing to be “umble until you can take your Master’s lockbox and daughter.
You sit in a crumbling white gown and talk to the rats that have taken up residence in your wedding cake.
My ambitions are constantly being thwarted. Now I know why!
To the great surprise of all your neighbors, you spontaneously combust.
I think this is the most delightful thing on the internet today. Mallory, you win all the things. (As you do.)
A will is found that is dated more recently than the will previously thought to be valid. It changes your fortunes entirely.
It *would* change your fortunes, but the debate in Chancery over the conflicting wills goes on for 75 years.
Everyone you know turns out to be connected somehow and in the most sinister way possible.
Many of your friends and acquaintances have multi-syllabic and/or portmanteau names. You should have learned by now to judge them accordingly.
Addendum: YOUR name is Portmanteau.
Presenting Mr. Teau. Mr. Portman Teau.
I think we need to do “How to tell if you are in a Gilbert and Sullivan musical.” 1) You were switched at birth with someone whose social standing is vastly different from your own.
“Someone you have always believed to be dead is not dead at all, and has become very rich raising cattle in Australia, and wants to give you all of his money.”
I AM IN A CHARLES DICKENS NOVEL!!!!!!!
My long lost uncle in London died and I just received an e-mail saying I inherited millions! Sending over my personal info over to verify my identity and then I WILL BE RICH!!!!!
Hey, if you need anyone to drink Veuve Cliquot with, keep me in mind. Of course, we might end up having an honor duel at some point over my lecherous behavior around your dastardly accountant’s niece, but I promise to be very snarky obsequious company until then. (But in all seriousness, congratulations!)
“A sweet, poor girl is desperately in love with you, and you neither appreciate nor deserve her.” Are you she? I don’t deserve you!
Sorry, couldn’t hear you over the screams of the orphans I was beating.
Hans Christian Andersen is a thinly veiled parody of me.
Perhaps it is too much to ask for a (just invented by me) “Manslash Monday” of Pip and Herbert…but ask I shall. The sexual tension between the two drips and dribbles off the page
Did you see the most recent BBC adaptation with Douglas Booth and Gillian Anderson? The Pipbert wrote itself. THEY DANCED TOGETHER.
“You are amazed to discover your long-lost brother in an unruly mob, but he does not want you to recognize him.” That is more or less a plot point in Sarah Monette’s “Melusine.”
You are a grave robber, but you are the most likable person in the entire novel.
Yes!! So, there’s apparently a ‘Resurrection Medical Center’ in Chicago, and the first time I heard of it all I could think of were Resurrection Men.
You are an orphan, so poor your entire name only has two letters. You are dying of a nasty disease. Kind people bring you indoors so you don’t have to die in the street. They tell you waht last words to say. You are grateful.
Your beloved only parent dies while you are at boarding school, and you learn this on your birthday. You must drudge for a living. A kind person saves you.
If you are a boy, you are in a Dickens Novel, If you are a girl,, you are in a Frances Hodgson Burnett novel
There is a Turkey as Big as You.
I got 35/35!
This was a quiz, right, everyone?