title: NIGHT SIDE OF DICKENS: CANNIBALISM, PASSION, NECESSITY (VICTORIAN LIFE & LITERATURE)
author: HARRY STONE
description: Prolific Dickensian Stone (California State Univ., Northridge) admits up front that Dickens's "dark side" has been on view since Forster and Carlyle and exploited aggressively by critics for the past 50 years. Yet the surprise is that Stone does have much to contribute. By separating and then interrelating his three subsets, he reaches unique conclusions, especially in the chapter on "Necessity," a too-often ignored motivator in Dickens's destiny-driven world. Moreover, Stone makes extensive use of obscure contemporary (e.g., medical) sources and Dickens's lesser works (to the point of almost turning George Silverman's Explanation into a major work). Well-considered explanations of illustrations, passages from manuscripts and letters, and even Dickens's perambulations are of additional interest. Essential for Dickens scholars, this belongs--check the price--in all research collections.<br /><i>- Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.</i><br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  # The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton
  
  
  ### Charles Dickens
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
    
  
  
  In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long,
  
  
  long while ago—so long, that the story must be a true one, because
  
  
  our great grandfathers implicitly believed it—there officiated as
  
  
  sexton and grave-digger in the churchyard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no
  
  
  means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly
  
  
  surrounded by emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose
  
  
  and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the
  
  
  world; and I once had the honor of being on intimate terms with a
  
  
  mute, who in private life, and off duty, was as comical and jocose a
  
  
  little fellow as ever chirped out a devil-may-care song, without a
  
  
  hitch in his memory, or drained off the contents of a good stiff glass
  
  
  without stopping for breath. But, notwithstanding these preceden