Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1893 — Selecting a Title. [ARTICLE]

Selecting a Title.

From first to last Dickens did his work conscientiously, and the selection of titles was a matter of grave anxiety to him, many being rejected before one was chosen. The familiar name of Chuzzlewit, Howard Paul tells us, went through a curious process of evolution. First it was Sweezleden, then Sweezlebuck, then Sweezleway. None of these would do. The Sweezle then became Chuzzle, and there was a new series of Chuzzletoe. Chuzzleboy, Chuzzlewig, and, finally Chuzzlewit. For “Hard Times” nineteen or twenty titles were rejected. Here are some of them: “Heads and Tails,” “Two and Two are Four,” “Our HardHearted Friend,” “Bust and Dust,” “A Mere Question of Figures,” “Mr. Gradgrind’s Facts, ““Black and White. ” “David Copperfleld” was especially troublesome. Even after he had fixed upon the hero’s name it took him some time to arrange the exact form of the title. During a sojourn in Genoa Dickens was puzzling his brain to find a , title for one of his Christmas tales, when the city bells rang out a peal of chimes. He was in a nervous, excited state, and the noise of the bells agitated him. But they gave him the title he was seeking, and he called the book “The Chimes." Another hovel for which he found it difficult to decide upon a name was “Bleak House." We might kave known it under any of the fol-

lowing titles: “The Solitary House that was Always Shut Up,” “The East Wind," “The Ruined Mill that Got Into Chancery and Never Got Out,” “The Solitary House Where the Grasses Grew.” No doubt Dickens invented some of the names of his characters, but many of the most remarkable were borrowed from signs that met his view in his journeys. I Imagined tnat Chadband was a made name—lt fits the character to whom the author applied it so exactly; but it was the name of either a baker or a grocer on the outskirts of the town of Warwick. Jull was the name of a confectioner; Pickwick that of a job-master at Bath. In later life the novelist collected and stored up names for future use, making use of such sources as directories and the small towns in railway guides.