The Uncommercial Traveller (PDF)

The Uncommercial Traveller is a collection of literary sketches and reminiscences written by Charles Dickens.

In 1859 Dickens founded a new journal called All the Year Round and the Uncommercial Traveller articles would be among his main contributions. He seems to have chosen the title and persona of the Uncommercial Traveller as a result of a speech he gave on 22 December 1859 to the Commercial Travellers' School London in his role as honorary chairman and treasurer. The persona sits well with a writer who liked to travel, not only as a tourist, but also to research and report what he found visiting Europe, America and giving book readings throughout Britain. He did not seem content to rest late in his career when he had attained wealth and comfort and continued travelling locally, walking the streets of London in the mould of the flâneur, a 'gentleman stroller of city streets'. He often suffered from insomnia and his night-time wanderings gave him an insight into some of the hidden aspects of Victorian London, details of which he also incorporated into his novels.

Dickens began by writing seventeen episodes, which were printed in All the Year Round between 28 January and 13 October 1860 and these were published in a single edition in 1861. He sporadically produced eleven more articles between 1863–65 and an expanded edition of the work was printed in 1866. Once more he returned to the persona with some more sketches written 1868–69 and a complete set of these articles was published posthumously in 1875.

The work is not markedly different from articles he contributed to Household Words, an earlier journal, or the contents of Sketches by Boz written near the start of his literary career. They display his wit, humour and occasionally his righteous indignation towards the things that he saw. There is simple reportage, such as an investigation into a shipload of Mormons ready to emigrate in Bound for the Great Salt Lake, but more usually it is the inventive and embroidered descriptions of everyday London life: The City of the Absent, City of London Churches, Shy Neighbourhoods. There are character sketches such as Tramps and excuses for Dickens to retell stories he has previously told The Italian Prisoner, Chambers. There is also Dickens' characteristic concern for the conditions of the poor and oppressed Wapping Workhouse, A Small Star in the East or Titbull's Alms-Houses.