A new exhibition explores the faltering relationship between the novelist and his first love Maria Beadnell – and the resulting, questionable, poetry
A halting acrostic poem, ending with the sugary couplet “Life has no charms, no happiness, no pleasures, now for me/ Like those I feel, when ’tis my lot Maria, to gaze on thee”, offers little clue to the glittering literary career that was to follow. But, 185 years after the 18-year-old Charles Dickens fell in love with Maria Beadnell, an exhibition promises to shed light on his earliest literary efforts, with a selection of his love poetry on public view for the first time.
Dickens was working as a reporter when he fell for the 20-year-old Beadnell in 1830, and pursued her for three years, going on to immortalise her as the characters of Dora Spenlow in David Copperfield and Flora Finching in Little Dorrit. The Charles Dickens Museum in London opens a new exhibition this week featuring the author’s love poems to Beadnell, including the acrostic poem in homage to the banker’s daughter that is the first known example of his literary work.
Related: The stuff of creation – books podcast
We have all had our Floras, mine is living and extremely fat
Acrostic
My life may chequered be with scenes of misery and pain,
And’t may be my fate to struggle with adversity in vain:
Regardless of misfortunes tho’ howe’er bitter they may be,
I shall always have one retrospect, a hallowed one to me,
And it will be of that happy time when first I gazed on thee.
Blighted hopes, and prospects drear, for me will lose their sting,
Endless troubles shall harm not me, when fancy on the wing
A lapse of years shall travel o’er, and again before me cast
Dreams of happy fleeting moments then for ever past:
Not any worldly pleasure has such magic charms for me
E’en now, as those short moments spent in company with thee;
Life has no charms, no happiness, no pleasures, now for me
Like those I feel, when ’tis my lot Maria, to gaze on thee.
Lodgings to Let
Lodgings here! A charming place,
The Owner’s such a lovely face
The Neighbours too seem very pretty
Lively, sprightly, gay, and witty
Of all the spots that I could find
This is the place to suit my mind.
Then I will say sans hesitation
This place shall be my habitation
This charming spot my home shall be
While dear “Maria” keeps the key,
I’ll settle here, no more I’ll roam
But make this place my happy home.
A great advantage too will be,
I shall keep such good company,
So good that I fear my composing
Will be considered very prosing
Still I’m most proud amongst these pickings
To rank the humblest name. – Charles Dickens
