Master Humphrey's Clock
1840
In a quiet corner of early nineteenth-century London, a lonely old man named Master Humphrey makes a discovery that will change his life: his antique longcase clock can hold more than time. It holds manuscripts, memories, and the key to conquering a solitude that has grown too comfortable. Humphrey invites a handful of acquaintances to join him one night each week, between ten o'clock and two in the morning, to read their stories aloud to one another. Thus is born Master Humphrey's Clock, a club of outsiders bound not by blood or profession but by the desperate, hopeful need to be heard. The tales they share range from the confession of a child murderer to the secret burial of a rebel to the comical chatter of talking statues. Through this frame, Dickens introduces the early chapters of The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge, both of which grew from modest short stories into novels. He also welcomes back beloved characters from The Pickwick Papers, including the immortal Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, who presides over a rival kitchen club called Mr. Weller's Watch. What begins as a meditation on loneliness becomes something richer: a celebration of the stories we tell to survive the night.
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“Being a hard sleeper likewise, he divided his time pretty equally between these two recreations, always falling asleep when he had done eating, and always taking another turn at the trencher when he had done sleeping, by which means he grew more corpulent and more drowsy every day of his life.””
— Charles Dickens
“Its very pulse, if I may use the word, was like no other clock. It did not mark the flight of every moment with a gentle second stroke, as though it would check old Time, and have him stay his pace in pity, but measured it with one sledge-hammer beat, as if its business were to crush the seconds as they came trooping on, and remorselessly to clear a path before the Day of Judgement.””
— Charles Dickens
“The Kingston people were in their first sleep when Will Marks and his conductor rode through the town and up to the door of a house where sundry grave functionaries were assembled, anxiously expecting the arrival of the renowned Podgers.””
— Charles Dickens
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Dickens, Charles. Master Humphrey's Clock. Lex, lex-books.com/book/master-humphrey-s-clock-8bbfd2e8-35e7-4b12-87e4-c909e3d6dc9c.Dickens, C. (1840). Master Humphrey's Clock. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/master-humphrey-s-clock-8bbfd2e8-35e7-4b12-87e4-c909e3d6dc9cDickens, Charles. Master Humphrey's Clock. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/master-humphrey-s-clock-8bbfd2e8-35e7-4b12-87e4-c909e3d6dc9c.
