1 80 RISEN B Y FERSE VERANCE. 



Dickens, to relieve the strain of hard work, began a habit 

 at this time which continued throughout his Hfetime, that of 

 mental rest in bodily activity. He became a great walker, 

 and pursued this steadily and systematically throughout a 

 lifetime. 



On his return from a holiday at Brighton in 1837, he was 

 engaged in editing the life of Grimaldi the clown. For this 

 book he wrote a preface, and re-told many of the stories, 

 recasting them slightly from the materials which had been 

 placed in his hands. The successful completion of Pickwick 

 was the signal for a dinner, with himself in the chair, 

 and T. N. Talfourd in the vice-chair. An agreement was 

 entered upon with his publishers at this time, by which he 

 was to succeed to a third ownership of the book ; and at 

 the same time another agreement was entered into for 

 another work in parts, which was to run for nineteen months, 

 for which he was to receive twenty several payments of;!£"i5o, 

 bringing the whole up to about ;:^3ooo. For Pickwick, his 

 respective payments must have exceeded ;^25oo. The new 

 novel just bargained for turned out to be The Life and 

 Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, the sale of the first number of 

 which rose to 50,000. His previous arrangements made with 

 Bentley hampered him not a little in his new work ; however, 

 Oliver Twist was finished by October 1838, and on publica- 

 tion it had a career of great popularity and success. It 

 originally appeared in Bentley's Miscellany^ for which he was 

 still engaged to write another tale, Barnaby Rudge. He, 

 however, managed to release himself from this engagement, 

 handed over the editorship of the Miscellany to Mr. Harrison 

 Ainsworth, and bought back the copyright and existing stock 

 of Oliver Twist from Bentley for ;^2 25o. 



