194 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 



1849, Dickens was busy with what pro\ed to be the finest 

 and most popular of his \yoxV.%' David Copperfield. Its sale in 

 parts averaged 25,000 copies. While this book was making 

 steady progress, and before the year was out, lie had com- 

 menced another tale. Bleak House. This story was begun 

 in his new residence, Tavistock House, in November 1851, 

 and was finished at Boulogne in August 1853. Its average 

 sale in parts was 30,000 copies, which rose to 40,000 

 copies. Writing on the 7th October from Broadstairs, he 

 gave an outline of a proposal for a new periodical. 'My 

 notion is a weekly journal, price either three halfpence or 

 twopence — matter in part original, in part selected, and always 

 having, if possible, a little good poetry. . . . Upon the 

 selected matter, I have particular notions. One is, that it 

 should always be a subject. For example, a history of piracy, 

 in connection with which there is a vast deal of extraordinary, 

 romantic, and almost unknown matter. A history of knight- 

 errantry, and the wild old notion of the Sangreal. A history 

 of savages, showing the singular respects in which all savages 

 are like each other, and those in which civilised men, under 

 circumstances of difficulty, soonest become like savages. A 

 history of remarkable characters, good and bad, /« history, — to 

 assist the reader's judgment in his observation of men, and in 

 his estimates of the truth of many characters in fiction.' This 

 weekly miscellany made its appearance under the title of 

 Household Words, on the 30th of March 1850. The first 

 number contained the beginning of a story by Mrs. Gaskell. 

 Amongst its original contributors have been John Forster, W. 

 H. Wills (for upwards of twenty years its assistant editor), G. 

 A. Sala, Moy Thomas, John HoUingshead, Miss Martineau, 

 Professor Morley, Edmund Yates, Dr. Charles Mackay, and 



