In which Dickens' novel does Mrs Jarley's Waxworks appear?
Frederick Dickens couple applied for a judicial separation on the grounds of adultery. Anna was granted alimony, which Fred Dickens refused to pay, leaving the country. On his return in 1862, he was arrested and imprisoned for debt. Like his father before him, who had also been imprisoned for debt, Fred had gained credit from various sources by trading on his brother's fame, "...rasping my very heart," Charles Dickens stated. Fred became the inspiration for the dissolute brother of Little Nell, also named Fred, in "The Old Curiosity Shop". During the period Charles was writing the novel, Fred Dickens had been obtaining
Edward Oxford writing during the months before and after the attempted regicide. Although Dickens took a strong interest in the case, Oxford appears not in Dickens's text, which was serialised in his weekly publication, "Master Humphrey's Clock", but in one of the novel's accompanying illustrations, rendered by Hablot K. Browne, popularly known as "Phiz". In an illustration for Chapter 28, Mrs. Jarley, the proprietress of a waxworks, is shown training the heroine, Little Nell, to be a guide. Although the novel is set some fifteen years before 1840, Browne was no doubt inspired by Madame Tussauds' London waxworks, where the exhibit of