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In most surveys Barnaby Rudge comes out as the least read of all Dickens's novels. Yet his only other historical novel, "A Tale of Two Cities", is one of his most popular. His penultimate novel, it was written 18 years later, and has a very different tone with little humour. But Dickens's classic wit, his irony and eye for the absurd are what many people love about his writing. And Barnaby Rudge has these in abundance. So it is all the more puzzling that it is read so infrequently.

The scenes where Gabriel Varden's hypocritical and supposedly long-suffering martyr of a wife is aided and abetted by their sly, vituperous servant Miggs against the exasperated locksmith, are some of the funniest anywhere in Dickens, who says her moodiness could be the result of being spoiled by wealth,

"Mrs Varden expressed her belief that never was any woman so beset as she; that her life was a continued scene of trial; that whenever she was disposed to be well and cheerful, so sure were the people around her to throw, by some means or other, a damp upon her spirits; and that, as she had enjoyed herself that day, and Heaven knew it was very seldom she did enjoy herself so she was now to pay the penalty."

Their preening peacock of an apprentice Sim Tappertit, complete with his powerful eye and his beautiful legs, (though very short) comes a very close second. He is the "noble captain" and leader of a risible secret society of 'Prentice Knights. Yet everyone knows what a prize idiot he really is, as the blind man Stagg remarks as an aside,

"Good luck go with you for a - conceited, bragging, empty-headed, duck-legged idiot"

The ponderous publican Joe Willett, with his slow-witted homespun philosophies is an easy third, ruminating,

"According to the constitution of mermaids, so much of a mermaid as is not a woman must be a fish"

So many characters in this novel make us smile with their eccentricities; easily as many as in any of his novels to date. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty was intended to be his first serious work of literature, inspired by Sir Walter Scott's historical novels, such as The Waverley Novels, and "Ivanhoe". Yet Dickens just could not resist creating these absurd characters whom his readers chuckle over and love so much. The most unusual "character" is Grip - and he is certainly a character, although he also happens to be Barnaby Rudge's pet raven! He is self-willed, displays eccentric behaviour, and has learned a whole catalogue of phrases, his favourite being a variety of ways of saying, "Polly Put the Kettle On". He is a gift of a character to an absurdist like Dickens. The reader may well find themselves laughing out loud at the inappropriate contributions Grip makes.

It is not surprising that Dickens shows a keen eye for observing the raven's behaviour. He explains in his preface that Grip is based on a pet raven he himself had had, called Grip. It wasn't his first, but it was the one he loved most. His own raven died in March 1841 - ironically and sadly in the middle of Dickens writing this novel - from eating lead chips. Dickens had it stuffed, copying George IV who had had his pet giraffe stuffed. It is still on public view, incidentally, in a museum in Philadelphia. Grip was also the inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem, "The Raven". Poe admired Dickens, and paid tribute to Grip in a review of Barnaby Rudge which he wrote for a magazine, saying that the raven should have served "a more symbolic prophetic purpose".

This is Dickens's fifth novel, written when he was 29 years of age, and published in weekly instalments between February and November 1841. By now he had become everybody's darling, with a public dinner being held in his honour in Edinburgh. He had originally signed a contract in 1836 to write a book entitled "Gabriel Varden - The Locksmith of London", for "Bentley's Miscellany" but after becoming more successful, and falling out with Bentley, he bought back the contract and the novel was subsequently published by Chapman and Hall in "Master Humphrey's Clock", and illustrated by two of his regular favourites, Phiz and George Cattermole. Many of his letters to these two artists survive, and it is remarkable how extraordinarily detailed and specific the descriptions are, for the engravings Dickens wished the artists to make. He evidently had a mental picture of a scene as it might be enacted on stage, and made sure he stayed in charge of the creative process for every single step of the way - including each illustration. A hard task-master indeed.

The first half of the novel is set in the time leading up to the Gordon Riots in London in 1780. 1778 saw the Catholic Relief Act, allowing Roman Catholics to own property, inherit land, and join the army, all of which had been formerly forbidden to them. They also became able to vote if they owned land. This is the underlying scenario to the novel; the times were wrought with tensions and uncertainty.

The novel starts in the "Maypole Inn" in Chigwell, in an area of Essex notorious for its highwaymen,

"The Maypole was an old building, with more gable ends than a man would care to count on a sunny day. ... It was a hale and hearty age though, still: and in the summer or autumn evenings, when the glow of the setting sun fell upon the oak and chestnut trees of the adjacent forest, the old house, partaking of its lustre, seemed their fit companion, and to have many good years of life in him yet."

Interestingly this pub, of the first illustration, still stands today. Built in 1547, it is one of the oldest public houses in England, just a few miles down the road from this reviewer.

It is this first half which is so entertaining in true Dickensian fashion. But the description above belies the dark, brooding atmosphere conjured up. Right at the start we have an unresolved mystery. It is a grisly and ghostly tale; a long involved story of murder and intrigue, told by by Dickens's mouthpiece, old Solomon Daisy. This character is well-named to give the reader a clear indication of the foreboding in this novel, describing as he does the "Solemn Day" of the double murder. Enticingly he says,

"I have heard it said that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so the ghosts of dead people, who are not easy in their graves, keep the day they died upon"

Solomon Daisy is one of a group of eccentric old-timers clustered round the Maypole's pub fire in the depths of Winter. These scenes are steeped in atmosphere; a cold, dark winter's evening, a group of locals enjoying a glass of punch, listening to tall stories accompanied by the crackle of the fire, and watching the smoke curling upwards from their long-stemmed pipes. Dickens conjures up a feeling of sitting right there with the characters. Among this group's cosy spot amidst the mists and unknown terrors outside, a mysterious traveller arrives, followed by another more threatening stranger, who is also shrouded in mystery.

This is followed by invigorating horsechases in the pitch black across the treacherous highwayman-infested wilds of Essex. There is an attack, a young gentleman set upon in the dark by unknown foes. Throughout permeates a feeling of unease and change, a brewing of disturbance, brimming just under the surface.

There are also various tensions between fathers and sons, employers and workers. One concerns two feuding families, the Chesters and the Haredales, who are reminiscent of Shakespeare's Montagues and Capulets. The suave, charming snake, Sir Edward Chester, is a Protestant. Despite his dissimulation he is ruthlessly manipulative; both his physical appearance, expressive language and behaviour all providing a contrast to the the bluff impatient Haredale, who is a Catholic. Friction sparks. But is the deep enmity really a result of religious differences? Or is there also an underlying sinister element? Their enmity dates from childhood. We are beginning to see that many events from the past may haunt this novel.

Interestingly, Edward Chester is based on Philip Dormer Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, whose complimenting manners, urbanity, and witticisms were highly regarded. But he made an enemy of Samuel Johnson (of the dictionary) who described Lord Chesterfield's published letters to his son as,

"selfish, calculating and contemptuous; he was not naturally generous, and he practised dissimulation until it became part of his nature ... they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing-master"

Dickens's character Edward Chester himself quotes from Lord Chesterfield's letters. Dickens describes him as,

"of the world most worldly, who never compromised himself by an ungentlemanly action and was never guilty of a manly one"

As well as the tension between families, we have many episodes of comic domestic disharmony, and budding romances. There is Dolly Varden, a vain coquette of a minx, with whom Dickens was clearly besotted! When ostensibly comforting her friend Emma Haredale,

"Dolly's eyes, by one of those strange accidents for which there is no accounting, wandered to the glass again" ...

"To make one's sweetheart miserable is well enough and quite right, but to be made miserable one's self is a little too much!"

Dickens shows us he has a keen eye for the folly and the vanity of youth. Yet the reader now fully expects that love will not run smoothly. In Dickens there is never any moral ambiguity. Characters either develop and learn from their mistakes, or they do not. And those who do not will usually meet a sorry end, or their just desserts, in one way or another.

By the middle of the novel the reader may well be puzzled as to its name. There is a multilayered medley of themes, yet the title's subheading, "A Tale of the Riots of Eighty" seems to be inexplicable. And the character of Barnaby Rudge pops in and out of the story seemingly on a whim. This is not a bildungsroman in any sense, neither is it picaresque. It does not even proceed in a similar vein to that of the history of Oliver Twist or Nicholas Nickleby. Barnaby Rudge is a simple soul, often referred to by himself as "silly" and by his neighbours, though kindly, as an idiot. He loves Nature, has a close relationship with his raven, and has dreams of making his fortune to help his mother. We suspect a back history with Barnaby, and we are not disappointed.

There is a change of direction in the second half, and Barnaby becomes involved with a new set of characters. There is Lord George Gordon, who is presented here as a well-meaning but deluded fool, goaded by his dubious henchmen into increasingly bold measures leading the Protestant Association, and openly opposing the Catholic Relief Act, demanding its withdrawal. The villain of the piece is his secretary, the cold, calculating and conniving Gashford, whom Dickens unequivocally describes as,

"singularly repulsive and malicious"

He is based on Robert Watson, a real life friend of Gordon, who wrote a history of the Riots in 1795. Later Robert Watson committed suicide and about nineteen scars were found on his body. This is believed to be the reason why Dickens called his character "Gashford".

In the novel, Gashford muses,

"More seed, more seed ... When will the harvest come?"

as he plots and casts his net to entrap more supporters to the Protestant Cause, and hence more victims. He deliberately incites rioting and rebel-rousing, and his advice to Lord George Gordon is always intended to cause as much chaos, brutality and disturbance as possible. Another evil character who does not have the ability to employ such machinations is the self-seeking hangman Dennis. The solid John Grueby seems to be Gordon's only true friend. He is loyal to his master, and basically a good-hearted man, but he abhors the violence he can see resulting from the situation Gordon has allowed himself to be duped into. The reader too, knows from the start that events are going to escalate terrifyingly. There is betrayal, duplicity and changing of sides; an increase in the tension and a definite switch in the writing of this second half, much of which is very savage.

References are made to "Bloody Mary", the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, who had briefly reigned as Mary I from 1553-1558. During this time she had tried to re-establish the the Catholic faith of her mother, often by barbaric means, hence her name. The atrocities committed against Protestants during her reign became a rallying cry of the Protestant mob during the Gordon Riots. On June 2, 1780 the Protestant Association marched to the House of Commons and were joined by a riotous mob of 50,000. Dickens described them as,

"sprinkled doubtless here and there with honest zealots, but composed for the most part of the very scum and refuse of London"

He describes in great detail how the crowd were whipped up into a frenzy. His descriptions are incredibly powerful and visual, some parts having the graphic and explicit detail to make the reader's hair stand on end, being more usually found in a horror novel than a classic by Dickens. The tension and horror build relentlessly.

In real life for the next few days the mob terrorized London, burning Catholic churches, and the businesses and homes of Catholic families. Dickens describes all the events; how they burned down Newgate Prison, The Fleet, and King's Bench Prisons. He describes the terror of the prisoners, the deaths of innocent bystanders, how everyone was inadvertently caught up in the deathly smoke, the fire and the rabble, and how the prisoners - some incarcerated for negligible crimes - were set free, running amok without hope, bewildered, confused, damaged and burnt, with nowhere to run to,

"There were some broken men among these debtors who had been in jail so long, and were so miserable and destitute of friends, so dead to the world, and utterly forgotten and uncared for, that they implored their jailers not to set them free"

The Lord Mayor, whom Dickens based on Brackley Kennett, Lord Mayor of London from 1779-1780, did nothing when appealed to by characters in the novel. In real life Kennett was later convicted of criminal negligence for his conduct during the Riots. They then appeal to the magistrate Sir John Fielding, who was the younger half-brother of the novelist Henry Fielding. Both brothers worked towards criminal reform and John Fielding, who was blind and earned the nickname of "The Blind Beak" was the founder of the "Bow Street Runners" first police force.

Nevertheless, Dickens had a clear grasp of mob mentality,

"The crowd was the law and never was the law held in greater dread, or more implicitly obeyed."

Eventually George III ordered his troops to quell the riots. The mob was read the Riot Act; an Act of Parliament from 1714, which forced riotous crowds to disperse within one hour after the reading of the Act, or risk being shot. In actuality nearly 300 rioters were killed, and 450 were taken prisoner. 25 were hanged. Lord George Gordon, held in the Tower of London, was tried and found not guilty of treason.

The reader follows the progress of Barnaby Rudge, who has been caught up in the riots, and Hugh the Hostler from the Maypole Inn. Hugh was based on the real life James Jackson, who was a watch-wheel cutter and according to reports of the time, a "very desperate fellow" whose voice "boomed like the crack of doom". In the novel he is angling for any trouble, in one scene not even getting the anti-Catholic slogan "No Popery!" right, shouting "No Property!"

We read with horror as some of the pleasant pastoral scenes in the beginning of the novel are wrecked, and amiable characters savagely treated, never to return to their old trusting ways. In the end Dickens makes sure that those who have perpetrated evil acts get their comeuppance, and their punishment is largely commensurate with the enormity of their crime. Some are hanged. Others, whose crime was lesser, are given a lesser punishment, such as (view spoiler)[the apprentice Simon Tappertit. Dickens had spent a great deal of time early in the novel commenting on Sims' beautiful legs, often in a satirical tone; they are a metaphor for his bragging ambitions. The suggestion is that the weakness of his legs will never bring Sim the accolades and status he desires. Sim's punishment is to lose his precious legs, so that he is destined for life in the gutter. Only his old friend and employer Gabriel Varden saves him from this. But in an enormous stroke of irony Dickens makes him become a shoeblack, so he lost his beautiful legs, only to be confronted with others' legs on a daily basis. Another, the abominable Miggs, possibly the most vituperous female in all Dickens's novels, appropriately ends up in a women's prison, albeit as a turnkey rather than an inmate. (hide spoiler)]

Towards the end of Barnaby Rudge Dickens describes the public executions of characters in the book, which were performed at Newgate prison. Dickens hated such public displays, intended to be an extra deterrent to crime, but often taking on a circus atmosphere. He had reported his reaction to an execution in 1849 in a letter to "The Times". Writing these parts, Dickens had been in Broadstairs for two months, but by October he was having painful surgery for a fistula, and having to convalesce for a month. Nevertheless his biographer John Forster notes that Dickens was determined to complete the novel in the expected time.

So why the change of name from "Gabriel Varden - The Locksmith of London"? Gabriel Varden is without doubt a stalwart character, worthy of being the novel's hero in preference to the whimsical portrait of Barnaby Rudge. He is more in evidence throughout the novel, rather than disappearing for long stretches. But by retitling the novel, rather than including any more scenes about him Dickens has made his readers focus more on Barnaby Rudge. And the choice of a simple-minded man for his focus character is inspired.

It points up the ridiculousness of the situation itself. Not only has Lord George Gordon, the deranged leader of the rioters, been sadly misinformed by his henchmen, but (view spoiler)[he puts what he calls a "natural" at the head of the riots, standing guard over the treasure, ready to carry the can for all misdemeanours. And Grip of course provides a perfect foil for him to pour his heart out to - all his steadfastness, determination and hopes of making his mother proud of him. Towards the end of the novel, when Barnaby has been condemned, it seems inevitable that he will be hanged. The scenes of Barnaby and Grip in Newgate prison, (hide spoiler)] make the reader want to weep for the deliberate manipulation and contrived destruction of such innocent joy in life. The descriptions of the riots are so powerful and intense. Yet his quirky humour is present too, in the detail; all the eccentric characters and environments. There is possibly no other author who can combine such opposing themes quite so well.

The Gordon Riots do not have a "hook" such as the infamy and grisly romance of the French Revolution, which could explain why this novel is so neglected. Dickens had not yet reached the pinnacle of his writing, and was yet to write his truly great novels. But this one has none of the hyperbole of the earlier ones. It is still exuberant and comic in places, but the posturing and sarcasm which sometimes seem almost overwhelming in early novels such as "Oliver Twist" are far less in evidence. It is altogether more controlled, better planned and consequently a more powerful piece.

And it is well worth reading!