The New York Public Library, Berg Collection of
English and American Literature

"The End--Thank God!"
This printed itinerary of Dickens's reading tour for the autumn of 1858 belonged to Georgina Hogarth and bears her annotations. On July 22 Dickens read in London for the last time that summer; after a mere 10 days rest, he began this ambitious tour, which would take him throughout the English provinces, Scotland and Ireland, beginning with a performance in Clifton on August 2 and closing in Brighton, more than three months later, on November 13. Altogether he was scheduled to read eighty-seven times, on some days giving both a matinée and an evening performance. Georgina's annotations include memoranda about Dickens's arduous schedule ("Sat: London. Sun: Gad's Hill"), much of which involved hours of often hideously uncomfortable travel by rail; his children ("Plorn & I go to London"); and at bottom, below the listing of the final engagement at Brighton, the exclamation, "The End.--Thank God!" Dickens's youngest child, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, nicknamed "Plorn," was six years old at the time.

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