Charles Dickens

The Seven Poor Travellers Charles Dickens

The Seven Poor Travellers is one of Charles Dickens's Christmas stories that was first published in the 1854 Christmas issue of the Victorian Novelist's periodical Household Words. It follows the adventures of six travelers in addition to the story of the seventh traveller who is none but the narrator himself. The narrative is divided into three chapters. In the first chapter entitled "In the Old City of Rochester," the seven heroes meet at the old Richard Watts's Charity and start telling stories to each other on a Christmas dinner. In the second and most important chapter entitled "The Story of Richard Doubledick," the narrator entertains his companions by telling a story within a story whose hero is a strange twenty-two-year-old man who comes to Rochester to fall in love, enlist in the military and become the most "dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham Barracks." The final chapter of the booklet is entitled "The Road." It speaks about the narrator's journey home the following morning as each of the seven travellers goes his own way. Dickens's conclusion of the story is skillfully woven in a way to let the readers long for more Christmas dinners and for more Christmas stories.