Heed the Call
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For those who enjoyed my piece about Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol last week, I recommend the article, ‘The real Christmas Carol’, which discusses Dickens’ inspiration for writing the novella, including the terrible working conditions of children during the era, and the fact that a Christmas ‘holiday’ was still a fresh concept to its Victorian audience in 1843 (it irritated Scrooge no end).
It’s also a story of the writer’s initiative, because Dickens’ serial of the year —The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit — was not popular and his publishers viewed another offering by him with scepticism. Convinced of his story’s merits, Dickens self-published the book.
Plus ça change, mes amis!
Dickens turned in 30,000 words in six weeks, conjuring the narrative while taking 15 to 20-mile walks around London during the depths of night in the autumn of 1843. Still, his publishers, unconvinced by the lacklustre sales of Chuzzlewit, refused to cough up for the book, leading Dickens to pay for the printing himself. He didn’t make things easier for anybody by rejecting no fewer than two rounds of endpapers – first a drab olive set, then a jauntier yellow set, which clashed with the title page. The finished book was quite the luxury item: bound in red cloth, pages edged with gilt, it finally completed production two days before publication day on 19 December. Priced at the modern equivalent of £25, it nevertheless captured the hearts of the increasingly Christmas-hungry Victorian middle-class, who snapped up all 6,000 copies by Christmas Eve.
On Boxing Day — St. Stephen’s Day — Dickens threw a party for his book, understanding that this was a one-man show and no one was going to promote the text for him.
Dickens performed magic tricks to entertain his fans and encourage sales. It worked: by the following year the book had been re-printed eleven times — yet his profits were never substantial.
Like most authors, even today, he ended up making more from speaking gigs than book sales – albeit not until the 1850s, whereupon he proceeded to read a shorter version of the story at events no fewer than 127 times, for the next 20 years – right up until he died in 1870.
While it’s alarming that so little has changed in the publishing trade, it’s also a reminder that on occasion an author needs to don theatrical garb and caper to entice an audience. On today’s multitude of online platforms, populated by millions of attention-shorn scrollers, my sense is that copying the standard hustle, book trailer, and podcast conversation doesn’t generate much in the way of actual purchases — not that such promotion should be scorned, but rather it needs to be judicious.
Returning to traditional venues (bookshops, older media, and live events) is more likely to elicit true attention (i.e. sales rather than likes). My suspicion is that writers will need to follows Dickens’ lead and learn to embrace being a performer when necessary (no doubt his sales was boosted by his existing fanbase just a little).
Of course, a few people always succeed in going viral on social media but they usually have copious free time and the tenacity of a badger. A badger with a drum that it beats every morning, afternoon, and evening, which would drive a normal badger mad and prevent any further writing.
Let’s treat ourselves to a cosy scene from The Wind in the Willows, where Ratty and Mole prevail upon the hospitality of Mr. Badger after they have gone astray in the Wild Wood during a snowy evening.
There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes.
‘Now, the VERY next time this happens,’ said a gruff and suspicious voice, ‘I shall be exceedingly angry. Who is it THIS time, disturbing people on such a night? Speak up!’
‘Oh, Badger,’ cried the Rat, ‘let us in, please. It’s me, Rat, and my friend Mole, and we’ve lost our way in the snow.’
‘What, Ratty, my dear little man!’ exclaimed the Badger, in quite a different voice. ‘Come along in, both of you, at once. Why, you must be perished. Well I never! Lost in the snow! And in the Wild Wood, too, and at this time of night! But come in with you.’
The two animals tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get inside, and heard the door shut behind them with great joy and relief.
The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were indeed very down at heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had probably been on his way to bed when their summons sounded. He looked kindly down on them and patted both their heads. ‘This is not the sort of night for small animals to be out,’ he said paternally. ‘I’m afraid you’ve been up to some of your pranks again, Ratty. But come along; come into the kitchen. There’s a first-rate fire there, and supper and everything.’
He shuffled on in front of them, carrying the light, and they followed him, nudging each other in an anticipating sort of way, down a long, gloomy, and, to tell the truth, decidedly shabby passage, into a sort of a central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like passages branching, passages mysterious and without apparent end. But there were doors in the hall as well—stout oaken comfortable-looking doors. One of these the Badger flung open, and at once they found themselves in all the glow and warmth of a large fire-lit kitchen.
The floor was well-worn red brick, and on the wide hearth burnt a fire of logs, between two attractive chimney-corners tucked away in the wall, well out of any suspicion of draught. A couple of high-backed settles, facing each other on either side of the fire, gave further sitting accommodations for the sociably disposed. In the middle of the room stood a long table of plain boards placed on trestles, with benches down each side. At one end of it, where an arm-chair stood pushed back, were spread the remains of the Badger’s plain but ample supper. Rows of spotless plates winked from the shelves of the dresser at the far end of the room, and from the rafters overhead hung hams, bundles of dried herbs, nets of onions, and baskets of eggs. It seemed a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory, where weary harvesters could line up in scores along the table and keep their Harvest Home with mirth and song, or where two or three friends of simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and talk in comfort and contentment. The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over everything without distinction.
The kindly Badger thrust them down on a settle to toast themselves at the fire, and bade them remove their wet coats and boots. Then he fetched them dressing-gowns and slippers, and himself bathed the Mole’s shin with warm water and mended the cut with sticking-plaster till the whole thing was just as good as new, if not better. In the embracing light and warmth, warm and dry at last, with weary legs propped up in front of them, and a suggestive clink of plates being arranged on the table behind, it seemed to the storm-driven animals, now in safe anchorage, that the cold and trackless Wild Wood just left outside was miles and miles away, and all that they had suffered in it a half-forgotten dream.
Mr. Badger has Bilbo the Hobbit vibes, although The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932) was published in 1908, and The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, didn’t appear until 1937.
Both characters are homebodies who depart their underground havens to embark upon adventure, but also to help people in need. They sacrifice their natural tendency for a quiet life because they understand they are part of a greater world, and sometimes you must go out into the unknown.
The opening interaction between the sedate Bilbo (a mere 50 years old) and the wizard Gandalf (a sprightly 2,000 years old) is a terrific example of conflicting personalities.
All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.
“Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
“All of them at once,” said Bilbo. “And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. If you have a pipe about you, sit down and have a fill of mine! There’s no hurry, we have all the day before us!” Then Bilbo sat down on a seat by his door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke that sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away over The Hill.
“Very pretty!” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke-rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
“I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out his morning letters, and began to read, pretending to take no more notice of the old man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. But the old man did not move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything, till Bilbo got quite uncomfortable and even a little cross.
“Good morning!” he said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.
That is not the end of the matter of course, and Gandalf provokes Bilbo out of his home and into escapades he never imagined he was capable of surviving.
How do we know what life has in store for us if we never take risks with wizards, or decide to help your chums stage an intervention with a Toad who has developed a manic motorcar obsession?
As Frodo quotes Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings:
“He used to say … there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,’ he used to say. ‘You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.’”
There is wisdom here I’ll have to ponder for the coming year… what can I do that is new and challenging, and what surprising paths will lead me to different vistas?
I will have to follow the Badger and the Wizard and be unafraid to strike out for new horizons.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year!
May 2026 offer you warm hearths and roads there and back again!
Let me beat the bodhrán a little and remind you of some of my writings, new and older:
My 2025 World Fantasy Award-winning story, ‘Raptor’ is available to buy in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology, Heartwood, edited by Dan Coxon. My British Fantasy Award-nominated collection, The Boughs Withered (When I Told Them My Dreams) is available in several formats. If you fancy a 2000 AD Annual, then I’ve a Judge Anderson story, titled ‘Parade of Death’, drawn by Joe Currie for the 2026 edition. I have a video essay in the limited edition Blu-ray release of the Irish-Filipino horror film, Nocebo (2022), directed by Lorcan Finnegan and written by Garret Shanley. My story, ‘The First and Future Forest’ was published in ParSec #13. Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries, the point-and-click video game I wrote for Outsider Games based on the comic book I wrote for Atomic Diner Comics, is now available for the Nintendo Switch. I have an essay in the Arrow Films limited edition 2-disc boxed set of the 1996 film, The Long Kiss Goodnight, which is in 4K UHD.
