Alone in London: nineteenth-century street children in novels by Charles Dickens and Hesba Streeton

Abstract

Hesba Stretton (pseudonym of Sarah Smith) and Charles Dickens had a literary and business relationship while Sretton wrote for Dickens's periodicals, Household Words and All the Year Round. Although the actual extent of Dickens's influence upon Hesba Stretton's writing is difficult to ascertain tully, both authors write about children, street children of London in particular. Within her books, Hesba Stretton incorporates, and often extends, many of the thematic concepts which characterize Dickens's presentations of street children. Their thematic presentations of the children include viewing the street child as a reflection of deprivation, both emotional and physical, as a devotee to responsibility, a recipient of benevolence, an inheritor of spiritual blessings, and an instrument of salvation.