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    THE LITTLE DOLL'S DRESSMAKER - A Children's Story by Charles Dickens
    THE LITTLE DOLL'S DRESSMAKER - A Children's Story by Charles Dickens
    THE LITTLE DOLL'S DRESSMAKER - A Children's Story by Charles Dickens
    Ebook78 pages4 hours

    THE LITTLE DOLL'S DRESSMAKER - A Children's Story by Charles Dickens

    By Charles Dickens and Adapted By MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON

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    Jenny Wren, The Doll’s Dressmaker, is a welcome contrast to stereotypes of disabled individuals as "permanent children" always in need of protection, "defined by their perceived dependence on the nondisabled" (Klages 2). Far from slinking through life as an object of pity, Jenny proclaims herself "the person of the house" (235, II, 2).
    It is a frequent complaint that Dickens's ideal heroine is the angel of the house and that his "stereotypical presentations of angels, fallen sisters, and eccentric women regrettably leave today's readers in search of a viable heroine".
    While several Dickens’ characters fit binary stereotypes of the disabled as pitiful and helpless, sometimes even monstrous and villainous, Jenny Wren, the dolls' dressmaker, creates a unique and constructive life with regards to her infirmities. She has successfully adaptated her life and in several respects she reverses and challenges and limits usually imposed on disabled women in Victorian fiction. To this end Jenny has built a successful business making dolls clothes for the wealthier members of society.
    The little dressmaker is so strong and courageous that she physically assaults a vile businessman, Fascination Fledgeby, who has hounded Jenny's friends and ruined many other lives through his extortionate lending practices. Jenny's weapon of choice is pepper, the Victorian girl's counterpart of mace. In a complete reversal of the usual paradigm, the able-bodied man finds himself writhing helplessly, temporarily disabled, humiliated and in pain (704-06, IV, 8).
    Jenny Wren anticipates today's view that the disabled and the able-bodied can work together in interdependent relationships, subverting the expectation that the disabled are inevitably dependent. While typically the disabled woman in the Victorian novel is denied a reproductive future, Jenny is an exception. Dickens was ahead of his time in providing a suitor for Jenny, and envisioning that a disabled woman can be beautiful.
    With thanks to Sara D. Schotland of Georgetown University and the Disability Studies Quarterly for publishing this summary of Jenny Wren in “The Doll’s Dressmaker.”
    10% of the publisher’s profit will be donated to Charities.
    -------
    KEYWORDS/TAGS: YA, Young Adult, story, Victorian, young person, young people, alone, back, bad, beautiful, bench, best, chair, Charles, child, children, children’s story, chin, city, clothes, creature, cry, crutch, dark, dead, Dickens, disabled, disability, , doll, dressmaker, fairy Godmother, Fledgeby, flowers, Jenny Wren, Lizzie, Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie, London, looking, master, miss, money, old, person, pin cushion, pleasant, poor, pretty, queer, quick, Riah, roof, sharp, shook, shop, Sloppy, small, smell, strange, tea, throw, toy, turn, Victorian, voice, Well, white, window, working, yellow, young
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbela Publishing
    Release dateDec 1, 2018
    ISBN9788829564453
    THE LITTLE DOLL'S DRESSMAKER - A Children's Story by Charles Dickens
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles John Huffam Dickens wurde geboren am 7. Februar 1812 in Landport bei Portsmouth, England und verstarb am 9. Juni 1870 auf seinem Landsitz Gads Hill Place in Higham bei Rochester, England. Er war ein englischer Schriftsteller.

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      Book preview

      THE LITTLE DOLL'S DRESSMAKER - A Children's Story by Charles Dickens - Charles Dickens

      The Little Doll’s Dressmaker

      A Short Story By

      Charles Dickens

      Extracted From A Serialisation By

      Vol. III - No. 116 through Vol. III – No. 119

      [1882]

      Resurrected by

      Abela Publishing, London

      [2018]

      The Little Doll’s Dressmaker

      Typographical arrangement of this edition

      © Abela Publishing 2018

      This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Abela Publishing,

      London

      United Kingdom

      2018

      ISBN-13: 978-X-XXXXXX-XX-X

      email

      [email protected]

      Website

      Abela Publishing

      Acknowledgements

      Adapted From

      Charles Dickens.

      By

      Mrs. Zadel B. Gustafson.

      Chapter I

      Near the small town of Millbank, and just outside the great city of London, there is a little street called Church Street, and a little square called Smith Square, and where this street and square come together there is a row of houses, rented very cheap, and in one of them lived the little girl whose story I shall try to tell you.

      She was about fourteen years old at the time I speak of, and her real name was Fanny Cleaver; but her back was so weak, one of her short legs being shorter than the other, and she was so very little—not having grown any since she was seven years old—that she had given herself the name of Jenny Wren, and by this name everyone knew her. The queer little figure, as it hopped about, and the queer but not ugly little face, with its bright gray eyes, made her seem wonderfully like the cheerful, quick, tiny brown bird whose name she had chosen.

      Jenny's mother was dead, and Jenny's father was a drunkard. If you do not know what misery comes into a home, whether it is a rich or humble one, when the father has the evil habit of drink, then you can hardly understand what a great trouble little Jenny had to bear, and all alone, too, for her bright mind, her true heart, and her skillful little hands were all the friends Jenny had.

      Jenny Wren – The Doll’s Dresmaker

      Jessie Willcox Smith (1912)

      What could such a little creature do? She printed the words Room to Let with a stubbed pen on a piece of white card-board, and hung it in the window; and it had not hung there many hours before there came a knock at the door. The door flew open by a spring which had been touched inside. Across the narrow entry the parlor door stood open, and showed Jenny Wren sitting in a low, old-fashioned arm-chair,

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