Charles Dickens and the Coffee Shop

Written by Lori Thiessen

As I was lying in bed, fighting the good fight against the flu, I was reading a couple of Dickens’ novels. The first one I read was Nicholas Nickelby and the other was, The Old Curiosity Shop.

The coffee shop or coffeehouse featured rather heavily in Nicholas Nickelby. In fact, one of the most exciting moments in the novel takes place in a coffeehouse.

It seems that the coffeehouse still played an important role in English society in the 19th century, if Dickens writing is anything to go by.

I think the main difference between the coffeehouse of the 17th/18th century and the 19th century is the realm in which it occupied.

In the early era, the role was largely economic, serving as an informal office space. By the 19th century, the coffeehouse, I think, played a more social role.  Though in Nicholas Nickelby, Mr. Squeers, the schoolmaster, makes the coffeehouse a meeting place to pick up new scholars and to interview parents who wish to send their children to his lonely boarding school on the bleak moors of Yorkshire. A much more fitting place than a public house.

The coffeehouse is a more genteel venue for getting together with friends, and it is a place to get a meal. Before the appearance of the coffeehouse, the public house would be the only place to get victuals.  I would even hazard a guess that the coffeehouse might be progenitor of the restaurant.

Even though the novels are obviously fiction, it is interesting to see them as ‘slice of life’ pieces, showing us where people went and what they did. Victorians, according to Dickens’ work, did frequent the coffeehouses for both business and pleasure.

Until Next Time,

May Your Coffee Always Be Freshly Brewed!

A Cup O’Murder

Written by Lori Thiessen

While doing some research in the library, I came across a ‘keywords in title heading’ for ‘coffeehouse’. A list came up which included a murder mystery series written by Cleo Coyle. I had no idea that there was a fictional series like this. I haven’t read any of them yet but googling the main character’s name, Clare Cosi, I discovered she’s a barista in New York who happens to solve murders in her spare time. Sounds like it would make for fun reading.

Coffeehouses or coffee have often featured in literature since they became a prominent part of society. Alexander Pope, 18^th century English poet, wrote in his famous Rape of the Lock that:

Coffee (which makes the politician wise,
And see thro’ all things with his half-shut eyes)
Sent up in vapours to the Baron’s brain,
New strategems, the radiant Lock to gain.

Charles Dickens mentions coffeehouses or coffee rooms in at least two of his many works, namely Nicholas Nickelby and Little Dorrit. I must admit that I’m not that familiar with Beat Poetry so I’ve no idea if Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac or others mentioned coffee or coffeehouses in their poetry but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they did. It was the place for them to discuss their counter-culture ideas. A sense of place, of belonging however slight, is incredibly important in writing as in life, in my opinion.

As I recall, pulp fiction the like of which Dashiell Hammett wrote, often has at least one scene in a coffee shop whose coffee was as black as the heart of the dame sitting across from the protagonist.

Q: What other books feature a coffee shop or café?

Until Next Time,

May your coffee always be freshly brewed!