ABSTRACT
Jl h e m o s t s u r p r is in g t h in g about the Continental settings in L ittle D orrit is that there are so many of them. The only other novel of Dickens that is comparable in this respect is A T ale of T w o Cities, and that, after all, is a story about the French Revolution. The fact that by 1855 Dickens had taken to spending much of his time abroad may have encouraged him to incorporate some obser vations of foreign life into his work, and it seems natural that in doing so he should have used scenes that he had witnessed-and in many cases reported on in letters or published sketches-much earlier.1 I shall attempt in this essay to trace some connections be tween his first accounts of such experiences and his creative re working of them in L ittle D orrit. My primary concern, however, is with the difference made in the novel itself by its chronicle of the impact on English minds (including Dickens') of a radically unEnglish environment.
