ABSTRACT
A House to Let was the Household Words Extra Christmas Number, 1858. Dickens wrote the second story (‘Going into Society’, about a dwarf) and collaborated with Wilkie Collins on a brief final episode (‘Let at Last’) not mentioned by the reviewer. Collins wrote the introductory section (this includes the Dickensian passage about Mr Jarber, quoted by the reviewer, and the character named Trottle), and another story; Mrs Gaskell and Anne Adelaide Procter wrote the rest. As usual, all items were anonymous, and the reviewer may be forgiven for not distinguishing between Mr Dickens and ‘his imitators’; few reviewers did, or could. On Dickens’s contributions to this Christmas Number, see his Uncollected Writings from Household Words, ed. Stone, ii, 595–617, cited on p. 402. This review is probably by James Fitzjames Stephen.
