The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World
ROBERT DOUGLAS-FAIRHURST
(JONATHAN CAPE, 368 PP, £25)
Tablet bookshop price £22.50 • tel 020 7799 4064

It all happened in 1851. Matthew Arnold was penning “Dover Beach” as the first cross-Channel telegraph wires were laid; women – very few – pioneered baggy trousers under the inspiration of Amelia Bloomer; and the “Great Unwashed” of England expanded their narrow horizons with a once-in-a-lifetime train journey to see London and the loudly trumpeted Great Exhibition. In Paxton’s “Crystal Palace”, they could “travel the whole world in less than a day” as they gazed at inventions and foreigners from across the globe.

Prince Albert hailed this as a “period of most wonderful transition”. The Bishop of Oxford hymned the “celebration of the Dignity of Labour”. There was fear of unruly mobs – “glass is damned thin stuff” said the Duke of Wellington – but the workers of England bought their “cheap” shilling tickets, and were too dazzled to throw stones. Jostling among the rich, in this Aladdin’s cave, they caused no worse discomfort than the smell of gin and orange in their packed lunches. All were seized with optimism and curiosity. “Network” and “turning point” were new-minted buzzwords as trains and telegrams connected things once remote. Transport and industry would dim the revolutionary fervour of the hungry Forties. Britain was leading the way to a bright future of global cooperation and wealth.