The Great International Walking-Match, February 29, 1868 (map from “Plan of Boston and its vicinity, 1868”. Boston Public Library, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center)
Did you miss the 157th anniversary of The Great International Walking Match? What sets this event apart in literary and local history is the participation of the iconic English novelist, Charles Dickens, while in Newton, Massachusetts!
This is the little known story of the brief visit in 1868 of Charles Dickens to the small village of Newton Centre – not just once, but twice!
In November, 1867 Dickens arrived in Boston to begin his second American reading tour in twenty-five years. Over the course of the next five months, he would deliver some 76 readings. Dickens was now at the height of popularity and this promised to be a lucrative venture: By the time he sailed back to England, he had accumulated over two million dollars (in today’s money) in speaking fees.
Walking was Dickens’ one release from the rigors of writing, travel, and lecturing. “If I could not walk far and fast,” he confessed, “I think I should just explode and perish.” He once awoke in the middle of the night and walked the 30 miles from London to his country home at Gad’s Hill in Kent! Dickens’ passion for walking did not diminish with age. When 55 years old, and facing an exhausting tour schedule of 76 readings in about 150 days — at venues up and down the entire Northeast — he still made time to walk daily, averaging ten to twelve miles.
While on tour in Baltimore in early February, Dickens’ managers, George Dolby and James Osgood, came up with a plan to distract Dickens from his grueling lecture schedule. “An idea struck us,” wrote Dolby, “that a walking match between ourselves (Dolby and Osgood), to take place at the end of February, in Boston, would be a source of amusement to Mr….