“Moll of Wapping: An Eastern Tale
Introduction
Anonymous. “Moll of Wapping.” The Snob: A Literary and Scientific Journal. 1, 3 (1829): 17-18 .
“Moll of Wapping,” the longest piece of short fiction found in The Snob, was published in serial format, like many fictitious works of the period. Found in issues 4, 5, and 9, the story’s light-hearted, facetious tone and overblown verbiage are in line with the rest of the journal; tongue-in-cheek comments and satire abound. “Moll of Wapping” is essentially a nonsense story. It follows Moll, a horrendously ugly middle-aged woman, as she walks down the street and meets her lover, Sooty Dobbs, who is riding a donkey. Together, Moll, Dobbs, and the donkey inadvertently step into a large puddle, where they drown and are never heard from again.
Though the story is full of nonsense occurrences, Wapping, a shady London district where the city’s first docks were built in the early 1800s, was and is very real. Wapping was the site of a series of brutal killings, the Ratcliffe Highway murders, in 1811, and even before that, it was home to the “Execution Dock,” where the executions of pirates and other water-savvy criminals took place. The district’s makeup changed considerably in the early-to-mid portion of the 19th century, when the docks and many warehouses were built. Moll, who carries a basket of rancid fish on her head, is an untypically well-described caricature of a lower-class Londoner. The story's depictions of a member of the lower classes by well-to-do Cambridge students are fascinating, but the tale's true genius lies in its wit and humor. Though the author is unknown, he was doubtless well-read and educated; between references to hymns, classical literature, and contemporary writers like Coleridge, the young student writer packs in jokes about M.P.s, people’s noses, and the conventions of Victorian love stories. Sans doute, he will continue to amuse readers for another two centuries, if he is given the chance.
Transcription
Article I. Moll of Wapping: An Eastern Tale
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THE moonlight of innocence had long rested undisturbed on that bank of peace—the any-thing-but-snowy bosom of Moll of Wapping[1]; the old shoe of scandal had not yet been flung at the head of her respectability, nor had the black eye of frailty yet deformed the face of her fair frame. Her beauties how shall I describe, e’en at the bare mention of them my feathered goose-quill staggers, its nebs start asunder with horror, while its inky perspiration blots my virgin page. An eye (for Heaven, fearful of their power, had granted her but one), black as Erebus[2] , peer’d from beneath a brow, on which grey hair and filth “sat in communion sweet;” for already had her locks, through care and sleepless nights, put on the robe of twilight; her cheek rivaled the stupendous ocean in its azure tint; her teeth, in number three, palpable darkness and mortality had called their own, and as for her nose, sure rosy-fingered morn herself must have deigned to pull it, and then,
“Her blushing fingers left their blushes there.”
But to the tale. Scarce fifty summers yet had seen their close, when as the clock was tolling four—chimney-sweeping hour—upon the dusky ear of sleepy Wapping sinners, Moll issued from her native alley; a short black pipe stood in proud consciousness ‘twixt her blacker lips, while the wanton smoke curled up her yawning nostrils, or in playful innocence danced ‘mid the crags of her carbuncled[3] nose. Her hat was brimless as infinity; her gown was cotton. On her head a wicker-basket extended its oval flatness, from which there came “an ancient and fish-like smell;” and well there might; she carried sprats[4],— sprats that might have sickened any man, and turned the stomach of a Kitchener [5] to dust.
(To be continued.)
Notes
- ↑ Wapping is a London district that was located by the city’s shipping docks. It was lower-class, generally regarded as shady, and the site of the infamous Ratcliffe Highway murders in 1811.
- ↑ In Greek theogony, the personification of darkness. Also a place of darkness on the way to Hades.
- ↑ A carbuncle is a pus and fluid-filled abscess larger than a boil, usually caused by bacterial infection.
- ↑ Small, herring-like, oily fish.
- ↑ Possibly a reference to Lt. Col. Henry Horatio Kitchener, notable member of the British military and father of the renowned 1st Earl Kitchener.
Edited by: Seeley, Amanda: Section 1, Winter 2013
