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Shit from Shinola: What the dickens is shinola? Funny you should ask. I was talking to Charles Dickens on the Internet and learned that, as a young boy, he worked in a boot blacking factory, where his job was to paste labels on the pots.

His hardscrabble life as a child labourer at Warren's Blacking Factory has long been thought to have formed the basis for the Dickensian view of hard times amongst the working classes of this period.

But recently, a twist in the tale has been discovered; that in spite of his suffering long hours of child labour, young Dickens penned puff-verses by way of advertisement for his boss Mr. Warren.
So it is both important for our view of Dickens at the outset of his writing career, and immensely entertaining, to find on the front page of the True Sun for March 13 1832, a poem called "The Turtle Dove" ...

As lonely I sat on a calm summer's morning,
To breathe the soft incense that flow'd on the wind;
I mus'd on my boots in their bright beauty dawning,
By Warren's Jet Blacking - the pride of mankind.
...
I pity'd the dove, for my bosom was tender -
I pity'd the strain that she gave to the wind;
But I ne'er shall forget the superlative splendour
Of Warren's Jet Blacking - the pride of mankind.
One might imagine his tongue placed firmly in cheek as he penned, for payment, this puffery for his harsh taskmaster; as Dickens was a full century ahead of his time in writing shit for shinola.
Posted by abnu on Saturday, November 01, 2003 @ 9:40 PM [ + ]

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