Charles Dickens and Gurney’s shorthand: ‘that savage stenographic mystery’

Abstract

This article will focus on the experience of one practitioner of one particular system of shorthand: the use by Charles Dickens of Thomas Gurney’s shorthand system, first when he worked at Doctors’ Commons (probably 1828–1831) and then as a parliamentary reporter in Westminster (roughly 1831–1834). My focus of interest is not so much the linguistic details of Gurney’s shorthand, which has been studied elsewhere, but the context in which this system was used by Dickens in his work as a reporter. I will explain how Dickens learnt the Gurney’s system and used it professionally, how his experience is given literary form in the character of David Copperfield, what it was like to report in Parliament in the 1830s and how Dickens’ experience as a shorthand writer influenced his writing and his political outlook.