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Abstract
Introduced into the streets of first Paris and then London in the late 1820s, the omnibus quickly became a popular and convenient means of urban transport. But as many historians of culture note, the omnibus connecting different points in the metropolitan space, was a space in its own right, with a range of complications and complexities. Its interior constituted a peculiar enclave within a larger communal space and thus made its passengers experience - and negotiate between - freedom and constraint, convenience and discomfort as well as anonymity and intimacy. Using omnibus scenes in the works of such writers as Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Augustus Sala, or Amy Levy, I shall examine some of the above-mentioned aspects of the conveyance. Most specifically, I shall look into the complexities of the visual interactions between the omnibus passengers as well as those between the passengers and the urban environment outside the vehicle.
Highlights
Introduced into the streets of first Paris and London in the late 1820s, the omnibus quickly became a popular and convenient means of urban transport
Many of the representations of the omnibus indicate that in contemporary consciousness, it functioned as far more than a convenient means of transport and was, in the words of Nicholas Daly, “a vehicle heavily freighted with social meaning,” (2015, 94) not least because it allowed different social classes and sexes to occupy the same tight space, even if only in passing
Basil sees in the omnibus ride an excellent prospect of “studying characters of all kinds” (Collins 2008, 27) and hopes to put the observations to good, that is literary, use: “I had often before ridden in omnibuses to amuse myself by observing the passengers
Summary
Introduced into the streets of first Paris and London in the late 1820s, the omnibus quickly became a popular and convenient means of urban transport. Collins uses here reading in the sense of observation, and many, male, passengers converted the omnibus to an optical device almost from the moment of its appearance in the cities in the late 1820s.
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