Charles Dickens in Ceylon: Talk by Dr Raja Bandaranayake MBBS, PhD, MSED, FRACS at the Ceylon Society of Australia (CSA) Meeting held in Sydney on 28 May 2023: a short summary.
The second meeting of the Ceylon Society of Australia (CSA) for 2023 was held on the 28th of May at the Pennant Hills Community Centre. It was well attended, considering it was a cold Sunday evening! The speaker was Dr Raja Bandaranayake. Raja graduated in Medicine from the University of Ceylon, obtained his PhD from the University of London Guy’s Hospital Medical School and a master’s in education from the University of Southern California. He is a highly respected surgeon and medical educator who has advised the United Nations, WHO and World Bank. Raja also is an avid collector of books on Ceylon covering the British colonial period. The attendees were treated to a fascinating talk on whether or not Charles Dickens visited Ceylon. Raja drew upon various reports of travel writing on Ceylon in the 19th century that were supposedly written by Dickens. As there was no record at all of Charles Dickens ever visiting Ceylon how was it that there was a book of writings on various topics related to Ceylon attributed to Charles Dickens? It was a historical conundrum.
Raja then proceeded to unravel the mystery by showing that despite his extensive knowledge of Ceylon, Dickens never visited the island. He mentioned essays in a weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens where the accounts of pearl fishing, climbing Adam’s Peak (from the Maskeliya side), the Perahera, Cinnamon Gardens and ruined cities, were in fact written by other Englishmen who travelled extensively in Ceylon and wrote what they saw and experienced in great detail. Those writers were not acknowledged as authors of the essays. As editor of the magazine Dickens would have received royalties from the sales and took credit for the writing. It was sobering to find out that one of the greatest writers in the English language may have committed plagiarism in today’s definition of the word!
A robust Q & A followed where one of the questions was “Did the term ‘What the dickens!’ come from Charles Dickens?” Answer: No, it originated in England in the 16th century. It was a very entertaining and interesting evening thanks to the speaker Dr Raja Bandaranayake and to Pauline Gunewardene and the CSA Committee who helped set up and provide the refreshments. Thanks also goes to Senanie de Silva for the photographs of the evening.
Adam Raffel – Editor of The Ceylankan
