This novella was a collaboration between Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, portraying themselves fictionally as Francis Goodchild and Thomas Idle, who are different kind of idlers, the former a busy idler who likes to "waste" his time with meaningless activities, and the latter who is bone idle. Their peregrinations are quite amusing (though I found chapter 5 at the Doncaster horse races rather tiresome), but the highlights of this are the two ghostly stories told by other characters as stories within stories, which were quite eerie and raised the standard of this otherwise fairly trivial piece of comedy writing. ( )

If you were to go up in a balloon, you would make for heaven; and if you were to dive into the depths of the earth, nothing short of the other place would content you.

These are the words of Thomas Idle to Francis Goodchild, but they are really the words of Wilkie Collins to describe his friend, Charles Dickens. This is a joint effort novella produced by Dickens and Collins, in which they poke fun at themselves and at one another. It contains a frame story in which two men set off for an idle adventure through the countryside of the English Lake District and the Fells, and contains two beautifully crafted short stories within the frame. One is a story of a young man who is housed in an inn with a recently deceased corpse; the other a more traditional ghost story...one obviously penned by Collins and the other by Dickens.

I enjoyed both the frame and the insets. The internal stories are so well done that you lose yourself in them and forget that they have dragged you away from the adventure at hand. There is a lot of sly humor, the feeling that you have been let in on an inside joke, and a glimpse into these two distinct personalities, the man of activity and the true idler, and how they managed to mesh.

If you are a fan of Collins and Dickens, you will be sure to enjoy this. If you are not, perhaps after reading this you will be.


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The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices was co-written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and features two characters (Mr. Goodchild and Mr. Idle) that are stand-ins for these two. It is told over the course of what was originally five issues of Dickens' journal Household Words and depicts an "idle" (but actually quite frantic) vacation, with long walks/hikes and explorations of inns and other places. In the course, it also includes two long standalone stories--both gothic ghost stories, one that appears to be primarily by Collins and one that appears to be primarily by Dickens.

The book as a whole is certainly a minor work. It has lots of moments of humor and is rarely dull, but at its best still falls short of just about the worst of any Dickens novel. The two largely standalone stories that are told in the course of it are fun, perhaps the most enjoyable part of the book. In general, mostly worth reading for the completist but a lot more that is worth getting to before this. ( )

The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices was co-written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and features two characters (Mr. Goodchild and Mr. Idle) that are stand-ins for these two. It is told over the course of what was originally five issues of Dickens' journal Household Words and depicts an "idle" (but actually quite frantic) vacation, with long walks/hikes and explorations of inns and other places. In the course, it also includes two long standalone stories--both gothic ghost stories, one that appears to be primarily by Collins and one that appears to be primarily by Dickens.

The book as a whole is certainly a minor work. It has lots of moments of humor and is rarely dull, but at its best still falls short of just about the worst of any Dickens novel. The two largely standalone stories that are told in the course of it are fun, perhaps the most enjoyable part of the book. In general, mostly worth reading for the completist but a lot more that is worth getting to before this. ( )

Esta ficción a cuatro manos de Charles Dickens (1812-70) y Wilkie Collins (1824-89) narra la historia de dos jóvenes que salen a descubrir el mundo y aprender el oficio de escritor. La experiencia literaria data de 1857. Ambos autores se volvieron a encontrar diez años después para escribir conjuntamente Callejón sin salida (1867). ( )