WMG / Little Dorrit

Doyce's invention is Charles Babbage's difference engine

Dickens was a huge proponent of social causes, one of which was promoting people like inventors, creators, artists, and other change agents. This pet project of his inspired the whole conceit of the Circumlocution Office. Incidentally, Babbage, a prolific inventor and mathematician, was a good friend of his. Babbage's difference engine, the precursor to the modern computer, was first presented to the Royal Astronomical Society in the early 1820s, which is when Little Dorrit is set. The complete and refined model, the analytical engine, wasn't constructed until nearly 1850, about the time Dickens began actually writing Little Dorrit.I think it's interesting that Dickens, in the novel, describes Doyce's invention in terms both grandiose and vague. Given the sheer multitude of inventions being patented around the time the novel was both written and set, he probably did that to avoid being accused of stealing someone's idea. What description there is implies something fairly sizable, perhaps a little noisy, that will change society—all of which could apply to both the original and modified analytical engines. Doyce isn't a mathematician, but he would certainly have the mechanical know-how to construct a machine like that, and it would be an interesting homage to Dickens' friend Babbage.