Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
.
[.] His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.
Born in
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when
his father was incarcerated in a
debtors' prison
A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Histori ...
. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five
novellas
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed
readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for
children's rights
Children's rights are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors. , for education, and for other social reforms.
Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of ''
The Pickwick Papers
''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (also known as ''The Pickwick Papers'') was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with '' Sketches by Boz'' published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to ...
'', a publishing phenomenon—thanks largely to the introduction of the character
Sam Weller in the fourth episode—that sparked ''Pickwick'' merchandise and spin-offs. Within a few years Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly installments, pioneered the
serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication.
[.] Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode or a film of serialized fiction. A cliffhang ...
endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense.
The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback.
For example, when his wife's
chiropodist
Podiatry () or podiatric medicine () is a branch of medicine devoted to the study, diagnosis, medical and surgical treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, and leg.
A Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (DPM), or a podiatrist, is a healthcare ...
expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in ''
David Copperfield
''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...
'' seemed to reflect her own disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a
halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.
His 1843 novella ''
A Christmas Carol'' remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. ''
Oliver Twist'' and ''
Great Expectations'' are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel ''
A Tale of Two Cities
''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in ...
'' (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career.
The term ''Dickensian'' is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters.
Early life
![ChathamOrdnanceTerrCrop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/ChathamOrdnanceTerrCrop.jpg)
Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 at 1 Mile End Terrace (now 393 Commercial Road),
Landport
Landport is a district located on Portsea Island and is considered the city centre of modern-day Portsmouth, England. The district is centred around Commercial Road and encompasses the Guildhall, Civic Centre, Portsmouth and Southsea Statio ...
in
Portsea Island
Portsea Island is a flat and low-lying natural island in area, just off the southern coast of Hampshire in England. Portsea Island contains the majority of the city of Portsmouth.
Portsea Island has the third-largest population of all th ...
(
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
),
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...
, the second of eight children of
Elizabeth Dickens
Elizabeth Culliford Dickens (née Barrow; 21 December 1789 – 13 September 1863) was the wife of John Dickens and the mother of British novelist Charles Dickens. She was the source for Mrs. Nickleby in her son's novel ''Nicholas Nickleby'' and ...
(née Barrow; 1789–1863) and
John Dickens
John Dickens (21 August 1785 – 31 March 1851) was the father of famous English novelist Charles Dickens and was the model for Mr Micawber in his son's semi-autobiographical novel ''David Copperfield''.
Biography
The son of William Dickens (17 ...
(1785–1851). His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam,
rigger to His Majesty's Navy, gentleman, and head of an established firm, to act as godfather to Charles. Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's novel ''
Dombey and Son
''Dombey and Son'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens. It follows the fortunes of a shipping firm owner, who is frustrated at the lack of a son to follow him in his footsteps; he initially rejects his daughter's love before eventual ...
'' (1848).
[
In January 1815, John Dickens was called back to London and the family moved to Norfolk Street, ]Fitzrovia
Fitzrovia () is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urban ...
. When Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness and thence to Chatham
Chatham may refer to:
Places and jurisdictions Canada
* Chatham Islands (British Columbia)
* Chatham Sound, British Columbia
* Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi
* Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he thought himself a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy".
Charles spent time outdoors, but also read voraciously, including the picaresque novel
The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...
s of Tobias Smollett
Tobias George Smollett (baptised 19 March 1721 – 17 September 1771) was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for picaresque novels such as '' The Adventures of Roderick Random'' (1748), '' The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle'' (1751 ...
and Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel ''Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...
, as well as ''Robinson Crusoe
''Robinson Crusoe'' () is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a tra ...
'' and ''Gil Blas
''Gil Blas'' (french: L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane ) is a picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage published between 1715 and 1735. It was highly popular, and was translated several times into English, most notably as The Adventures of G ...
''. He read and reread ''The Arabian Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...
'' and the Collected Farces of Elizabeth Inchbald
Elizabeth Inchbald (née Simpson, 15 October 1753 – 1 August 1821) was an English novelist, actress, dramatist, and translator. Her two novels, '' A Simple Story'' and '' Nature and Art'', have received particular critical attention.
Life
Bo ...
. At age 7 he first saw Joseph Grimaldi—the father of modern clowning—perform at the Star Theatre, Rochester. He later imitated Grimaldi's clowning on several occasions, and would also edit the '' Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi''.[.] He retained poignant memories of childhood, helped by an excellent memory of people and events, which he used in his writing. His father's brief work as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office afforded him a few years of private education, first at a dame school
Dame schools were small, privately run schools for young children that emerged in the British Isles and its colonies during the early modern period. These schools were taught by a “school dame,” a local woman who would educate children f ...
and then at a school run by William Giles, a dissenter
A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc.
Usage in Christianity
Dissent from the Anglican church
In the social and religious history of England and Wales, and ...
, in Chatham.
This period came to an end in June 1822, when John Dickens was recalled to Navy Pay Office headquarters at Somerset House and the family (except for Charles, who stayed behind to finish his final term at school) moved to Camden Town in London. The family had left Kent amidst rapidly mounting debts and, living beyond his means, John Dickens was forced by his creditors into the Marshalsea
The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition, it became known, ...
debtors' prison
A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Histori ...
in Southwark, London in 1824. His wife and youngest children joined him there, as was the practice at the time. Charles, then 12 years old, boarded with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, at 112 College Place, Camden Town. Mrs Roylance was "a reduced impoverished old lady, long known to our family", whom Dickens later immortalised, "with a few alterations and embellishments", as "Mrs Pipchin" in ''Dombey and Son''. Later, he lived in a back-attic in the house of an agent for the Insolvent Court, Archibald Russell, "a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman ... with a quiet old wife" and lame son, in Lant Street
Lant Street is a street south of Marshalsea Road in Southwark, south London, England.[Lant Street Association ...](_blank)
in Southwark. They provided the inspiration for the Garlands in ''The Old Curiosity Shop
''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is one of two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York r ...
''.
On Sundays – with his sister Frances
Frances is a French and English given name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'free one.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from the F ...
, free from her studies at the Royal Academy of Music – he spent the day at the Marshalsea. Dickens later used the prison as a setting in ''Little Dorrit
''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Cl ...
''. To pay for his board and to help his family, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station
Charing Cross railway station (also known as London Charing Cross) is a central London railway terminus between the Strand and Hungerford Bridge in the City of Westminster. It is the terminus of the South Eastern Main Line to Dover via Ashfo ...
, where he earned six shillings a week pasting labels on pots of boot blacking. The strenuous and often harsh working conditions made a lasting impression on Dickens and later influenced his fiction and essays, becoming the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigours of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor. He later wrote that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age".[ As he recalled to John Forster (from ''Life of Charles Dickens''):
When the warehouse was moved to Chandos Street in the smart, busy district of Covent Garden, the boys worked in a room in which the window gave onto the street. Small audiences gathered and watched them at work – in Dickens's biographer ]Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English film, television and voice actor, director, narrator and writer. He was twice nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his roles in ''A Room with a View'' (19 ...
's estimation, the public display was "a new refinement added to his misery".
A few months after his imprisonment, John Dickens's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens was released from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors and he and his family left the Marshalsea, for the home of Mrs Roylance.
Charles's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, did not immediately support his removal from the boot-blacking warehouse. This influenced Dickens's view that a father should rule the family and a mother find her proper sphere inside the home: "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back." His mother's failure to request his return was a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women.
Righteous indignation stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel, ''David Copperfield
''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...
'': "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!"
Dickens was eventually sent to the Wellington House Academy in Camden Town, where he remained until March 1827, having spent about two years there. He did not consider it to be a good school: "Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr Creakle's Establishment in ''David Copperfield''."[.]
Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and W ...
, as a junior clerk
A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...
from May 1827 to November 1828. He was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers and clerks. He went to theatres obsessively: he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every day. His favourite actor was Charles Mathews
Charles Mathews (28 June 1776, London – 28 June 1835, Devonport) was an English theatre manager and comic actor, well known during his time for his gift of impersonation and skill at table entertainment. His play ''At Home'', in which he pl ...
and Dickens learnt his " monopolylogues" (farces in which Mathews played every character) by heart. Then, having learned Gurney's system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons
Doctors' Commons, also called the College of Civilians, was a society of lawyers practising civil (as opposed to common) law in London, namely ecclesiastical and admiralty law. Like the Inns of Court of the common lawyers, the society had buildi ...
and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years. This education was to inform works such as Nicholas Nickleby
''Nicholas Nickleby'' or ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' (or also ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, and Complete Career of the ...
, ''Dombey and Son'' and especially ''Bleak House'', whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much to enlighten the general public and served as a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to "go to law".
In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in ''David Copperfield''. Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris.
Career
Journalism and early novels
In 1832, at the age of 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self-confident. He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become, and yet knew he wanted fame. Drawn to the theatre – he became an early member of the Garrick Club
The Garrick Club is a gentlemen's club in the heart of London founded in 1831. It is one of the oldest members' clubs in the world and, since its inception, has catered to members such as Charles Kean, Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, A ...
– he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble
Charles Kemble (25 November 1775 – 12 November 1854) was a Welsh-born English actor of a prominent theatre family.
Life
Charles Kemble was one of 13 siblings and the youngest son of English Roman Catholic theatre manager/actor Roger Kemble ...
were to see him. Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate the comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold. Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer.
In 1833, Dickens submitted his first story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical ''Monthly Magazine
''The Monthly Magazine'' (1796–1843) of London began publication in February 1796.
Contributors
Richard Phillips was the publisher and a contributor on political issues. The editor for the first ten years was a literary jack-of-all-trades, Dr ...
''.[.] William Barrow, Dickens's uncle on his mother's side, offered him a job on ''The Mirror of Parliament'' and he worked in the House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
for the first time early in 1832. He rented rooms at Furnival's Inn
Furnival's Inn was an Inn of Chancery which formerly stood on the site of the present Holborn Bars building (the former Prudential Assurance Company building) in Holborn, London, England.
History
Furnival's Inn was founded about 1383 when Wil ...
and worked as a political journalist, reporting on Parliamentary
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democracy, democratic government, governance of a sovereign state, state (or subordinate entity) where the Executive (government), executive derives its democratic legitimacy ...
debates, and he travelled across Britain to cover election campaigns for the ''Morning Chronicle
''The Morning Chronicle'' was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London. It was notable for having been the first steady employer of essayist William Hazlitt as a political reporter and the first steady employer of Charles Dickens as a journalist. It ...
''. His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: ''Sketches by Boz
''Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People'' (commonly known as ''Sketches by Boz'') is a collection of short pieces Charles Dickens originally published in various newspapers and other periodicals between 1833 and ...
'' – Boz being a family nickname he employed as a pseudonym for some years.[.] Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname 'Moses', which he had given to his youngest brother Augustus Dickens
Augustus Newnham Dickens (10 November 1827 – 4 October 1866) was the youngest brother of English novelist Charles Dickens, and the inspiration for Charles's pen name 'Boz'.
Early life
Augustus Dickens was the son of Elizabeth (''née'' Barrow ...
, after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's ''The Vicar of Wakefield
''The Vicar of Wakefield'', subtitled ''A Tale, Supposed to be written by Himself'', is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774). It was written from 1761 to 1762 and published in 1766. It was one of the most popular and wid ...
''. When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, "Moses" became "Boses" – later shortened to ''Boz''. Dickens's own name was considered "queer" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: "Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations." Dickens contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career. In January 1835, the ''Morning Chronicle'' launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the ''Chronicle''s music critic, George Hogarth
George Hogarth WS (6 September 1783 – 12 February 1870) was a Scottish lawyer, newspaper editor, music critic, and musicologist. He authored several books on opera and Victorian musical life in addition to contributing articles to various publ ...
. Hogarth invited him to contribute ''Street Sketches'' and Dickens became a regular visitor to his Fulham house – excited by Hogarth's friendship with Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
(whom Dickens greatly admired) and enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters: Georgina, Mary and 19-year-old Catherine.
Dickens made rapid progress both professionally and socially. He began a friendship with William Harrison Ainsworth
William Harrison Ainsworth (4 February 18053 January 1882) was an English historical novelist born at King Street in Manchester. He trained as a lawyer, but the legal profession held no attraction for him. While completing his legal studies in ...
, the author of the highwayman novel '' Rookwood'' (1834), whose bachelor salon in Harrow Road
The Harrow Road is an ancient route in North West London which runs from Paddington in a northwesterly direction towards Harrow. It is also the name given to the immediate surrounding area of Queens Park and Kensal Green, straddling the NW10 ...
had become the meeting place for a set that included Daniel Maclise
Daniel Maclise (25 January 180625 April 1870) was an Irish history painter, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator, who worked for most of his life in London, England.
Early life
Maclise was born in Cork, Ireland, the son of Alexan ...
, Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...
, Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, PC (25 May 180318 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secret ...
and George Cruikshank
George Cruikshank (27 September 1792 – 1 February 1878) was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached ...
. All these became his friends and collaborators, with the exception of Disraeli, and he met his first publisher, John Macrone, at the house. The success of ''Sketches by Boz'' led to a proposal from publishers Chapman and Hall
Chapman & Hall is an imprint owned by CRC Press, originally founded as a British publishing house in London in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman and William Hall. Chapman & Hall were publishers for Charles Dickens (from 184 ...
for Dickens to supply text to match Robert Seymour's engraved illustrations in a monthly letterpress
Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker comp ...
. Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired "Phiz
Hablot Knight Browne (10 July 1815 – 8 July 1882) was an English artist and illustrator. Well-known by his pen name, Phiz, he illustrated books by Charles Dickens, Charles Lever, and Harrison Ainsworth.
Early life
Of Huguenot ancestry, Hablot ...
" to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for the story. The resulting story became ''The Pickwick Papers
''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (also known as ''The Pickwick Papers'') was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with '' Sketches by Boz'' published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to ...
'' and, although the first few episodes were not successful, the introduction of the Cockney character Sam Weller in the fourth episode (the first to be illustrated by Phiz) marked a sharp climb in its popularity. The final instalment sold 40,000 copies. On the impact of the character, ''The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'' stated, "arguably the most historic bump in English publishing is the Sam Weller Bump." A publishing phenomenon, John Sutherland called ''The Pickwick Papers'' " e most important single novel of the Victorian era". The unprecedented success led to numerous spin-offs and merchandise ranging from ''Pickwick'' cigars, playing cards, china figurines, Sam Weller puzzles, Weller boot polish and joke books.
On the creation of modern mass culture, Nicholas Dames in ''The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' writes, "Literature" is not a big enough category for ''Pickwick''. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call "entertainment." In November 1836, Dickens accepted the position of editor of ''Bentley's Miscellany
''Bentley's Miscellany'' was an English literary magazine started by Richard Bentley. It was published between 1836 and 1868.
Contributors
Already a successful publisher of novels, Bentley began the journal in 1836 and invited Charles Dickens ...
'', a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner. In 1836, as he finished the last instalments of ''The Pickwick Papers'', he began writing the beginning instalments of '' Oliver Twist'' – writing as many as 90 pages a month – while continuing work on ''Bentley's'' and also writing four plays, the production of which he oversaw. ''Oliver Twist'', published in 1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories and was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
.[.]
On 2 April 1836, after a one-year engagement, and between episodes two and three of ''The Pickwick Papers'', Dickens married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1815–1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the ''Evening Chronicle
The ''Evening Chronicle'', now referred to as ''The Comical'', is a daily newspaper produced in Newcastle upon Tyne covering North regional news, but primarily focused on Newcastle upon Tyne and surrounding area. The ''Comical'' is published by ...
''. They were married in St Luke's Church, Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
, London. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...
in Kent, the couple returned to lodgings at Furnival's Inn
Furnival's Inn was an Inn of Chancery which formerly stood on the site of the present Holborn Bars building (the former Prudential Assurance Company building) in Holborn, London, England.
History
Furnival's Inn was founded about 1383 when Wil ...
. The first of their ten children, Charles, was born in January 1837 and a few months later the family set up home in Bloomsbury at 48 Doughty Street, London (on which Charles had a three-year lease at £80 a year) from 25 March 1837 until December 1839. Dickens's younger brother Frederick Frederick may refer to:
People
* Frederick (given name), the name
Nobility
Anhalt-Harzgerode
*Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670)
Austria
* Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198
* Frederick ...
and Catherine's 17-year-old sister Mary Hogarth
Mary Scott Hogarth (26 October 1819 – 7 May 1837) was the sister of Catherine Dickens ( Hogarth) and the sister-in-law of Charles Dickens. Hogarth first met Charles Dickens at age 14, and after Dickens married Hogarth's sister Catherine, Ma ...
moved in with them. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837. Unusually for Dickens, as a consequence of his shock, he stopped working, and he and Catherine stayed at a little farm on Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath (locally known simply as the Heath) is an ancient heath in London, spanning . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band o ...
for a fortnight. Dickens idealised Mary; the character he fashioned after her, Rose Maylie
Rose Fleming Maylie is a fictional character in Charles Dickens' 1838 novel '' Oliver Twist'' who is eventually discovered to be the title character's maternal aunt. Though she plays a significant role in the novel, she is often omitted from drama ...
, he found he could not now kill, as he had planned, in his fiction, and, according to Ackroyd, he drew on memories of her for his later descriptions of Little Nell and Florence Dombey. His grief was so great that he was unable to meet the deadline for the June instalment of ''The Pickwick Papers'' and had to cancel the ''Oliver Twist'' instalment that month as well. The time in Hampstead was the occasion for a growing bond between Dickens and John Forster to develop; Forster soon became his unofficial business manager and the first to read his work.
His success as a novelist continued. The young Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
read both ''Oliver Twist'' and ''The Pickwick Papers'', staying up until midnight to discuss them. ''Nicholas Nickleby
''Nicholas Nickleby'' or ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' (or also ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, and Complete Career of the ...
'' (1838–39), ''The Old Curiosity Shop
''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is one of two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York r ...
'' (1840–41) and, finally, his first historical novel, '' Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty'', as part of the ''Master Humphrey's Clock
''Master Humphrey's Clock'' was a weekly periodical edited and written entirely by Charles Dickens and published from 4 April 1840 to 4 December 1841. It began with a frame story in which Master Humphrey tells about himself and his small circle o ...
'' series (1840–41), were all published in monthly instalments before being made into books.
In the midst of all his activity during this period, there was discontent with his publishers and John Macrone was bought off, while Richard Bentley
Richard Bentley FRS (; 27 January 1662 – 14 July 1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellen ...
signed over all his rights in ''Oliver Twist''. Other signs of a certain restlessness and discontent emerged; in Broadstairs
Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 of ...
he flirted with Eleanor Picken, the young fiancée of his solicitor's best friend and one night grabbed her and ran with her down to the sea. He declared they were both to drown there in the "sad sea waves". She finally got free, and afterwards kept her distance. In June 1841, he precipitously set out on a two-month tour of Scotland and then, in September 1841, telegraphed Forster that he had decided to go to America. ''Master Humphrey's Clock'' was shut down, though Dickens was still keen on the idea of the weekly magazine, a form he liked, an appreciation that had begun with his childhood reading of the 18th-century magazines ''Tatler
''Tatler'' is a British magazine published by Condé Nast Publications focusing on fashion and lifestyle, as well as coverage of high society and politics. It is targeted towards the British upper-middle class and upper class, and those interes ...
'' and ''The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
''.
Dickens was perturbed by the return to power of the Tories, whom he described as "people whom, politically, I despise and abhor." He had been tempted to stand for the Liberals in Reading, but decided against it due to financial straits.[ He wrote three anti-Tory verse satires ("The Fine Old English Gentleman", "The Quack Doctor's Proclamation", and "Subjects for Painters") which were published in '' The Examiner''.
]
First visit to the United States
On 22 January 1842, Dickens and his wife arrived in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Massachusetts, aboard the RMS ''Britannia'' during their first trip to the United States and Canada. At this time Georgina Hogarth
Georgina Hogarth (22 January 1827 – 19 April 1917) was the sister-in-law, housekeeper, and adviser of English novelist Charles Dickens and the editor of three volumes of his collected letters after his death.
Biography
'Georgy' Hogarth was o ...
, another sister of Catherine, joined the Dickens household, now living at Devonshire Terrace, Marylebone
Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary.
An Civil parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish and latterly a ...
to care for the young family they had left behind. She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser and friend until Dickens's death in 1870. Dickens modelled the character of Agnes Wickfield after Georgina and Mary.
He described his impressions in a Travel literature, travelogue, ''American Notes, American Notes for General Circulation''. In ''Notes'', Dickens includes a powerful condemnation of slavery which he had attacked as early as ''The Pickwick Papers'', correlating the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad citing newspaper accounts of runaway slaves disfigured by their masters. In spite of the abolitionist sentiments gleaned from his trip to America, some modern commentators have pointed out inconsistencies in Dickens's views on racial inequality. For instance, he has been criticized for his subsequent acquiescence in Governor Edward John Eyre, Eyre's harsh crackdown during the 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica and his failure to join other British progressives in condemning it. From Richmond, Virginia, Dickens returned to Washington, D.C., and started a trek westward, with brief pauses in Cincinnati and Louisville, to St. Louis, Missouri. While there, he expressed a desire to see an American prairie before returning east. A group of 13 men then set out with Dickens to visit Looking Glass Prairie, a trip 30 miles into Illinois.
During his American visit, Dickens spent a month in New York City, giving lectures, raising History of copyright law, the question of international copyright laws and the pirating of his work in America. He persuaded a group of 25 writers, headed by Washington Irving, to sign a petition for him to take to Congress, but the press were generally hostile to this, saying that he should be grateful for his popularity and that it was mercenary to complain about his work being pirated.
The popularity he gained caused a shift in his self-perception according to critic Kate Flint, who writes that he "found himself a cultural commodity, and its circulation had passed out his control", causing him to become interested in and delve into themes of public and personal personas in the next novels.[.] She writes that he assumed a role of "influential commentator", publicly and in his fiction, evident in his next few books. His trip to the U.S. ended with a trip to Canada – Niagara Falls, Toronto, Kingston and Montreal – where he appeared on stage in light comedies.
Soon after his return to England, Dickens began work on the first of his Christmas stories, '' A Christmas Carol'', written in 1843, which was followed by ''The Chimes'' in 1844 and ''The Cricket on the Hearth'' in 1845. Of these, ''A Christmas Carol'' was most popular and, tapping into an old tradition, did much to promote a renewed enthusiasm for the joys of Christmas in Britain and America. The seeds for the story became planted in Dickens's mind during a trip to Manchester to witness the conditions of the manufacturing workers there. This, along with scenes he had recently witnessed at the Field Lane Ragged School, caused Dickens to resolve to "strike a sledge hammer blow" for the poor. As the idea for the story took shape and the writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. He later wrote that as the tale unfolded he "wept and laughed, and wept again" as he "walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed".
After living briefly in Italy (1844), Dickens travelled to Switzerland (1846), where he began work on ''Dombey and Son
''Dombey and Son'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens. It follows the fortunes of a shipping firm owner, who is frustrated at the lack of a son to follow him in his footsteps; he initially rejects his daughter's love before eventual ...
'' (1846–48). This and ''David Copperfield
''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...
'' (1849–50) mark a significant artistic break in Dickens's career as his novels became more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early works.
At about this time, he was made aware of a large embezzlement at the firm where his brother, Augustus Dickens, Augustus, worked (John Chapman & Co). It had been carried out by Thomas Powell (1809-1887), Thomas Powell, a clerk, who was on friendly terms with Dickens and who had acted as mentor to Augustus when he started work. Powell was also an author and poet and knew many of the famous writers of the day. After further fraudulent activities, Powell fled to New York and published a book called ''The Living Authors of England'' with a chapter on Charles Dickens, who was not amused by what Powell had written. One item that seemed to have annoyed him was the assertion that he had based the character of Paul Dombey (''Dombey and Son
''Dombey and Son'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens. It follows the fortunes of a shipping firm owner, who is frustrated at the lack of a son to follow him in his footsteps; he initially rejects his daughter's love before eventual ...
'') on Thomas Chapman, one of the principal partners at John Chapman & Co. Dickens immediately sent a letter to Lewis Gaylord Clark, editor of the New York literary magazine ''The Knickerbocker'', saying that Powell was a forger and thief. Clark published the letter in the ''New-York Tribune'' and several other papers picked up on the story. Powell began proceedings to sue these publications and Clark was arrested. Dickens, realising that he had acted in haste, contacted John Chapman & Co to seek written confirmation of Powell's guilt. Dickens did receive a reply confirming Powell's embezzlement, but once the directors realised this information might have to be produced in court, they refused to make further disclosures. Owing to the difficulties of providing evidence in America to support his accusations, Dickens eventually made a private settlement with Powell out of court.
Philanthropy
Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Angela Burdett Coutts, heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens in May 1846 about setting up a home for the redemption of Fallen woman, fallen women of the working class. Coutts envisioned a home that would replace the punitive regimes of existing institutions with a reformative environment conducive to education and proficiency in domestic household chores. After initially resisting, Dickens eventually founded the home, named Urania Cottage, in the Lime Grove area of Shepherd's Bush, which he managed for ten years, setting the house rules, reviewing the accounts and interviewing prospective residents. Emigration and marriage were central to Dickens's agenda for the women on leaving Urania Cottage, from which it is estimated that about 100 women graduated between 1847 and 1859.
Religious views
As a young man, Dickens expressed a distaste for certain aspects of organised religion. In 1836, in a pamphlet titled ''Sunday Under Three Heads'', he defended the people's right to pleasure, opposing a plan to prohibit games on Sundays. "Look into your churches – diminished congregations and scanty attendance. People have grown sullen and obstinate, and are becoming disgusted with the faith which condemns them to such a day as this, once in every seven. They display their feeling by staying away [from church]. Turn into the streets [on a Sunday] and mark the rigid gloom that reigns over everything around."
Dickens honoured the figure of Jesus, Jesus Christ. He is regarded as a professing Christian. His son, Henry Fielding Dickens, described him as someone who "possessed deep religious convictions". In the early 1840s, he had shown an interest in Unitarianism, Unitarian Christianity and Robert Browning remarked that "Mr Dickens is an enlightened Unitarian." Professor Gary Colledge has written that he "never strayed from his attachment to popular lay Anglicanism". Dickens authored a work called ''The Life of Our Lord'' (1846), a book about the life of Christ, written with the purpose of sharing his faith with his children and family. In a scene from ''David Copperfield'', Dickens echoed Geoffrey Chaucer's use of Sayings of Jesus on the cross#Luke 23:34, Luke 23:34 from ''Troilus and Criseyde'' (Dickens held a copy in his library), with G. K. Chesterton writing, "among the great Gospel#Canonical gospels, canonical English authors, Chaucer and Dickens have the most in common."
Dickens disapproved of Roman Catholicism and 19th-century evangelicalism, seeing both as extremes of Christianity and likely to limit personal expression, and was critical of what he saw as the hypocrisy of religious institutions and philosophies like spiritualism, all of which he considered deviations from the true spirit of Christianity, as shown in the book he wrote for his family in 1846. While Dickens advocated equal rights for Catholics in England, he strongly disliked how individual civil liberties were often threatened in countries where Catholicism predominated and referred to the Catholic Church as "that curse upon the world." Dickens also rejected the Evangelical conviction that the Bible was the infallible word of God. His ideas on Biblical interpretation were similar to the Liberal Anglican Arthur Penrhyn Stanley's doctrine of "Progressive revelation (Christianity), progressive revelation." Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky referred to Dickens as "that great Christian writer".
Middle years
In December 1845, Dickens took up the editorship of the London-based ''The Daily News (UK), Daily News'', a liberal paper through which Dickens hoped to advocate, in his own words, "the Principles of Progress and Improvement, of Education and Civil and Religious Liberty and Equal Legislation." Among the other contributors Dickens chose to write for the paper were the radical economist Thomas Hodgskin and the social reformer Douglas William Jerrold, who frequently attacked the Corn Laws. Dickens lasted only ten weeks on the job before resigning due to a combination of exhaustion and frustration with one of the paper's co-owners.
The Francophile Dickens often holidayed in France and, in a speech delivered in Paris in 1846 in French, called the French "the first people in the universe".[Soubigou, Gilles "Dickens's Illustrations: France and other countries" pp. 154–167 from ''The Reception of Charles Dickens in Europe'' edited by Michael Hollington London: A&C Black 2013 p. 159.] During his visit to Paris, Dickens met the French literati Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Eugène Scribe, Théophile Gautier, François-René de Chateaubriand and Eugène Sue. In early 1849, Dickens started to write ''David Copperfield
''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...
''. It was published between 1849 and 1850. In Dickens's biography, ''Life of Charles Dickens'' (1872), John Forster wrote of ''David Copperfield'', "underneath the fiction lay something of the author's life". It was Dickens's personal favourite among his own novels, as he wrote in the author's preface to the 1867 edition of the novel.
In late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House where he wrote ''Bleak House'' (1852–53), ''Hard Times (novel), Hard Times'' (1854) and ''Little Dorrit
''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Cl ...
'' (1856). It was here that he indulged in the amateur theatricals described in Forster's ''Life of Charles Dickens''. During this period, he worked closely with the novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins. In 1856, his income from writing allowed him to buy Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent. As a child, Dickens had walked past the house and dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and this literary connection pleased him.
During this time Dickens was also the publisher, editor and a major contributor to the journals ''Household Words'' (1850–1859) and ''All the Year Round'' (1858–1870). In 1855, when Dickens's good friend and Liberal MP Austen Henry Layard formed an Administrative Reform Association to demand significant reforms of Parliament, Dickens joined and volunteered his resources in support of Layard's cause. With the exception of Lord John Russell, who was the only leading politician in whom Dickens had any faith and to whom he later dedicated ''A Tale of Two Cities'', Dickens believed that the political aristocracy and their incompetence were the death of England. When he and Layard were accused of fomenting class conflict, Dickens replied that the classes were already in opposition and the fault was with the aristocratic class. Dickens used his pulpit in ''Household Words'' to champion the Reform Association. He also commented on foreign affairs, declaring his support for Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, helping raise funds for their campaigns and stating that "a united Italy would be of vast importance to the peace of the world, and would be a rock in Louis Napoleon's way," and that "I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born."
Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Indian Mutiny of 1857, Dickens joined in the widespread criticism of the East India Company for its role in the event, but reserved his fury for the rebels themselves, wishing that he was the commander-in-chief in India so that he would be able to, "do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested."
In 1857, Dickens hired professional actresses for the play ''The Frozen Deep'', written by him and his Mentorship, protégé, Wilkie Collins. Dickens fell in love with one of the actresses, Ellen Ternan, and this passion was to last the rest of his life. Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18 when he made the decision, which went strongly against Victorian convention, to separate from his wife, Catherine, in 1858; divorce was still unthinkable for someone as famous as he was. When Catherine left, never to see her husband again, she took with her one child, leaving the other children to be raised by her sister Georgina who chose to stay at Gads Hill.[.]
During this period, whilst pondering a project to give public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approached through a charitable appeal by Great Ormond Street Hospital to help it survive its first major financial crisis. His "Drooping Buds" essay in ''Household Words'' earlier on 3 April 1852 was considered by the hospital's founders to have been the catalyst for the hospital's success. Dickens, whose philanthropy was well-known, was asked by his friend, the hospital's founder Charles West (physician), Charles West, to preside over the appeal, and he threw himself into the task, heart and soul. Dickens's public readings secured sufficient funds for an endowment to put the hospital on a sound financial footing; one reading on 9 February 1858 alone raised £3,000.
After separating from Catherine, Dickens undertook a series of hugely popular and remunerative reading tours which, together with his journalism, were to absorb most of his creative energies for the next decade, in which he was to write only two more novels. His first reading tour, lasting from April 1858 to February 1859, consisted of 129 appearances in 49 towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. Dickens's continued fascination with the theatrical world was written into the theatre scenes in ''Nicholas Nickleby'', but more importantly he found an outlet in public readings. In 1866, he undertook a series of public readings in England and Scotland, with more the following year in England and Ireland.
Other works soon followed, including ''A Tale of Two Cities
''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in ...
'' (1859) and '' Great Expectations'' (1861), which were resounding successes. Set in London and Paris, ''A Tale of Two Cities'' is his best-known work of historical fiction and includes the famous opening sentence which begins with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." It is regularly cited as one of the best-selling novels of all time. Themes in ''Great Expectations'' include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.
In early September 1860, in a field behind Gads Hill, Dickens made a bonfire of most of his correspondence; only those letters on business matters were spared. Since Ellen Ternan also destroyed all of his letters to her, the extent of the affair between the two remains speculative. In the 1930s, Thomas Wright recounted that Ternan had unburdened herself to a Canon Benham and gave currency to rumours they had been lovers. That the two had a son who died in infancy was alleged by Dickens's daughter, Kate Perugini, whom Gladys Storey had interviewed before her death in 1929. Storey published her account in ''Dickens and Daughter'', but no contemporary evidence exists. On his death, Dickens settled an Life annuity, annuity on Ternan which made her financially independent. Claire Tomalin's book, ''The Invisible Woman'', argues that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life. The book was subsequently turned into a play, ''Little Nell'', by Simon Gray, and The Invisible Woman (2013 film), a 2013 film. In the same period, Dickens furthered his interest in the paranormal, becoming one of the early members of The Ghost Club.
In June 1862, he was offered £10,000 for a reading tour of Australia. He was enthusiastic, and even planned a travel book, ''The Uncommercial Traveller Upside Down'', but ultimately decided against the tour. Two of his sons, Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens and Edward Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, migrated to Australia, Edward becoming a member of the Parliament of New South Wales as Electoral district of Wilcannia, Member for Wilcannia between 1889 and 1894.
Later life
On 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash in Kent. The train's first seven carriages plunged off a cast iron bridge that was under repair. The only first class travel, first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Before rescuers arrived, Dickens tended and comforted the wounded and the dying with a flask of brandy and a hat refreshed with water, and saved some lives. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for ''Our Mutual Friend'', and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it.
Dickens later used the experience of the crash as material for his short ghost story, "The Signal-Man", in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He also based the story on several previous Lists of rail accidents, rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash in Sussex of 1861. Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the inquest to avoid disclosing that he had been travelling with Ternan and her mother, which would have caused a scandal. After the crash, Dickens was nervous when travelling by train and would use alternative means when available. In 1868 he wrote, "I have sudden vague rushes of terror, even when riding in a hansom cab, which are perfectly unreasonable but quite insurmountable." Dickens's son, Henry, recalled, "I have seen him sometimes in a railway carriage when there was a slight jolt. When this happened he was almost in a state of panic and gripped the seat with both hands."
Second visit to the United States
While he contemplated a second visit to the United States, the outbreak of the American Civil War, Civil War in America in 1861 delayed his plans. On 9 November 1867, over two years after the war, Dickens set sail from Liverpool for his second American reading tour. Landing in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, he devoted the rest of the month to a round of dinners with such notables as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his American publisher, James T. Fields. In early December, the readings began. He performed 76 readings, netting £19,000, from December 1867 to April 1868.[.] Dickens shuttled between Boston and New York, where he gave 22 readings at Steinway Hall. Although he had started to suffer from what he called the "true American catarrh", he kept to a schedule that would have challenged a much younger man, even managing to squeeze in some sleighing in Central Park.
During his travels, he saw a change in the people and the circumstances of America. His final appearance was at a banquet the American Press held in his honour at Delmonico's Restaurant, Delmonico's on 18 April, when he promised never to denounce America again. By the end of the tour Dickens could hardly manage solid food, subsisting on champagne and eggs beaten in sherry. On 23 April he boarded the Cunard liner to return to Britain, barely escaping a tax lien, federal tax lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour.
Farewell readings
In 1868–69, Dickens gave a series of "farewell readings" in England, Scotland and Ireland, beginning on 6 October. He managed, of a contracted 100 readings, to give 75 in the provinces, with a further 12 in London. As he pressed on he was affected by giddiness and fits of paralysis. He had a stroke on 18 April 1869 in Chester. He collapsed on 22 April 1869, at Preston, Lancashire; on doctor's advice, the tour was cancelled. After further provincial readings were cancelled, he began work on his final novel, ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood''. It was fashionable in the 1860s to 'do the slums' and, in company, Dickens visited opium dens in Shadwell, where he witnessed an elderly addict called "Lascar, Laskar Sal", who formed the model for "Opium Sal" in ''Edwin Drood''.
After Dickens regained enough strength, he arranged, with medical approval, for a final series of readings to partly make up to his sponsors what they had lost due to his illness. There were 12 performances, on 11 January to 15 March 1870; the last at 8:00pm at St. James's Hall, London. Though in grave health by then, he read ''A Christmas Carol'' and ''The Trial from Pickwick''. On 2 May, he made his last public appearance at a Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Academy banquet in the presence of the Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Prince and Alexandra of Denmark, Princess of Wales, paying a special tribute on the death of his friend, illustrator Daniel Maclise.
Death
On 8 June 1870, Dickens had another stroke at his home after a full day's work on ''Edwin Drood''. He never regained consciousness and, the next day, he died at Gads Hill Place. Biographer Claire Tomalin has suggested Dickens was actually in Peckham when he had had the stroke and his mistress Ellen Ternan and her maids had him taken back to Gads Hill so that the public would not know the truth about their relationship. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner", he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads:
A letter from Dickens to the Clerk of the Privy Council in March indicates he'd been offered and had accepted a baronetcy, which was not gazetted before his death. His last words were "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down. On Sunday, 19 June 1870, five days after Dickens was buried in the Abbey, Dean Arthur Penrhyn Stanley delivered a memorial elegy, lauding "the genial and loving humorist whom we now mourn", for showing by his own example "that even in dealing with the darkest scenes and the most degraded characters, genius could still be clean, and mirth could be innocent". Pointing to the fresh flowers that adorned the novelist's grave, Stanley assured those present that "the spot would thenceforth be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue."
In his will, drafted more than a year before his death, Dickens left the care of his £80,000 estate (£ in ) to his long-time colleague John Forster and his "best and truest friend" Georgina Hogarth who, along with Dickens's two sons, also received a tax-free sum of £8,000 (equivalent to £ in ). Although Dickens and his wife had been separated for several years at the time of his death, he provided her with an annual income of £600 (£ in ) and made her similar allowances in his will. He also bequeathed £19 19s (£ in ) to each servant in his employment at the time of his death.
Literary style
Dickens's approach to the novel is influenced by various things, including the picaresque novel
The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...
tradition, melodrama and the novel of sensibility. According to Ackroyd, other than these, perhaps the most important literary influence on him was derived from the fables of ''The Arabian Nights
''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...
''. Satire and irony are central to the picaresque novel. Comedy is also an aspect of the British picaresque novel tradition of Laurence Sterne, Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel ''Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...
and Tobias Smollett
Tobias George Smollett (baptised 19 March 1721 – 17 September 1771) was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for picaresque novels such as '' The Adventures of Roderick Random'' (1748), '' The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle'' (1751 ...
. Fielding's ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Tom Jones'' was a major influence on the 19th-century novelist including Dickens, who read it in his youth and named a son Henry Fielding Dickens after him. Influenced by Gothic fiction—a literary genre that began with ''The Castle of Otranto'' (1764) by Horace Walpole—Dickens incorporated Gothic imagery, settings and plot devices in his works. Victorian gothic moved from castles and abbeys into contemporary urban environments: in particular London, such as Dickens's ''Oliver Twist'' and ''Bleak House''. The jilted bride Miss Havisham from ''Great Expectations'' is one of Dickens' best-known gothic creations; living in a ruined mansion, her bridal gown effectively doubles as her funeral shroud.
No other writer had such a profound influence on Dickens as William Shakespeare.
On Dickens's veneration of Shakespeare, Alfred Harbage wrote "No one is better qualified to recognise literary genius than a literary genius"— ''A Kind of Power: The Shakespeare-Dickens Analogy'' (1975). Regarding Shakespeare as "the great master" whose Shakespeare's plays, plays "were an unspeakable source of delight", Dickens's lifelong affinity with the playwright included seeing theatrical productions of his plays in London and putting on amateur dramatics with friends in his early years. In 1838 Dickens travelled to Stratford-upon-Avon and visited the house in which Shakespeare was born, leaving his autograph in the visitors' book. Dickens would draw on this experience in his next work, ''Nicholas Nickleby'' (1838–39), expressing the strength of feeling experienced by visitors to Shakespeare's birthplace: the character Nicholas Nickleby#Around London, Mrs Wititterly states, "I don't know how it is, but after you've seen the place and written your name in the little book, somehow or other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite a fire within one."
Dickens's writing style is marked by a profuse linguistic creativity.[.] Satire, flourishing in his gift for caricature, is his forte. An early reviewer compared him to William Hogarth, Hogarth for his keen practical sense of the ludicrous side of life, though his acclaimed mastery of varieties of class idiom may in fact mirror the conventions of contemporary popular theatre. Dickens worked intensively on developing arresting names for his characters that would reverberate with associations for his readers and assist the development of motifs in the storyline, giving what one critic calls an "allegorical impetus" to the novels' meanings. To cite one of numerous examples, the name Mr Murdstone in ''David Copperfield'' conjures up twin allusions to murder and stony coldness. His literary style is also a mixture of fantasy and realism (arts), realism. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery – he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator" – are often popular. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy.
The author worked closely with his illustrators, supplying them with a summary of the work at the outset and thus ensuring that his characters and settings were exactly how he envisioned them. He briefed the illustrator on plans for each month's instalment so that work could begin before he wrote them. Marcus Stone, illustrator of ''Our Mutual Friend'', recalled that the author was always "ready to describe down to the minutest details the personal characteristics, and ... life-history of the creations of his fancy". Dickens employs Cockney English in many of his works, denoting working-class Londoners. Cockney grammar appears in terms such as ain't, and consonants in words are frequently omitted, as in 'ere (here) and wot (what). An example of this usage is in ''Oliver Twist''. The Artful Dodger uses cockney slang which is juxtaposed with Oliver's 'proper' English, when the Dodger repeats Oliver saying "seven" with "sivin".
Characters
Dickens's biographer Claire Tomalin regards him as the greatest creator of character in English fiction after Shakespeare.
Dickensian List of Dickensian characters, characters are amongst the most memorable in English literature, especially so because of their typically whimsical names. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim (A Christmas Carol), Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley and Bob Cratchit (''A Christmas Carol''); Oliver Twist (character), Oliver Twist, Artful Dodger, The Artful Dodger, Fagin and Bill Sikes (''Oliver Twist''); Great Expectations, Pip, Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch (''Great Expectations''); Sydney Carton, Charles Darnay and Madame Defarge (''A Tale of Two Cities''); David Copperfield (character), David Copperfield, Uriah Heep (character), Uriah Heep and Wilkins Micawber, Mr Micawber (''David Copperfield''); Quilp, Daniel Quilp and Nell Trent (''The Old Curiosity Shop''), Samuel Pickwick and Sam Weller (''The Pickwick Papers''); and Wackford Squeers (''Nicholas Nickleby'') are so well known as to be part and parcel of popular culture, and in some cases have passed into ordinary language: a ''scrooge'', for example, is a miser or someone who dislikes Christmas festivity.
His characters were often so memorable that they took on a life of their own outside his books. "Gamp" became a slang expression for an umbrella from the character Sarah Gamp, Mrs Gamp, and "Pickwickian", "Pecksniffian" and "Gradgrind" all entered dictionaries due to Dickens's original portraits of such characters who were, respectively, Quixotism, quixotic, hypocritical and vapidly factual. The character that made Dickens famous, Sam Weller became known for his Wellerisms—one-liners that turned proverbs on their heads. Many were drawn from real life: Mrs Nickleby is based on his mother, although she didn't recognise herself in the portrait, just as Mr Micawber is constructed from aspects of his father's 'rhetorical exuberance'; Harold Skimpole in ''Bleak House'' is based on James Henry Leigh Hunt; his wife's dwarfish chiropodist recognised herself in Miss Mowcher in ''David Copperfield''. Perhaps Dickens's impressions on his meeting with Hans Christian Andersen informed the delineation of Uriah Heep (a term synonymous with sycophant).
Virginia Woolf maintained that "we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens" as he produces "characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks". T. S. Eliot wrote that Dickens "excelled in character; in the creation of characters of greater intensity than human beings". One "character" vividly drawn throughout his novels is London itself. Dickens described London as a magic lantern, inspiring the places and people in many of his novels. From the coaching inns on the outskirts of the city to the lower reaches of the River Thames, Thames, all aspects of the capital – Dickens' London, Dickens's London – are described over the course of his body of work. Walking the streets (particularly around London) formed an integral part of his writing life, stoking his creativity. Dickens was known to regularly walk at least a dozen miles (19 km) per day, and once wrote, "If I couldn't walk fast and far, I should just explode and perish."
Autobiographical elements
Authors frequently draw their portraits of characters from people they have known in real life. ''David Copperfield'' is regarded by many as a veiled autobiography of Dickens. The scenes of interminable court cases and legal arguments in ''Bleak House'' reflect Dickens's experiences as a law clerk and court reporter, and in particular his direct experience of the law's procedural delay during 1844 when he sued publishers in Chancery for breach of copyright. Dickens's father was sent to prison for debt and this became a common theme in many of his books, with the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in ''Little Dorrit'' resulting from Dickens's own experiences of the institution. Lucy Stroughill, a childhood sweetheart, may have affected several of Dickens's portraits of girls such as Little Em'ly in ''David Copperfield'' and Lucie Manette in ''A Tale of Two Cities.''
Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he gathered his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death, when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated. Though Skimpole brutally sends up Leigh Hunt, some critics have detected in his portrait features of Dickens's own character, which he sought to exorcise by self-parody.
Episodic writing
A pioneer of the Serial (literature), serial publication of narrative fiction, Dickens wrote most of his major novels in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as ''Master Humphrey's Clock
''Master Humphrey's Clock'' was a weekly periodical edited and written entirely by Charles Dickens and published from 4 April 1840 to 4 December 1841. It began with a frame story in which Master Humphrey tells about himself and his small circle o ...
'' and ''Household Words'', later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories affordable and accessible, with the audience more evenly distributed across income levels than previous. His instalment format inspired a narrative that he would explore and develop throughout his career, and the regular cliffhangers made each new episode widely anticipated. When ''The Old Curiosity Shop
''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is one of two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York r ...
'' was being serialised, American fans waited at the docks in New York harbor, New York harbour, shouting out to the crew of an incoming British ship, "Is little Nell dead?" Dickens's talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end.
Another important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style resulted from his exposure to the opinions of his readers and friends. His friend Forster had a significant hand in reviewing his drafts, an influence that went beyond matters of punctuation. He toned down melodramatic and sensationalist exaggerations, cut long passages (such as the episode of Quilp's drowning in ''The Old Curiosity Shop''), and made suggestions about plot and character. It was he who suggested that Charley Bates should be redeemed in ''Oliver Twist''. Dickens had not thought of killing Little Nell and it was Forster who advised him to entertain this possibility as necessary to his conception of the heroine.
At the helm in popularising cliffhangers and serial publications in Victorian literature, Dickens's influence can also be seen in television soap operas and film series, with ''The Guardian'' stating "the DNA of Dickens's busy, episodic storytelling, delivered in instalments and rife with cliffhangers and diversions, is traceable in everything." His serialisation of his novels also drew comments from other writers. In Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson's novel ''The Wrecker (Stevenson novel), The Wrecker'', Captain Nares, investigating an abandoned ship, remarked: "See! They were writing up the log," said Nares, pointing to the ink-bottle. "Caught napping, as usual. I wonder if there ever was a captain yet that lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles Dickens and his serial novels."
Social commentary
Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English film, television and voice actor, director, narrator and writer. He was twice nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his roles in ''A Room with a View'' (19 ...
states, "From the moment he started to write, he spoke for the people, and the people loved him for it." He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian era, Victorian society. In a New York address, he expressed his belief that "Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen". Dickens's second novel, ''Oliver Twist'' (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime: it challenged middle class polemics about criminals, making impossible any pretence to ignorance about what poverty entailed.
At a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged within society. Through his journalism he campaigned on specific issues – such as sanitation and the workhouse – but his fiction probably demonstrated its greatest prowess in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and oppression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist, but flourished as a result. His most strident indictment of this condition is in ''Hard Times'' (1854), Dickens's only novel-length treatment of the industrial working class. In this work, he uses vitriol and satire to illustrate how this marginalised social stratum was termed "Hands" by the factory owners; that is, not really "people" but rather only appendages of the machines they operated. His writings inspired others, in particular journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. For example, the prison scenes in ''The Pickwick Papers'' are claimed to have been influential in having the Fleet Prison shut down. Karl Marx asserted that Dickens "issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together".[.] George Bernard Shaw even remarked that ''Great Expectations'' was more seditious than Marx's ''Das Kapital''. The exceptional popularity of Dickens's novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (''Bleak House'', 1853; ''Little Dorrit'', 1857; ''Our Mutual Friend'', 1865), not only underscored his ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also ensured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored.
It has been argued that his technique of flooding his narratives with an 'unruly superfluity of material' that, in the gradual dénouement, yields up an unsuspected order, influenced the organisation of Charles Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species''.
Literary techniques
Dickens is often described as using idealised characters and highly sentimental scenes to contrast with his caricatures and the ugly social truths he reveals. The story of Nell Trent in ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' (1841) was received as extraordinarily moving by contemporary readers but viewed as ludicrously sentimental by Oscar Wilde. "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell", he said in a famous remark, "without dissolving into tears ... of laughter." G. K. Chesterton stated, "It is not the death of little Nell, but the life of little Nell, that I object to", arguing that the maudlin effect of his description of her life owed much to the gregarious nature of Dickens's grief, his "despotic" use of people's feelings to move them to tears in works like this.
The question as to whether Dickens belongs to the tradition of the sentimental novel is debatable. Valerie Purton, in her book ''Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition'', sees him continuing aspects of this tradition, and argues that his "sentimental scenes and characters [are] as crucial to the overall power of the novels as his darker or comic figures and scenes", and that "''Dombey and Son'' is [ ... ] Dickens's greatest triumph in the sentimentalist tradition". The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' online comments that, despite "patches of emotional excess", such as the reported death of Tiny Tim in ''A Christmas Carol'' (1843), "Dickens cannot really be termed a sentimental novelist".
In ''Oliver Twist'' Dickens provides readers with an idealised portrait of a boy so inherently and unrealistically good that his values are never subverted by either brutal orphanages or coerced involvement in a gang of young pickpocketing, pickpockets. While later novels also centre on idealised characters (Esther Summerson in ''Bleak House'' and Amy Dorrit in ''Little Dorrit''), this idealism serves only to highlight Dickens's goal of poignant social commentary. Dickens's fiction, reflecting what he believed to be true of his own life, makes frequent use of coincidence, either for comic effect or to emphasise the idea of providence. For example, Oliver Twist turns out to be the lost nephew of the upper-class family that rescues him from the dangers of the pickpocket group. Such coincidences are a staple of 18th-century picaresque novels, such as Henry Fielding's ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Tom Jones,'' which Dickens enjoyed reading as a youth.
Reputation
Dickens was the most popular novelist of his time, and remains one of the best-known and most-read of English authors. His works have never gone Out-of-print book, out of print, and have been adapted continually for the screen since the invention of cinema, with at least 200 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on Dickens's works documented. Many of his works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime – early productions included ''The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain'' which was performed in the West End theatre, West End's Adelphi Theatre in 1848 – and, as early as 1901, the British silent film ''Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost'' was made by Walter R. Booth. Contemporaries such as publisher Edward Lloyd (publisher), Edward Lloyd cashed in on Dickens's popularity with cheap imitations of his novels, resulting in his own popular 'penny dreadfuls'.
From the beginning of his career in the 1830s, Dickens's achievements in English literature were compared to those of Shakespeare. Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest British novelist of the Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
.[ His literary reputation, however began to decline with the publication of ''Bleak House'' in 1852–53. Philip Collins calls ''Bleak House'' 'a crucial item in the history of Dickens's reputation. Reviewers and literary figures during the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s, saw a "drear decline" in Dickens, from a writer of "bright sunny comedy ... to dark and serious social" commentary. '']The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'' called ''Bleak House'' "a heavy book to read through at once ... dull and wearisome as a serial"; Richard Simpson, in ''The Rambler'', characterised ''Hard Times'' as "this dreary framework"; ''Fraser's Magazine'' thought ''Little Dorrit'' "decidedly the worst of his novels".[Adam Roerts, "Dickens Reputation", p. 505.] All the same, despite these "increasing reservations amongst reviewers and the chattering classes, 'the public never deserted its favourite'". Dickens's popular reputation remained unchanged, sales continued to rise, and ''Household Words'' and later ''All the Year Round'' were highly successful.
As his career progressed, Dickens's fame and the demand for his public readings were unparalleled. In 1868 ''The Times'' wrote, "Amid all the variety of 'readings', those of Mr Charles Dickens stand alone." A Dickens biographer, Edgar Johnson, wrote in the 1950s: "It was [always] more than a reading; it was an extraordinary exhibition of acting that seized upon its auditors with a mesmeric possession." Juliet John backed the claim for Dickens "to be called the first self-made global media star of the age of mass culture." Comparing his reception at public readings to those of a contemporary pop star, ''The Guardian'' states, "People sometimes fainted at his shows. His performances even saw the rise of that modern phenomenon, the 'speculator' or Ticket resale, ticket tout (scalpers) – the ones in New York City escaped detection by borrowing respectable-looking hats from the waiters in nearby restaurants."
Among fellow writers, there was a range of opinions on Dickens. Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet laureate, William Wordsworth (1770–1850), thought him a "very talkative, vulgar young person", adding he had not read a line of his work, while novelist George Meredith (1828–1909), found Dickens "intellectually lacking". In 1888 Leslie Stephen commented in the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' that "if literary fame could be safely measured by popularity with the half-educated, Dickens must claim the highest position among English novelists". Anthony Trollope's ''Autobiography'' famously declared Thackeray, not Dickens, to be the greatest novelist of the age. However, both Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky were admirers. Dostoyevsky commented: "We understand Dickens in Russia, I am convinced, almost as well as the English, perhaps even with all the nuances. It may well be that we love him no less than his compatriots do. And yet how original is Dickens, and how very English!" Tolstoy referred to ''David Copperfield'' as his favourite book, and he later adopted the novel as "a model for his own autobiographical reflections". French writer Jules Verne called Dickens his favourite writer, writing his novels "stand alone, dwarfing all others by their amazing power and felicity of expression". Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh was inspired by Dickens's novels in several of his paintings like ''Vincent's Chair'' and in an 1889 letter to his sister stated that reading Dickens, especially ''A Christmas Carol'', was one of the things that was keeping him from committing suicide. Oscar Wilde generally disparaged his depiction of character, while admiring his gift for caricature. Henry James denied him a premier position, calling him "the greatest of superficial novelists": Dickens failed to endow his characters with psychological depth, and the novels, "loose baggy monsters", betrayed a "cavalier organisation". Joseph Conrad described his own childhood in bleak Dickensian terms, noting he had "an intense and unreasoning affection" for ''Bleak House'' dating back to his boyhood. The novel influenced his own gloomy portrait of London in ''The Secret Agent'' (1907). Virginia Woolf had a love-hate relationship with Dickens, finding his novels "mesmerizing" while reproving him for his sentimentalism and a commonplace style.
Around 1940–41, the attitude of the literary critics began to warm towards Dickens – led by George Orwell in ''Inside the Whale and Other Essays'' (March 1940), Edmund Wilson in ''The Wound and the Bow'' (1941) and Humphry House in ''Dickens and his World''. However, even in 1948, F. R. Leavis, in ''The Great Tradition'', asserted that "the adult mind doesn't as a rule find in Dickens a challenge to an unusual and sustained seriousness"; Dickens was indeed a great genius, "but the genius was that of a great entertainer", though he later changed his opinion with ''Dickens the Novelist'' (1970, with Q. D. Leavis, Q. D. (Queenie) Leavis): "Our purpose", they wrote, "is to enforce as unanswerably as possible the conviction that Dickens was one of the greatest of creative writers". In 1944, Soviet film director and film theorist Sergei Eisenstein wrote an essay on Dickens's influence on cinema, such as cross-cutting – where two stories run alongside each other, as seen in novels such as ''Oliver Twist''.
In the 1950s, "a substantial reassessment and re-editing of the works began, and critics found his finest artistry and greatest depth to be in the later novels: ''Bleak House'', ''Little Dorrit'', and ''Great Expectations'' – and (less unanimously) in ''Hard Times'' and ''Our Mutual Friend''". Dickens was a favourite author of Roald Dahl; the best-selling children's author would include three of Dickens's novels among those read by the Matilda Wormwood, title character in his 1988 novel ''Matilda (novel), Matilda''. An avid reader of Dickens, in 2005, Paul McCartney named ''Nicholas Nickleby'' his favourite novel. On Dickens he states, "I like the world that he takes me to. I like his words; I like the language", adding, "A lot of my stuff – it's kind of Dickensian." Screenwriter Jonathan Nolan's screenplay for ''The Dark Knight Rises'' (2012) was inspired by ''A Tale of Two Cities'', with Nolan calling the depiction of Paris in the novel "one of the most harrowing portraits of a relatable, recognisable civilisation that completely folded to pieces". On 7 February 2012, the 200th anniversary of Dickens's birth, Philip Womack wrote in ''The Telegraph'': "Today there is no escaping Charles Dickens. Not that there has ever been much chance of that before. He has a deep, peculiar hold upon us".
Legacy
Museums and festivals celebrating Dickens's life and works exist in many places with which Dickens was associated. These include the Charles Dickens Museum in London, the historic home where he wrote '' Oliver Twist'', ''The Pickwick Papers
''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (also known as ''The Pickwick Papers'') was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with '' Sketches by Boz'' published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to ...
'' and ''Nicholas Nickleby
''Nicholas Nickleby'' or ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' (or also ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, and Complete Career of the ...
''; and the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth, the house in which he was born. The original manuscripts of many of his novels, as well as printers' proofs, first editions, and illustrations from the collection of Dickens's friend John Forster are held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Dickens's will stipulated that no memorial be erected in his honour; nonetheless, a life-size bronze statue of Dickens entitled ''Dickens and Little Nell (Elwell), Dickens and Little Nell'', cast in 1890 by Francis Edwin Elwell, stands in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Spruce Hill neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Another life-size statue of Dickens is located at Centennial Park, New South Wales, Centennial Park in Sydney, Australia. In 1960 a Relief, bas-relief sculpture of Dickens, notably featuring characters from his books, was commissioned from sculptor Estcourt J Clack to adorn the office building built on the site of his former home at 1 Devonshire Terrace, London. In 2014, a life-size statue was unveiled near his birthplace in Portsmouth on the 202nd anniversary of his birth; this was supported by his great-great-grandsons, Ian and Gerald Charles Dickens (actor), Gerald Dickens.
''A Christmas Carol'' is most probably his best-known story, with frequent new adaptations. It is also the most-filmed of Dickens's stories, with many versions dating from the early years of cinema. According to the historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of the observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by ''A Christmas Carol''. Dickens catalysed the emerging Christmas as a family-centred festival of generosity, in contrast to the dwindling community-based and church-centred observations, as new middle-class expectations arose. Its archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) entered into Western cultural consciousness. "Christmas and holiday season#History of the phrase, Merry Christmas", a prominent phrase from the tale, was popularised following the appearance of the story. The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, and his exclamation Humbug, "Bah! Humbug!'", a dismissal of the festive spirit, likewise gained currency as an idiom. The Victorian era novelist William Makepeace Thackeray called the book "a national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads it a personal kindness".
Dickens was commemorated on the Banknotes of the pound sterling, Series E £10 note issued by the Bank of England note issues, Bank of England that circulated between 1992 and 2003. His portrait appeared on the reverse of the note accompanied by a scene from ''The Pickwick Papers''. The Charles Dickens School is a high school in Broadstairs, Kent. A theme park, Dickens World, standing in part on the site of the former Chatham Dockyard, naval dockyard where Dickens's father once worked in the Navy Pay Office, opened in Chatham
Chatham may refer to:
Places and jurisdictions Canada
* Chatham Islands (British Columbia)
* Chatham Sound, British Columbia
* Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi
* Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
in 2007. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens in 2012, the Museum of London held the UK's first major exhibition on the author in 40 years. In 2002, Dickens was number 41 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. American literary critic Harold Bloom placed Dickens among the The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, greatest Western writers of all time. In the 2003 UK survey The Big Read carried out by the BBC, five of Dickens's books were named in the The Big Read#Top 200 novels in the United Kingdom, Top 100.
Actors who have portrayed Dickens on screen include Anthony Hopkins, Derek Jacobi, Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English film, television and voice actor, director, narrator and writer. He was twice nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his roles in ''A Room with a View'' (19 ...
, Dan Stevens and Ralph Fiennes, the latter playing the author in ''The Invisible Woman (2013 film), The Invisible Woman'' (2013) which depicts Dickens's secret love affair with Ellen Ternan which lasted for thirteen years until his death in 1870.
Dickens and his publications have appeared on a number of postage stamps in countries including: the United Kingdom (1970, 1993, 2011 and 2012 issued by the Royal Mail—their Great Britain commemorative stamps 2010–2019#2012, 2012 collection marked the bicentenary of Dickens' birth), the Soviet Union (1962), Antigua, Barbuda, Botswana, Cameroon, Dubai, Fujairah, St Lucia and Turks and Caicos Islands (1970), St Vincent (1987), Nevis (2007), List of postage stamps of Alderney, Alderney, Gibraltar, Jersey and Pitcairn Islands (2012), Austria (2013), and Mozambique (2014). In 1976, a Dickens (crater), crater on the planet Mercury (planet), Mercury was named in his honour.
In November 2018 it was reported that a previously lost portrait of a 31-year-old Dickens, by Margaret Gillies, had been found in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Gillies was an early supporter of women's suffrage and had painted the portrait in late 1843 when Dickens, aged 31, wrote ''A Christmas Carol''. It was exhibited, to acclaim, at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1844. The Charles Dickens Museum is reported to have paid £180,000 for the portrait.
Works
Novels
Dickens published well over a dozen major novels and novellas, a large number of short stories, including a number of Christmas-themed stories, a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.
* ''The Pickwick Papers
''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (also known as ''The Pickwick Papers'') was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with '' Sketches by Boz'' published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to ...
'' (''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club''; monthly serial, April 1836 to November 1837)[ for the serial publication dates.]
* '' Oliver Twist'' (''The Adventures of Oliver Twist''; monthly serial in ''Bentley's Miscellany
''Bentley's Miscellany'' was an English literary magazine started by Richard Bentley. It was published between 1836 and 1868.
Contributors
Already a successful publisher of novels, Bentley began the journal in 1836 and invited Charles Dickens ...
'', February 1837 to April 1839)
* ''Nicholas Nickleby
''Nicholas Nickleby'' or ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' (or also ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, and Complete Career of the ...
'' (''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby''; monthly serial, April 1838 to October 1839)
* ''The Old Curiosity Shop
''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is one of two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York r ...
'' (weekly serial in ''Master Humphrey's Clock
''Master Humphrey's Clock'' was a weekly periodical edited and written entirely by Charles Dickens and published from 4 April 1840 to 4 December 1841. It began with a frame story in which Master Humphrey tells about himself and his small circle o ...
'', April 1840 to November 1841)
* ''Barnaby Rudge'' (''Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty''; weekly serial in ''Master Humphrey's Clock
''Master Humphrey's Clock'' was a weekly periodical edited and written entirely by Charles Dickens and published from 4 April 1840 to 4 December 1841. It began with a frame story in which Master Humphrey tells about himself and his small circle o ...
'', February to November 1841)
* '' A Christmas Carol'' (''A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost-story of Christmas''; 1843)
* ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' (''The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit''; monthly serial, January 1843 to July 1844)
* ''The Chimes'' (''The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In''; 1844)
* ''The Cricket on the Hearth'' (''The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home''; 1845)
* ''The Battle of Life'' (''The Battle of Life: A Love Story''; 1846)
* ''Dombey and Son
''Dombey and Son'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens. It follows the fortunes of a shipping firm owner, who is frustrated at the lack of a son to follow him in his footsteps; he initially rejects his daughter's love before eventual ...
'' (''Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation''; monthly serial, October 1846 to April 1848)
* ''The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, The Haunted Man'' (''The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain: A Fancy for Christmas-time''; 1848)
* ''David Copperfield
''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from inf ...
'' (''The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery [Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account]''; monthly serial, May 1849 to November 1850)
* ''Bleak House'' (monthly serial, March 1852 to September 1853)
* ''Hard Times (novel), Hard Times'' (''Hard Times: For These Times''; weekly serial in ''Household Words'', 1 April 1854, to 12 August 1854)
* ''Little Dorrit
''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Cl ...
'' (monthly serial, December 1855 to June 1857)
* ''A Tale of Two Cities
''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in ...
'' (weekly serial in ''All the Year Round'', 30 April 1859, to 26 November 1859)
* '' Great Expectations'' (weekly serial in ''All the Year Round'', 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861)
* ''Our Mutual Friend'' (monthly serial, May 1864 to November 1865)
* ''The Signal-Man'' (1866), first published as part of the ''Mugby Junction'' collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of ''All the Year Round''.
* ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood'' (monthly serial, April 1870 to September 1870), left unfinished due to Dickens's death
See also
* List of Dickensian characters
* Racism in the work of Charles Dickens
* Charles Dickens bibliography
Notes
References
Sources
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Further reading
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*Nicola Bradbury, Bradbury, Nicola, ''Charles Dickens' Great Expectations'' (St. Martin's Press, 1990)
* Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert,
Becoming Dickens 'The Invention of a Novelist
", London: Harvard University Press, 2011
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* Johnson, Edgar, ''Charles Dickens: his tragedy and triumph'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952. In two volumes.
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* Manning, Mick & Granström, Brita, ''Charles Dickens: Scenes From An Extraordinary Life'', Frances Lincoln Children's Books, 2011.
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External links
Works
Charles Dickens's works on Bookwise
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Charles Dickens
at the British Library
Organisations and portals
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Charles Dickens on the Archives Hub
*Archival material a
Leeds University Library
The Dickens Fellowship
an international society dedicated to the study of Dickens and his Writings
Correspondence of Charles Dickens, with related papers, ca. 1834–1955
Finding aid to Charles Dickens papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Museums
Dickens Museum
Situated in a former Charles Dickens Museum, London, Dickens House, 48 Doughty Street, London, WC1
Dickens Birthplace Museum
Old Commercial Road, Portsmouth
Victoria and Albert Museum
The V&A's collections relating to Dickens
Other
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Charles Dickens's Traveling Kit
From th
at the Library of Congress
Charles Dickens's Walking Stick
From th
at the Library of Congress
* Charles Dickens Collection: First editions of Charles Dickens's works included in the Leonard Kebler gift (dispersed in the Division's collection). From th
Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
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