Personal Background
Described as "the greatest English novelist,"Charles Dickens is studied more than any other author writing in English, except for Shakespeare. While his popularity with critics has fluctuated over time, Dickens' works have never lost their appeal for general readers, thanks to the universality of his writing. He infused his realistic depictions of society and memorable characters with enough humor and sensitivity to entertain and satisfy both casual and serious readers.
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on February 7, 1812, to John and Elizabeth Barrow Dickens. His family moved several times during his early years and finally settled in Chatham, a seaport town in southern England, from 1817 to 1822. The Chatham years were happy ones for Dickens; he attended a good school and found much in the busy town and open countryside to entertain his active mind.
In 1822, Dickens' father's job transferred the family to London, where financial problems eventually led to John Dickens being sent to debtor's prison in 1824. Although the rest of his family joined his father in prison, twelve-year-old Charles lived alone and worked at Warren's Blacking Factory. Although the experience lasted for only a few months, it affected him deeply. Images of orphaned children and prisons would permeate his stories and books throughout his writing career.
After being removed from the factory, Dickens spent the next three years attending the Wellington House Academy, where he won a Latin prize. At the age of fifteen, he left school and began working as a solicitor's clerk at the law firm of Ellis and Blackmore. He eventually became a shorthand reporter in the Doctors' Commons law courts and then a parliamentary and news reporter for the Morning Chronicle newspaper. His years of observing the legal system gave him a familiarity and contempt for the law and politics, which his books echo.
After an unsuccessful courtship of Maria Beadnell, a banker's daughter whose parents viewed Dickens' family and prospects as inadequate, Dickens turned his attentions to Catherine Hogarth, daughter of journalist George Hogarth. Dickens and Catherine married on April 2, 1836, and eventually had ten children: Charles, Mary, Kate, Walter, Francis, Alfred, Sydney, Henry, Dora, and Edward.
Domestically, Dickens eventually became estranged from his wife. The couple separated in 1858, and Dickens began a relationship with actress Ellen Ternan that would last for the rest of his life. In March 1870, exhausted by his hectic schedule of readings and appearances, Dickens gave his last public reading, stating, "From these garish lights I vanish now for evermore."Three months later, on June 9, 1870, Dickens died at age fifty-eight from a stroke and was buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. He remains one of England's most popular authors, and readers throughout the world continue to enjoy his books and stories.
Career Highlights
In 1833, Dickens started publishing "sketches,"or brief, informal stories and essays, in the Monthly Magazine and in the Morning Chronicle under the pseudonym "Boz."In February 1836, a collection of his sketches appeared as Sketches by Boz. Also in February, Dickens received a contract to write his first novel, a series of 20 monthly installments called The Pickwick Papers. The popularity of the story of Samuel Pickwick and his Pickwick Club increased with each installment; by the last chapter, the number of copies being sold had grown from 1,000 to 40,000, an exceptional number for the time.
The success of The Pickwick Papers launched a new era in publishing. The concept of publishing a novel in installments was a new one at the time, but it soon caught on with other authors, including Anthony Trollope, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Wilkie Collins. Serial literature benefited the publisher, the reader, and the author through its affordability and accessibility. Publishers could introduce a new title for one-twentieth the cost of publishing an entire book, plus the advantage of selling advertising space in the publication. Meanwhile, readers gained a cheap source of literature and authors received payment for each installment, rather than waiting for the entire book to be finished before they could sell it and be paid. Writing in installments worked well for Dickens, and he used this method to publish all of his major fiction.
From 1837 to 1838, Dickens continued his literary success with Oliver Twist, a story of an orphan boy's experiences with the criminal world of London. He followed that with Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), which exposed the abusive nature of Yorkshire boarding schools and narrated the humorous adventures of a traveling theater company. Victorian audiences made his next book, The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), phenomenally popular — the morality tale of Little Nell roaming the countryside with her mad grandfather as they try to evade the malicious Daniel Quilp enthralled readers and sold over 100,000 copies a week.
However, the Victorian audience did not take to Dickens' next two books, Barnaby Rudge (1841) and Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44). Dickens' first historical novel, Barnaby Rudge dealt with the Gordon Riots that occurred in England in 1780, and its poorly structured story resulted in a steady drop in sales. In Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens returned to Victorian England as a setting and used the materialism of the Chuzzlewit family to highlight a theme of selfishness. Martin Chuzzlewit received mixed reviews and sales that improved slightly throughout the course of its publication.
Technically superior to Dickens' earlier works, with a more cohesive plot and characters, Dombey and Son (1846-48) signals the beginning of Dickens' more mature works. The novel explores the theme of pride through the story of the Dombeys, a family of wealthy merchants. Dickens followed Dombey and Son with David Copperfield (1849-50), an autobiographical novel that examines Copperfield's early hardship and later rise to prominence through a first-person narrative.
Continuing to build upon his skills, Dickens was not afraid to experiment in his novels. In Bleak House (1852-53), his satire of the chancery courts and examination of Victorian society, Dickens uses both a third-person narrative and a first-person narrator to connect the societal perspective with a personal one. In his shortest book, Hard Times (1854), Dickens highlights industrial and education issues through a moral fable. Meanwhile, scholars consider Dickens' eleventh novel, Little Dorrit (1855-57), to be one of his most difficult novels. It presents a view of society as a series of prisons, focusing especially on the oppressive natures of class privilege and religion.
Remarkably, even as Dickens became a master of his craft and enjoyed critical and popular success, he never stopped trying new approaches to telling a story. His second historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities (1859), recounts the events of the French Revolution. In it, he experimented with developing the characters through the action of the plot rather than through dialogue and detailed description.
His next book, Great Expectations (1860-61), focuses on the theme of corruption and follows the first-person narrative of Pip, a young man trying to become a gentleman. Unlike David Copperfield, Great Expectations examines the coming-of-age process with irony and social insight. Dickens' last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend (1864-65), deals with the corrupting power of money and the superficiality of society through a third-person narrative. His final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), was left unfinished. Critics continue to debate whether the story was intended to be a study in the psychology of its characters or a murder mystery thriller.
Dickens' novels are his outstanding achievement, but he also wrote nonfiction articles, two travel books, Christmas stories, and a history of England for children. Additionally, as he steadily wrote novels, Dickens continued his journalistic career, working as an editor at the periodicals Bentley's Miscellany and Master Humphrey's Clock.
