Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic.
Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's novel Dombey and Son (1848). In January 1815, John Dickens was called back to London and the family moved to Norfolk Street, Fitzrovia.
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 and then at a school run by William Giles, a dissenter, 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 debtors' prison in Southwark, London in 1824.
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, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828.
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, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828.
Contemporaries such as 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.
Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris. ==Journalism and early novels== In 1832, at the age of 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self-confident.
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 for the first time early in 1832.
In 1833, he submitted his first story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical Monthly Magazine.
In January 1835, the Morning Chronicle launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the Chronicle's music critic, George Hogarth.
Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, 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, education and other social reforms. Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers.
His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: Sketches by Boz – Boz being a family nickname he employed as a pseudonym for some years.
The final instalment sold 40,000 copies. In November 1836, Dickens accepted the position of editor of Bentley's Miscellany, 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. 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.
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.
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 became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837.
Oliver Twist, published in 1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories and was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist. 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.
In 1838 Dickens travelled to Stratford-upon-Avon and visited the house in which Shakespeare was born, leaving his autograph in the visitors' book.
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.
In the early 1840s, he had shown an interest in 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".
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.
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, Massachusetts aboard the RMS Britannia during their first trip to the United States and Canada.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It was exhibited, to acclaim, at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1844. ==Works== 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.
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.
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, heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens in May 1846 about setting up a home for the redemption of fallen women of the working class.
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".
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.
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 early 1849, Dickens started to write David Copperfield.
It was published between 1849 and 1850.
It was published between 1849 and 1850.
Reviewers and literary figures during the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s, saw a "drear decline" in Dickens, from a writer of "bright sunny comedy ...
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 (1854) and Little Dorrit (1856).
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.
His literary reputation, however began to decline with the publication of Bleak House in 1852–53.
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.
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.
In 1856, his income from writing allowed him to buy Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent.
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.
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.
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.
His 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction.
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.
His first reading tour, lasting from April 1858 to February 1859, consisted of 129 appearances in 49 towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland.
For instance, he has been criticized for his subsequent acquiescence in Governor Eyre's harsh crackdown during the 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica and his failure to join other British progressives in condemning it.
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.
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 known as "Laskar Sal", who formed the model for the "Opium Sal" subsequently featured in Edwin Drood. After Dickens had regained sufficient strength, he arranged, with medical approval, for a final series of readings to partially make up to his sponsors what they had lost due to his illness.
Reviewers and literary figures during the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s, saw a "drear decline" in Dickens, from a writer of "bright sunny comedy ...
He also based the story on several previous rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash of 1861.
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 Civil War in America in 1861 delayed his plans.
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.
Two of his sons, Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens and Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, migrated to Australia, Edward becoming a member of the Parliament of New South Wales as Member for Wilcannia between 1889 and 1894. ==Last years== On 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash.
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.
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 (1859) and Great Expectations (1861), which were resounding successes.
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 (1854) and Little Dorrit (1856).
On 9 November 1867, over two years after the war, Dickens set sail from Liverpool for his second American reading tour.
He performed 76 readings, netting £19,000, from December 1867 to April 1868.
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.
He performed 76 readings, netting £19,000, from December 1867 to April 1868.
On 23 April he boarded the Cunard liner to return to Britain, barely escaping a federal tax lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour. ==Farewell readings== Between 1868 and 1869, Dickens gave a series of "farewell readings" in England, Scotland and Ireland, beginning on 6 October.
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." Comparing his reception at public readings to those of a contemporary pop star, The Guardian states, "People sometimes fainted at his shows.
On 23 April he boarded the Cunard liner to return to Britain, barely escaping a federal tax lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour. ==Farewell readings== Between 1868 and 1869, Dickens gave a series of "farewell readings" in England, Scotland and Ireland, beginning on 6 October.
He suffered a stroke on 18 April 1869 in Chester.
He collapsed on 22 April 1869, at Preston in Lancashire and, on doctor's advice, the tour was cancelled.
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic.
She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser and friend until Dickens's death in 1870.
There were 12 performances, running between 11 January and 15 March 1870, the last at 8:00 pm at St.
On 2 May, he made his last public appearance at a Royal Academy Banquet in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, paying a special tribute on the death of his friend, the illustrator Daniel Maclise. ==Death== On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood.
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".
Reviewers and literary figures during the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s, saw a "drear decline" in Dickens, from a writer of "bright sunny comedy ...
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".
Two of his sons, Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens and Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, migrated to Australia, Edward becoming a member of the Parliament of New South Wales as Member for Wilcannia between 1889 and 1894. ==Last years== On 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash.
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.
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, cast in 1891 by Francis Edwin Elwell, stands in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Two of his sons, Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens and Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, migrated to Australia, Edward becoming a member of the Parliament of New South Wales as Member for Wilcannia between 1889 and 1894. ==Last years== On 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash.
Many of his works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime and, as early as 1913, a silent film of The Pickwick Papers was made.
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.
In the 1930s, Thomas Wright recounted that Ternan had unburdened herself to a Canon Benham and gave currency to rumours they had been lovers.
Virginia Woolf had a love-hate relationship with his works, 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.
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".
However, even in 1948, F.
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." Comparing his reception at public readings to those of a contemporary pop star, The Guardian states, "People sometimes fainted at his shows.
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".
Martin's Press, 1990) Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert, "Becoming Dickens 'The Invention of a Novelist'", London: Harvard University Press, 2011 Johnson, Edgar, Charles Dickens: his tragedy and triumph, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952.
In 1960 a bass 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.
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 title character in his 1988 novel Matilda.
Martin's Press, 1990) Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert, "Becoming Dickens 'The Invention of a Novelist'", London: Harvard University Press, 2011 Johnson, Edgar, Charles Dickens: his tragedy and triumph, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952.
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 Series E £10 note issued by the Bank of England that circulated between 1992 and 2003.
In 2002, Dickens was number 41 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
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 Series E £10 note issued by the Bank of England that circulated between 1992 and 2003.
An avid reader of Dickens, in 2005, Paul McCartney named Nicholas Nickleby his favourite novel.
A theme park, Dickens World, standing in part on the site of the former naval dockyard where Dickens's father once worked in the Navy Pay Office, opened in Chatham in 2007.
Martin's Press, 1990) Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert, "Becoming Dickens 'The Invention of a Novelist'", London: Harvard University Press, 2011 Johnson, Edgar, Charles Dickens: his tragedy and triumph, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952.
On 7 February 2012, the 200th anniversary of Dickens's birth, Philip Womack wrote in The Telegraph: "Today there is no escaping Charles Dickens.
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.
The book was subsequently turned into a play, Little Nell, by Simon Gray, and a 2013 film.
In 2014, a life-size statue was unveiled near his birthplace in Portsmouth on the 202nd anniversary of his birth; this was supported by the author's great-great grandsons, Ian and Gerald Dickens. A Christmas Carol is most probably his best-known story, with frequent new adaptations.
All text is taken from Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License .
Page generated on 2021-08-05