BACK
CHARLES DICKENS (1812 - 1870)
This
greatest of Victorian writers was born in Portsmouth, on February 7, 1812. His
father John first worked as a clerk in the Navy Payroll Office in Portsmouth
but was then transfered to London where the family lived in Camden Town in
1822.
John Dickens was constantly in debt, and in 1824 he was imprisoned in Marshalsea's prison. Charles was forced to leave school at the age of 12 and go to work in a factory to help support the Dickens family. It was his personal experience of factory work and the living conditions of the poor that created in Dickens the compassion which was to mark his literary works.
When his father could finally pay his debts and be set free from Marshalsea, Charles went to Wellington House Academy for two years, then took work at Gray's Inn as a clerk.
Then Dickens worked as a Parliamentary reporter before becoming a journalist with The Morning Chronicle newspaper in 1834. His first published work appeared in Monthly Magazine in December 1833, under the pen name of "Boz". The pseudonym "Boz" was his younger brother's nickname when they were children. In 1836 his articles were compiled and published as Sketches by Boz.
Shortly after Sketches by Boz was published, Dickens married, to Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a co-worker at the Morning Chronicle newspaper. Together they had 10 children before they separated in 1858.
Dickens had his first commercial success, Pickwick Papers in 1837. This collection of 20 short stories appeared in monthly installments and it became a publishing phenomenon - easily the most widely read literary work in English to that date.
The series was largely humorous but it also dealt with the social injustices of the time, and it was this description of the condition of the lower classes that was to mark much of Dickens' work.
Dickens then started working on another serialised novel, Oliver Twist, which was published from 1837 to 38. It was a tale of innocence in the middle of the sordidness of London's criminal classes.
Nicholas Nickleby followed quickly: in his new work Dickens tried
to combine the humour of Pickwick Papers with the cry
for social reforms of Oliver Twist. It worked and 50,000 copies
of Nicholas Nickleby were sold every month.
Dickens started his own magazine, a weekly titled Master Humphrey's Clock which gave him international fame, and the name of Charles Dickens spread to the USA, where he was enormously popular.
In December 1843 Dickens wrote one of his most popular works, the short story entitled "A Christmas Carol". In this story and his longer works Dickens constantly returned to themes of social inequality and oppression of the poor.
The largely autobiographical David Copperfield followed in 1850. Dickens literary production was prolific, with works including A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-61), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5). Charles Dickens died on June 9, 1870 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.