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Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was a nineteenth-century novelist who was and still is very popular. The second child of John and Elizabeth Dickens, Charles was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth England. At that time John Dickens was stationed in Portsmouth as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. He grew up in a middle-class family, his father having come from servants and his mother from minor bureaucrats. Dickens father enjoyed entertaining his friends extravagantly and that caused an unfortunate tendency to live beyond his means.
The family hit financial rock bottom in 1824 and all but Charles were sent to debtor s prison. Feeling utterly humiliated, Charles was forced to work at Warren s Blacking Factory, an experience that would affect the rest of his life. He refers to his working experiences in his writings. After getting the family back on track, Dickens mother felt he should continue to work at the factory.
His father insisted he proceed with his education and so he was enrolled in school for short time. At age 15, his education ended and he found a position as an office boy with an attorney. He studied and night, learning shorthand to become a freelance court reporter. The job was seasonal and allowed him to do a good deal of reading in the British Museum.
At the age of twenty he became a full-fledged journalist, working for three papers in succession. In the next four or five years he acquired the reputation of being the fastest and most accurate parliamentary reporter in London. Some of his early short stories and sketches, which were published in various London newspapers and magazines, were compiled in 1836 to form his first book, Sketches by Boz. Following the Sketches, he was invited to write a comic narrative to accompany engravings by a well-known artist.
This was how the Pickwick Papers got started. After the fourth installment, Dickens was the most popular author of his time. Dickens found this type of work to be very profitable so he continued on with another serial of 20 installments called Nicholas Nickle by. During this period, he also wrote The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) in shorter monthly installments. In 1842, Dickens traveled to the United States for an extended vacation. He returned to England deeply disappointed.
He expressed his views in two books, American Notes for General Circulation (1842) and The Life and Adventures of Martin. These books mainly criticized the US for not having a copyright law, the acceptance of slavery, and the vulgarity of the people. His novel Dombey and Son (1846 - 48) was crucial to his development. It was planed out using a more mature outlook of social injustice. A short time later, he wrote one of his most popular novels, David Copperfield (1849 - 50).
This was his personal favorite. Dickens maintained his fame with a constant stream of novels. He was also involved in many other activities as well. He was an editor of weekly periodicals and wrote travel books. He managed a theatrical company that played before Queen Victoria in 1851 and gave public readings of his work in England and American. He loved home and family life and once contemplated writing a cookbook.
He was a devoted father to his children when they were young. As they grew up, relations with them became more strained. He lived in Italy (1844 - 45), Switzerland and France (1846 - 47) for a time however his home was in London. He was a solitary figure during writing and long walks but otherwise he was generally social. He found a permanent form for his writing in 1850, with the novel Household Worlds and All the Year Round (1859 - 88). These novels were a combination of weekly miscellaneous fiction, poetry and essays on a wide variety of subjects.
In 1855, he fell into a depression. He was unsettled and could not find contentment. Catherine, his wife lived apart from him from May 1958. The separation played havoc on his friendships and began to thin out his social circle, although it did not decrease his social popularity.
By the end of the 1850 s, Dickens was tired and growing more and more ill. He continued to write A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1860 - 61), which are said to be below the level of standards of his earlier novels. In view of his very strenuous life it was not surprising that he died at fifty-eight from a stroke. His farewell reading tour was abandoned when he collapsed in April 1969. At his death on June 9, 1870, Dickens was wealthy, immensely popular, and the best novelist the Victorian age produced. He was buried in the Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey, and people mourned his death the world over.
Works Cited Dickens, Charles John Huffman. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000. web (23 Jan. 2001) Dickens, Charles John Huffman. Encyclopedia Britannica web Dickens, Charles The Victorian Web, Last updated 12 November 2000 web Dickens, Charles Charles Dickens Gad Hill Place web
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Research essay sample on Dickens Charles Charles Dickens
