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Charles John Huffam Dickens (February 7,
1812 – June 9, 1870), pen-name "Boz", was an English novelist. During
his lifetime, Dickens was viewed as a popular entertainer of fecund
imagination, while later critics championed his mastery of prose, his
endless invention of memorable characters and his powerful social
sensibilities. The popularity of his novels and short stories during his
lifetime and to the present is demonstrated by the fact that none has
ever gone out of print. Dickens played a major role in popularising the
serialised novel. He is frequently referred to by his last name only,
even on first reference (a la Shakespeare).
****
Life
Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England, to
John Dickens, a naval pay clerk, and his wife Elizabeth Barrow. When he
was five, the family moved to Chatham, Kent. When he was ten, the family
relocated to Camden Town in London. His early years were an idyllic
time. He thought himself then as a "very small and
not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy". He spent his time outdoors,
reading voraciously with a particular fondness for the picaresque novels
of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. He talked later in life of his
extremely strong memories of childhood and his continuing photographic
memory of people and events that helped bring his fiction to life. His
family was moderately well off, and he received some education at a
private school but all that changed when his father, after spending too
much money entertaining and retaining his social position, was
imprisoned for debt. At the age of twelve Dickens was deemed old enough
to work and began working for ten hours a day in Warren’s boot-blacking
factory located near the present Charing Cross railway station. He spent
his time pasting labels on the jars of thick polish and earned six
shillings a week. With this money he had to pay for his lodging and help
support his family who were incarcerated in the nearby Marshalsea
debtors' prison.
After a few years, his family's financial
situation improved, partly due to money inherited from his father's
family. His family was able to leave the Marshalsea but his mother did
not immediately remove him from the boot-blacking factory which was
owned by a relation of hers. Dickens never forgave his mother for this
and resentment of his situation and the conditions working-class people
lived under became major themes of his works. Dickens told his
biographer John Forster, "No advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no
consolation, no support from anyone that I can call to mind, so help me
God!" In May 1827 Dickens began work as a law clerk, a junior office
position with potential to become a lawyer. He did not like the law as a
profession and after a short time as a court stenographer he became a
journalist, reporting parliamentary debate and travelling Britain by
stagecoach to cover election campaigns. His journalism formed his first
collection of pieces Sketches by Boz and he continued to contribute to
and edit journals for much of his life. In his early twenties he made a
name for himself with his first novel, The Pickwick Papers.
On 2 April 1836 he married Catherine
Hogarth, with whom he was to have had ten children, and set up home in
Bloomsbury.
His ten children by Catherine Thompson
Hogarth were:
Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (6 January
1837–1896).
Mary Angela Dickens (6 March 1838–1896).
Kate Macready Dickens (29 October
1839–1929).
Walter Landor Dickens (8 February
1841–1861).
Francis Jeffrey Dickens (15 January
1844–1886).
Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens (28 October
1845–1912).
Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (18 April
1847–1872).
Henry Fielding Dickens (15 January
1849–1933).
Dora Annie Dickens (16 August 1850–April
1851).
Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens (13 March
1852– 1902).
In the same year he accepted the job of
editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a position he would hold until 1839 when
he fell out with the owner. Two other journals in which Dickens would be
a major contributor were Household Words and All the Year Round. In 1842
he travelled together with his wife to the United States; the trip is
described in the short travelogue American Notes and is also the basis
of some of the episodes in Martin Chuzzlewit. Dickens’ writings were
extremely popular in their day and were read extensively. His popularity
allowed him to buy Gad’s Hill Place, in 1856. This large house in
Higham, Kent was very special to Dickens as he had walked past it as a
child and had dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of
some of the events of Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 1 and this literary
connection pleased Dickens.
Dickens separated from his wife in 1858. In
Victorian times, divorce was almost unthinkable, particularly for
someone as famous as he was. He continued to maintain her in a house for
the next twenty years until she died. Although they were initially happy
together, Catherine did not seem to share quite the same boundless
energy for life which Dickens had. Her job of looking after their ten
children and the pressure of living with and keeping house for a
world-famous novelist certainly did not help. Catherine’s sister
Georgina moved in to help her, but there were rumours that Charles was
romantically linked to his sister-in-law. An indication of his marital
dissatisfaction was when, in 1855, he went to meet his married first
love Maria Beadnell. Maria was by this time married as well, but she
seems to have fallen short of Dickens' romantic memory of her.
On the 9th June 1865, while returning from
France to see Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst
train crash in which the first six carriages of the train plunged off of
a bridge that was being repaired. The only first-class carriage to
remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was berthed. Dickens
spent some time tending the wounded and the dying before rescuers
arrived; before finally leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript
for Our Mutual Friend, and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it.
Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at
the inquiry into the crash, as it would have become known that he was
travelling that day with Ellen Ternan and her mother, which could have
caused a scandal. Ellen, an actress, had been Dickens' companion since
the break-up of his marriage, and, as he had met her in 1857, she was
most likely the ultimate reason for that break-up. She continued to be
his companion, and probably mistress, until his death.
Although unharmed, he never really
recovered from the crash, which is most evident in the fact that his
normally prolific writing shrank to completing Our Mutual Friend and
starting the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Much of his time was
taken up with public readings from his best-loved novels. Dickens was
fascinated by the theatre as an escape from the world, and theatres and
theatrical people appear in Nicholas Nickleby. The travelling shows were
extremely popular, and on December 2, 1867, Dickens gave his first
public reading in the United States at a New York City theatre. The
effort and passion he put into these readings with individual character
voices is also thought to have contributed to his death.
Five years to the day after the Staplehurst
crash, on 9 June 1870, he died after suffering a stroke. Contrary to his
wish to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, he was buried in the Poets’
Corner of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb reads: "He was
a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his
death, one of England’s greatest writers is lost to the world." In the
1980s, the historic Eastgate House in Rochester, Kent, was converted
into a Charles Dickens museum, and an annual Dickens Festival is held in
the city. The Eastgate House was closed in 2005 by Medway Council as an
economy measure, but a "Dickens World" theme park is scheduled to open
in nearby Chatham in 2007. The house in Portsmouth which Dickens was
born has also been made into a museum.
Literary style and legacy
Dickens' writing style is florid and
poetic, with a strong comic touch. His satires of British aristocratic
snobbery — he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator" — are
wickedly funny. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug
boats, or dinner party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens’
flights of fancy which can sum up situations better than any simple
description could.
The characters are among the most memorable
in English literature, certainly their names are. The likes of Ebenezer
Scrooge, Fagin, Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Pecksniff, Miss Havisham, Wackford
Squeers and many others are so well known and can be believed to be
living a life outside the novels that their stories have been continued
by other authors. Dickens loved the style of 18th century gothic
romance, though it had already become a bit of a joke—Jane Austen’s
Northanger Abbey being a well known parody—and whilst some are
grotesques their eccentricities do not usually overshadow the stories.
One character most vividly drawn throughout his novels is London itself.
From the coaching inns on the out-skirts of the city to the lower
reaches of the Thames, all aspects of the capital are described by
someone who truly loved London and spent many hours walking its streets.
Most of Dickens' major novels were first
written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as Master
Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted in book form.
These instalments made the stories cheap, accessible and the series of
regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. Part of
Dickens’ great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but
still end up with a coherent novel at the end. The monthly numbers were
illustrated by, amongst others, "Phiz" (a pseudonym for Hablot Browne).
Among his best-known works are Great Expectations, David Copperfield,
The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two
Cities, and A Christmas Carol.
Dickens' novels were, among other things,
works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and
social stratification of Victorian society. Throughout his works,
Dickens retained an empathy for the common man and a scepticism for the
fine folk.
Much of Dickens’ writing seems sentimental
today, like the death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop. Even
where the leading characters are sentimental, as in Bleak House, the
peripheral events offer a different style. Little Dorrit which appears
to be a simply rags-to-riches story was written as an acerbic satire on
debtor's prisons. Another criticism of his writing is the unrealistic
and unlikeliness of his plots. This is true but much of the time he was
not aiming for realism but for entertainment and to recapture the
picaresque and gothic novels of his youth. When he did attempt realism
his novels were often unsuccessful and unpopular. The fact that his own
life story of happiness, then poverty, then an unexpected inheritance,
and finally international fame was unlikely shows that unlikely stories
are not necessarily unrealistic.
All authors incorporate autobiographical
elements in their fiction, but with Dickens this is very noticeable,
particularly as he took pains to cover up what he considered his
shameful, lowly past. David Copperfield is one of the most clearly
autobiographical but the scenes from Bleak House of interminable court
cases and legal arguments could only come from a journalist who has had
to report them. Dickens’ own family was sent to prison for poverty, a
common theme in many of his books, in particular the Marshalsea in
Little Dorrit. Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop is thought to
represent Dickens’ sister-in-law, Nicholas Nickleby's father and Wilkins
Micawber are certainly Dickens' own father and the snobbish nature of
Pip from Great Expectations is similar to the author himself.
Legacy
Charles Dickens was a well known
personality and his novels were immensely popular during his lifetime.
His first full novel The Pickwick Papers brought him immediate fame and
this fame continued right through his career. He maintained a high
quality in all his writings and although never departing greatly from
his typical "Dickensian" style he did experiment with different themes,
moods and genres. Some of these experiments were more successful than
others and the public’s taste and appreciation of his various works have
varied over time. He was usually keen to give his readers what they
wanted and the monthly or weekly publication of his works in episodes
meant that the books could change as the story proceeded at the whim of
the public. A good example of this are the American episodes in Martin
Chuzzlewit which were put in by Dickens in response to lower than normal
sales of the earlier chapters. In Our Mutual Friend the inclusion of the
character of Riah was a positive portrayal of a Jewish character after
he was criticised for the depiction of Fagin in Oliver Twist.
His popularity has waned little since his
death and he is still one of the best known and most read of English
authors. At least 180 movies and TV adaptations based on Dickens’ works
help confirm his success. 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. 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 Mrs Gamp and Pickwickian,
Pecksniffian and Gradgrind all entered the dictionary owing to Dickens’
perfect portrayal of these kind of people. Sam Weller was an early
superstar perhaps better known than his author at first. It is likely
that A Christmas Carol is his best-known story, with new adaptations
almost every year. It is also the most-filmed of Dickens' stories, most
versions dating from the early years of cinema. This simple morality
tale with humour and pathos, for many, sums up the true meaning of
Christmas and eclipses all his other Christmas stories.
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 at the heart of empire. Through
his journalism he campaigned of specific issues such as sanitation and
the workhouse but his fiction was probably all the more powerful in
changing opinion. He revealed the harsh lives of the poor and satirised
the people who allowed abuses to continue, all in the context of a
good-humoured, entertaining story which sold widely. His works seem to
have inspired many more people to address problems and inequalities,
even though he poked fun at these well meaning philanthropists, and his
influence is often credited with having the Marshalsea and Fleet Prisons
shut down.
Dickens may have hoped for the foundation
of a literary dynasty through his ten children and he named some of them
after past writers but it would have been difficult for them to be
anywhere near as successful as their father and some of them seem to
have inherited their grandfather’s lack of financial acumen. Several of
his children wrote of their memories of their father or prepared his
surviving correspondence for publication but his great-granddaughter,
Monica Dickens, would follow in his footsteps as a writer of novels.
His works, with their vivid descriptions of
life at the time, mean that the whole of Victorian society is often
simply described as Dickensian. Following his death in 1870 a greater
degree of realism entered literature probably in reaction to Dickens’
own tendency towards the picaresque and ridiculous. Late Victorian
novelists such as Samuel Butler, Thomas Hardy and George Gissing owe
much to Dickens but their works are grittier and less sentimental.
Writers continue to be influenced by his books and, although his faults
are criticised, few writers can match his characterisation, gripping
plots, social commentary, popular, critical, and financial success, and
his sense of humour.
Quotations
"Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there
is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined,
myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in
the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my
unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as
dead as a door-nail." — A Christmas Carol
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of
my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these
pages must show." — David Copperfield
"It is a far, far better thing that I do,
than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I
have ever known." — A Tale of Two Cities
"I only ask to be free. The butterflies are
free." — Bleak House
Bibliography
Major novels
The Pickwick Papers (1836)
Oliver Twist (1837–1839)
Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839)
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841)
Barnaby Rudge (1841)
The Christmas Books:
A Christmas Carol (1843)
The Chimes (1844)
The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
The Battle of Life (1846)
The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain
(1848)
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844)
Dombey and Son (1846–1848)
David Copperfield (1849–1850)
Bleak House (1852–1853)
Hard Times (1854)
Little Dorrit (1855–1857)
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Great Expectations (1860–1861)
Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished)
(1870)
Selected other books
Sketches by Boz (1836)
American Notes (1842)
Pictures from Italy (1846)
The Life of Our Lord (1846, published in
1934)
A Child's History of England (1851–1853)
Short stories
"A Christmas Tree"
"A Message from the Sea"
"Doctor Marigold"
"George Silverman’s Explanation"
"Going into Society"
"Holiday Romance"
"Hunted Down"
"Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy"
"Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings"
"Mugby Junction"
"Perils of Certain English Prisoners"
"Somebody’s Luggage"
"Sunday Under Three Heads"
"The Child’s Story"
"The Haunted House"
"The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain"
"The Holly-Tree"
"The Lamplighter"
"The Seven Poor Travellers"
"The Trial for Murder"
"Tom Tiddler’s Ground"
"What Christmas Is As We Grow Older"
"Wreck of the Golden Mary"
"Captain Murderer"
"The Signalman"
Essays
In Memoriam W. M. Thackeray
Articles
A Coal Miner's Evidence
****
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