Charles John Huffam Dickens was born February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. Shortly thereafter his family moved to Chatham, and Dickens considered his years there as the happiest of his childhood. In 1822, the family moved to London, where his father worked as a clerk in the navy pay office. Dickens' family was considered middle class, however, his father had a difficult time managing money. His extravagant spending habits brought the family to financial disaster, and in 1824, John Dickens was imprisoned for debt.
Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.
CHARLES DICKENS
Charles was the oldest of the Dickens children, and a result of his father's imprisonment, he was withdrawn from school and sent to work in a shoe-dye factory. During this period, Dickens lived alone in a lodging house in North London and considered the entire experience the most terrible of his life. Nevertheless, it was this experience that shaped his much of his future writing...(scroll down)
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It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away.
CHARLES DICKENS
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KEY FACTS
{Name}Charles Dickens (born Charles John Huffham Dickens)
{Born}7 February 1812, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK
{Spouse}Catherine Hogarth (2 April 1836 - 1858) (separated) 10 children
{Died}9 June 1870, Gadshill, England, UK (stroke)
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CHARLES DICKENS: FRAGMENTS FROM A LIFE
(Cont.):
After receiving an inheritance several months later, Dickens' father was released from prison. Although Dickens' mother wanted him to stay at work, resulting in bitter resentment towards her, his father allowed him to return to school. His schooling was again interrupted and ultimately ended when
Dickens was forced to return to work at age 15. He became a clerk in a law firm, then a shorthand reporter in the courts, and finally a parliamentary and newspaper reporter.
In 1833, Dickens began to contribute short stories and essays to periodicals. He then provided a comic narrative to accompany a series of engravings, which were published as the Pickwick Papers in 1836. Within several months, Dickens
became internationally popular. He resigned from his position as a newspaper reporter and became editor of a monthly magazine entitled Bentley's Miscellany. Also during 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth. Together, they had nine surviving children, before they separated in 1858.
There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts
CHARLES DICKENS
Dickens' career continued at an intense pace for the next several years. Oliver Twist was
serialized in Bentley's Miscellany beginning in 1837. Then, with Oliver Twist only half completed, Dickens began to publish monthly installments of
Nicholas Nickleby in 1838. Because he had so many projects in the works, Dickens was barely able to stay ahead of his monthly deadlines. After the completion of
Twist and Nickleby, Dickens produced weekly installments of The Old Curiosity Shop and
Barnaby Rudge.
After a short working vacation in the United States in 1841, Dickens
continued at his break-neck pace. He began to publish annual Christmas stories, beginning with
A Christmas Carol in 1843. Within the community, Dickens actively fought for social issues; such as education reform, sanitary measures, and slum clearance, and he began to directly address social issues in novels such
as Dombey and Son (1846-48).
In 1850, Dickens established a weekly journal entitled Household Words
to which he contributed the serialized works of Child's History of England (1851-53), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations
(1860-61). At the same time, Dickens continued to work on his novels, including David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-53), Little Dorrit (1855-57),
and Our Mutual Friend (1864-65). As his career progressed, Dickens became
more and more disenchanted. His works had always reflected the pains of the common man, but works such as Bleak House
and Our Mutual Friend expressed his
progressing anger and disillusionment with society.
There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated
CHARLES DICKENS
In 1858, Dickens began a series of paid readings, which became instantly popular. Through these readings, Dickens was able to combine his love of the stage with an accurate rendition of his writings. In all, Dickens performed more than 400 times. The readings often left him exhausted and ill, but they allowed him to increase his income, receive creative satisfaction, and stay in touch with his audience.
After the breakup of his marriage with Catherine, Dickens moved permanently to his country house called Gad's Hill, near Chatham in 1860. It was also around this time that Dickens became involved in an affair with a young actress named Ellen Ternan. The affair
lasted until Dickens' death, but it was kept quite secret. Information about the relationship is quite scanty.
Dickens was required to abandon his reading tours in 1869 after his health began to decline. He retreated to Gad's Hill and began to work on
Edwin Drood, which was never completed. died suddenly at home on June 9, 1870. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Selected Books | Dickens Film Adaptation Posters
Kingsley Amis |
Martin Amis |
Baudelaire |
Albert Camus
Lewis Carroll |
John Le Carre |
Jean Cocteau |
Roald Dahl
Dostoevsky |
Daphne du Maurier |
John Fowles |
Jean Genet
Andre Gide |
Goethe |
Graham Greene |
Hermann Hesse
Franz Kafka |
Milan Kundera |
Lautreamont |
Marquis de Sade
Nietzsche |
George Orwell |
Sartre |
Amos Tutuola
Evelyn Waugh |
Oscar Wilde
The Complete Works of Charles Dickens
[Kindle Edition]
The Complete Works of Charles Dickens
[Paperback]
Charles Dickens Film Adaptation Dvds @ Amazon.com
| Charles Dickens Posters
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Photos/Porcelain Pieces
Charles Dickens Photos @ Allposters.com
Trivia
C H A R L E S D I C K E N S
Charles Dickens was closest to his sister, Fanny who was two years older.
Elizabeth Dickens (1789-1863) was born Elizabeth Barrow. She and John Dickens (1785 - 1851) named their eldest son after her father, Charles Barrow (1759-1826).
John Dickens worked as a clerk at Admiral's Building, Chatham House Dockyard, by the River Medway in Kent from 1817 to 1822.
The Dickens family lived at 16 Bayham Street in Camden Town (the house is now demolished).
The house Charles Dickens was born in at Southsea, Portsmouth, is now a museum, furnished as it would have been when John and Elizbeth Dickens set up their home there.
It was at Marshalsea Debtors Prison, near Blackman Street in Southwark, south London, where the Dickens family were incarcerated. Today, all that remains of the prison is a brick wall. The prison was closed in 1842 and the buildings were later destroyed.
Wellington House Academy, attended by Dickens from 1824 until 1827, inpired Salem House in David Copperfield. Charles and his schoolmates kept pet white mice in their desks.
The illustrator George Cruikshank (1792 - 1878) worked closely with Dickens. Their friendship later soured when Cruikshank became involved with the Temperance movement.
Dickens often used real places as inspiration for his stories. The White Hart Inn in Southwark appears prominently in The Pickwick Papers.
It was at Colin's Farm in Hampstead where the Dickens family took a recuperative holiday following the death of Mary Hogarth in 1837. Then a rural haven, it is now part of north London.
Mr and Mrs Dickens spent their honeymoon in the village of Chalk in Kent. The following year they returned to Chalk with their baby son, Charley.
The Dickens family lived at 48 Doughty Street, Bloomsbury, for two years. Today this house is the Charles Dickens Museum - the only one of Dicken's London homes to have survived.
His son Walter Dickens (1841 - 63) travelled to India as a cadet in the East India Company. He would be promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the 42nd Highlanders.
Frank Dickens (1844 - 86) initially wanted to be a doctor, but ended up a hero of the Royal Canadia Mounted Police.
Henry Dickens (1849 - 1933) was the only one of the siblings to go to university. Later he wrote two non-fiction books: Memories of My Father and Recollections of Sir Henry Fielding Dickens KC. He was the last surviving Dickens child and died at the age of 84, after being hit by motorcycle while crossing a road. He is buried at
Putney Vale, South London. One of his many grandchildren was the novelist Monica Dickens.
Alfred Dickens (1845 - 1912) was fortunate in his parents' choice of godfathers: Count Alfred d'Orsay and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, soon to be named poet laureate.
Sydney Dickens (1845 - 72). He joined the Navy at the age of 13, setting sail for
Canada when he was just 14 years old. His father's early pride turned to
shame as Sydney fell into terrible debt and became notorious in the Navy for his
"dissolute" lifestyle.
Edward Dickens (1852 - 1902) was always known as "Plorn". Moved to Australia at the age of 16 to join his brother Alfred where Charles had bought his son a sheep farm. After a severe drought the business was in ruins. While Alfred subsequently became a respected businessman, Plorn fell into debt on numerous occasions. In 1889 he was elected MP for Wincannia in New South Wales. He held the post for five years. He fell into debt again soon afterwards and his health began to fail. He died in Moree, NSW, and is buried there.
Gad's Hill Place, at Higham, near Rochester in Kent, was the only house Charles Dickens ever owned. He bought the house in 1856 and it was here that he died in 1870,
Selected Books
L I S T
- SKETCHES BY BOZ, 1836
- THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB, 1836-37
- THE ADVENTURES OF OLIVER TWIST, 1837-39
- THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 1838-39
- THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, 1840-41
- BARNABY RUDGE, 1841
- AMERICAN NOTES, 1842
- THE CHRISTMAS CAROL, 1843
- THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, 1843-44
- THE CHIMES, 1845
- THE CRICKET ON THE HEART, 1846
- PICTURES FROM ITALY, 1846
- DOMBEY AND SON, 1848
- DAVID COPPERFIELD, 1849
- A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 1851-53
- BLEAK HOUSE, 1853
- HARD TIMES, 1854
- LITTLE DORRITT, 1855-57
- THE TALE OF TWO CITIES, 1859
- THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER, 1860
- REPRINTED PIECES, 1861
- GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 1861
- OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, 1865
- THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, 1870
- SPEECHES, LETTERS AND SAYINGS, 1870
- COLLECTED WORKS EDITIONS: The Charles Dickens Edition, 21 vols., (1867-75); Nonesuch Edition, 23 vols., (1937-38); The New Oxford Illustrated Dickens, 21 vols. (1947-58); The Clarendon Dickens (in progress, 1966-)
- TO BE READ AT DUSK, 1898
- MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, 1908 (2 vols.)
- CHARLES DICKENS'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS FROM HOUSEHOLD WORDS, 1970 (ed. by Harry Stone)
- THE SUPERNATURAL SHORT STORIES OF CHARLES DICKENS, 1979 (edited by Michael Hayes)
- A DECEMBER VISION, 1986
- DICKENS'S JOURNALISM, vol. I, 1993
- DICKENS'S JOURNALISM, vol. 2, 1997
- THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS, 1965-2002 (the Pilgrim edition; 12 vols.)
Charles Dickens Books - © Estate of Charles Dickens
Recommended Reading: Dickens: Abridged
- Peter Ackroyd's Seminal Work
Posters
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For many of us he will always remain the Oliver Twist
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