Writers - Charles Dickens

CHARLES DICKENS

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A Short Page Outlining the life and work of the Writer - CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)

Summary of Information on this page

The life of Charles Dickens

Public Readings

The Work of Charles Dickens - Famous titles and dates.

Other Related Postaprint Feature Pages

The life of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in a suburb of Portsmouth named Landport, England on 7th February 1812. His mother was Elizabeth (later Charles used her to form the character of Mrs. Nickleby) and his father was John Dickens (whom Charles depicted as Mr. Micawber in "David Copperfield"). 

When Charles was two years old, his father moved the family to London then to Chatham two years later, where Charles received some schooling, although he was supposedly already an avid reader. 

In 1821, there were reforms in the Navy and John lost his post as clerk in the navy pay office and therefore most of the family income. As a result the family moved again, to Camden Town, London. 

Within three years, John Dickens was arrested for debt and was imprisoned in the Marshalsea prison along with the rest of the family except Charles...

At the age of 12 years, Charles was put to work in Warren's Blacking factory situated at Hungerford Market in order to clear some of his father's debts. At first he lodged in Camden and walked four miles to the factory every day, visiting his family at the weekend until they found lodgings for him close to their location. 

Nearly four months after his arrest, Charles' father was released from prison and the family returned to Camden Town. Although his mother, Elizabeth, wanted Charles to continue to work at the blacking factory, his father chose to send him to school where he studied until he turned 15.

Charles' first chosen career was as a journalist, he became a free lance reporter at Doctor's Common Courts after working for two years as an office boy for an attorney. He also acted as a parliamentary reporter during the 'Reform Bill' legislation. 

In 1834, Charles worked as a reporter for the Morning Chronicle under the pseudonym "Boz" (this name was derived from Moses - Boses - Boz, one of Charles' favourite characters in "Vicar of Wakefield" by Goldsmith). The same year his father was again arrested for debt and Charles, for a second time, helped him out. Later, Charles was frequently requested by his entire family to supply them with financial aid.

The first fictional story that Charles had published appeared in "Monthly Magazine." It was entitled "Dinner at Poplar Walk." 1833. The initial "Sketches by Boz" was published in 1836 (in April that year, Charles and Elizabeth Hogarth married), followed by "The Pickwick Papers". His literary career simply took off from that point and Charles became a full time novelist, his first work being "Oliver Twist". 

Much of Charles' work was first published as monthly periodicals Although he began to release a Christmas book on a regular basis, the first of which being "A Christmas Carol," published in 1844 and the last being "The Haunted Man" in 1849.

From 1842, Charles and his family began to travel throughout the world. Initially visiting Canada and the United States. He later travelled to Italy, Switzerland and France. 

After his tour of the US and Canada, he published "American Notes" which didn't go down well in the US, being that, at that time, it was a relatively new nation and hadn't developed much of an attitude or sense of humour to anti-slavery. Alternatively it could have been that Charles expressed an offensive attitude towards tobacco chewing, which, by his own account was practiced widely.

In 1845, Dickens founded an amateur theatrical company which he continued until the end of his life and was to take up a great deal of his time. He later travelled with Wilkie Collins and Augustus Egg, the former of which co-wrote the play "The Frozen Deep" with Dickens.

In 1856, Dickens bought an estate that he had held a high regard for since childhood, 'Gad's Hill.' Hans Christian Anderson, visited the family there regularly until he out-stayed his welcome.

Public Readings

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First public paid readings began in 1858 and continued until three months before he died in 1870. These readings became enormously popular, after all, no one was able to portray the characters better than the author himself. These performances took place in many locations throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, Paris and America (the tour of the latter being conducted against medical advice) although the majority of them took place in London. It was whilst performing his public readings on tour around England, Scotland and Ireland in 1869 that Charles had his first stroke. 

Before the invention of printing, Authors and Poets would regularly read their works in this manner but seldom since. Charles Dickens however excelled at this form of entertainment. Below there is a close up Charles' face as he conducted his farewell reading. His expression shows that although he suffered a stroke in the previous year, he appears weathered but dignified.

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Charles Dickens was a man who had a very rough start to his life, however the hardships that he suffered enabled him to unleash a tremendous amount of creative energy. He was therefore able to continue with his work right up until he died. He worked at many things at the same time, in particular, he juggled editing, writing, public readings and theatricals (acting and directing) all at the same time. He still managed to fit in some leisure time abroad with his family however, each journey resulted in another work.

His later work began to get histrionic and tangled, this had been related to development in stages of Charles' mental health. Perhaps his acquired lavish lifestyle was hard to cope with considering his less than unprivileged childhood. He also tended to fabricate names derived from real names, Boz being one example and Cattermole's nickname being another. 

Charles died on June 9th 1870. After doing a full days work on Edwin Drood, he suffered a second stroke and died the following day. 

The Work of Charles Dickens - Famous titles* and dates.

*Refers to titles of periodicals that Charles founded, edited and wrote for.

The images shown in this document were from the Illustrated London News *and The Graphic 

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