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Adaptations of readings

There have been several performances of Dickens readings by Emlyn Williams, Bransby Williams, Clive Francis performing the John Mortimer adaptation of A Christmas Carol and also Simon Callow in the Mystery of Charles Dickens by Peter Ackroyd.

Autobiographical elements

All authors might be said to incorporate autobiographical elements in their fiction, but with Dickens this is very noticeable, even though he took pains to mask 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 are drawn from the author's brief career as a court reporter. Dickens's own father was sent to prison (where he was joined by his wife and younger children) for debt, and this became a common theme in many of his books, with the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit resulting from Dickens's own experiences of the institution. Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop is thought to represent Dickens's sister-in-law,[citation needed] William Dorrit, Nicholas Nickleby's father and Wilkins Micawber are certainly Dickens's own father, just as Mrs. Nickleby and Mrs. Micawber are similar to his mother.[citation needed] The snobbish nature of Pip from Great Expectations also has some affinity to the author himself. Childhood sweethearts in many of his books (such as Little Eml’y in David Copperfield) may have been based on Dickens’ own childhood infatuation with Lucy Stroughill.[41] The character of Fagin is believed to be based upon Ikey Solomon, a 19th century Jewish criminal of London and later Australia. It is reported that Dickens, during his time as a journalist, interviewed Solomon after a court appearance and that he was the inspiration for the gang leader in Oliver Twist. When the work was published in 1838 the unpleasant, to modern eyes,[42][43] stereotype of the Jewish character "Fagin" as fence and corrupter of children reflected only the endemic view of the time. The characterisation aroused no indignation, or even comment, and it seems to have been written without conscious anti-semitic intent.[44][45] By 1854, however, Dickens was moved to defend himself against mild reproof in The Jewish Chronicle by reference to his "strong abhorrence of...persecution of Jews in old time" expressed in his book A Child's History of England.[46] His sensitivity on the subject increased: in 1863 he was explaining that the character Fagin was "called a 'Jew', not because of his religion, but because of his race."[46] He took pains to include in Our Mutual Friend of 1864 the sympathetic Jewish character "Riah". Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he gathered his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated. A shameful past in Victorian times could taint reputations, just as it did for some of his characters, and this may have been Dickens's own fear.

Characters

Dickens is famed for many things--his depiction of the hardships of the working class, his intricate plots, his sense of humour. But he is perhaps most famed for the characters he created. His novels were heralded early in his career for their ability to capture the everyday man on paper and thus create a memorable character to whom readers could relate, and envision as a real person. Beginning with Pickwick Papers in 1836, Dickens wrote numerous novels, each uniquely filled with believable personalities and vivid physical descriptions. Dickens's friend and biographer, John Forster, said that Dickens made "characters real existences, not by describing them but by letting them describe themselves."[37] Dickensian characters—especially their typically whimsical names—are among the most memorable in English literature. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Oliver Twist, Fagin, The Artful Dodger, Bill Sikes, Pip, Miss Havisham, Mrs. Gamp, Charles Darnay, Mr. Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Daniel Quilp, Newman Noggs, Samuel Pickwick, Miss Havisham, Wackford Squeers, Uriah Heep 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.[citation needed] The author worked closely with his illustrators supplying them with an overall summary of the work at the outset and thus ensuring that his vision of his characters and settings were exactly how he envisioned them to be.[38]He would brief the illustrator on plans for each month's installment so that work on the two illustrations could begin before he wrote them. Marcus Stone, illustrator of Our Mutual Friend, recalled that the author was always "ready to describe down to the minutest details the personal characteristics, and ... life-history of the creations of his fancy."[39] This close working relationship with his illustrators is important to readers of Dickens today. The illustrations give us a glimpse of the characters as Dickens described them to the illustrator and approved when the drawing was finished. Film makers still use the illustrations as a basis for characterization, costume, and set design in the dramatization of Dickens' works. Often these characters were based on people that he knew. In a few instances Dickens based the character too closely on the original and got into trouble, as in the case of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House, based on Leigh Hunt, and Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield| based on his wife's dwarf chiropodist. These are not over-dramatized caricatures, but believable people we might seen walking down the street. Indeed, the acquaintances made when reading a Dickens novel are not easily forgotten. The author, Virginia Woolf, maintained that "we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens" as he produces "characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks."[40]

Death

On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home, after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. The next day, on 9 June, and five years to the day after the Staplehurst crash, he died at Gad's Hill Place never having regained consciousness. The great author was mourned by all his readers. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner", he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb reads: "CHARLES DICKENS Born 7th February 1812 Died 9th June 1870."[34] A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, June 9th, 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world.[35] On Sunday June 19, 1870, five days after Dickens's interment in the Abbey, Dean Arthur Penrhyn Stanley delivered a memorial elegy, lauding "the genial and loving humourist whom we now mourn," for showing by his own example "that even in dealing with the darkest scenes and the most degraded characters, genius could still be clean, and mirth could be innocent." Pointing to the fresh flowers that adorned the novelist's grave, Stanley assured those present that "the spot would thenceforth be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue."[36] Dickens's will stipulated that no memorial be erected to honour him. The only life-size bronze statue of Dickens, cast in 1891 by Francis Edwin Elwell, is located in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States.

Description

Charles John Huffam Dickens, FRSA (pronounced /ˈtʃɑrlz ˈdɪkɪnz/; 7 February 1812–9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print.[1][2] Much of his work first appeared in periodicals and magazines in serialised form, a favoured way of publishing fiction at the time. Dickens, unlike others who would complete entire novels before serial publication commenced, often wrote his in parts, in the order in which they were meant to appear. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by one cliffhanger after another to keep the public eager for the next instalment.[3] A concern with what he saw as the pressing need for social reforms runs throughout his work. Critics and fellow-novelists such as George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton have applauded Dickens for his mastery of prose, and for his teeming gallery of unique characters, many of whom have acquired iconic status in the English-speaking world. Others such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf have accused him of sentimentality and implausibility.[4]

Early years

Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, in Landport, Portsmouth, in Hampshire, the second of eight children to John Dickens (1786–1851), a clerk in the Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth, and his wife, Elizabeth (née Barrow, 1789–1863).[5] He was christened at St Mary's Church in Portsea on 4 March 1812. When he was five, the family moved to Chatham, Kent. In 1822, when he was ten, the family relocated to 16 Bayham Street, Camden Town, in London. Although his early years seem to have been an idyllic time, he thought himself then as a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy".[6] He spent time outdoors, but also read voraciously, with a particular fondness for the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. He talked, later in life, of his extremely poignant memories of childhood, and of his continuing photographic memory of the people and events that helped to bring his fiction to life. His family's early, moderate wealth provided the boy Dickens with some private education at William Giles's School, in Chatham.[7] This time of prosperity came to an abrupt end, however, when his father, after having spent beyond his means in entertaining, and in retaining his social position, was imprisoned at Marshalsea debtor's prison. Shortly afterwards, the rest of his family (except for Charles, who boarded in Camden Town at the house of family friend Elizabeth Roylance), realizing no other option, joined him in residence at Marshalsea.[8] This provided the setting of one of his works, 'Little Dorrit' in which the title character's father was imprisoned. Just before his father's arrest, the 12-year-old Dickens had begun working ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station. He earned six shillings a week pasting labels on jars of thick shoe polish. This money paid for his lodgings with Mrs. Roylance and helped support his family. Mrs. Roylance, Dickens later wrote, was "a reduced old lady, long known to our family," and whom he eventually immortalized, "with a few alterations and embellishments," as "Mrs. Pipchin," in Dombey & Son. Later, lodgings were found for him in a "back-attic...at the house of an insolvent-court agent, who lived in Lant Street in the borough...he was a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman...lame, with a quiet old wife; and he had a very innocent grown-up son, who was lame too"; these three were the inspiration for the Garland family in The Old Curiosity Shop.[9] The mostly unregulated, strenuous—and often cruel—work conditions of the factory employees (especially children), made a deep impression on Dickens. His experiences served to influence later fiction and essays, and were the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigours of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor.[citation needed] As told to John Forster (from The Life of Charles Dickens): The blacking-warehouse was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old gray rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist.[9] After only a few months in Marshalsea, John Dickens was informed of the death of his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Dickens, who had left him, in her will, the sum of £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens petitioned for, and was granted, release from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left Marshalsea for the home of Mrs. Roylance. Although Dickens eventually attended the Wellington House Academy in North London, his mother did not immediately remove him from the boot-blacking factory. 'The incident must have done much to confirm Dickens's determined view that a father should rule the family, a mother find her proper sphere inside the home. "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back." His mother's failure in his eyes [at this time], requesting Charles return to the blacking factory, contributed towards his demanding and dissatisfied attitude towards women.'[10] Resentment stemming from his situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel, David Copperfield:[11] "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!" The Wellington House Academy as it turned out was not a good school. ' Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr. Creakle's Establishment in David Copperfield.'[12] In May 1827 Dickens began work in the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn, as a junior clerk. He remained there until November 1828. Then, having worked energetically in his spare time to acquire Gurneys system of shorthand, he left to become a freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons, and Dickens was able to share his box there in order to report the legal proceedings.[13] Here in a court near St. Pauls he was to listen for nearly four years to rambling, involved cases. This education informed works such as Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, and especially Bleak House—whose vivid portrayal of the endless machinations, lethal manoeuvrings, and strangling bureaucracy of the legal system of mid-19th-century Britain did much to enlighten the general public, and was a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the injustice of chronic exploitation of the poor forced by circumstances to "go to Law." In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell. It is believed that she was the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield. Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and effectively ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris.

Episodic writing

As noted above, most of Dickens's 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. American fans even waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, "Is Little Nell dead?"[47][48][49] Part of Dickens's 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, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, Nicholas Nickleby, The Pickwick Papers, and A Christmas Carol. Dickens's technique of writing in monthly or weekly instalments (depending on the work) can be understood by analysing his relationship with his illustrators. The several artists who filled this role were privy to the contents and intentions of Dickens's instalments before the general public. Thus, by reading these correspondences between author and illustrator, the intentions behind Dickens's work can be better understood. What was hidden in his art is made plain in these letters. These also reveal how the interests of the reader and author do not coincide. A great example of that appears in the monthly novel Oliver Twist. At one point in this work, Dickens had Oliver become embroiled in a robbery. That particular monthly instalment concludes with young Oliver being shot. Readers expected that they would be forced to wait only a month to find out the outcome of that gunshot. In fact, Dickens did not reveal what became of young Oliver in the succeeding number. Rather, the reading public was forced to wait two months to discover if the boy lived. Another important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style resulted from his exposure to the opinions of his readers. Since Dickens did not write the chapters very far ahead of their publication, he was allowed to witness the public reaction and alter the story depending on those public reactions. A fine example of this process can be seen in his weekly serial The Old Curiosity Shop, which is a chase story. In this novel, Little Nell and her Grandfather are fleeing the villain Quilp. The progress of the novel follows the gradual success of that pursuit. As Dickens wrote and published the weekly instalments, his friend John Forster pointed out: "You know you're going to have to kill her, don't you." Why this end was necessary can be explained by a brief analysis of the difference between the structure of a comedy versus a tragedy. In a comedy, the action covers a sequence "You think they're going to lose, you think they're going to lose, they win". In tragedy, it is: "You think they're going to win, you think they're going to win, they lose". The dramatic conclusion of the story is implicit throughout the novel. So, as Dickens wrote the novel in the form of a tragedy, the sad outcome of the novel was a foregone conclusion. If he had not caused his heroine to lose, he would not have completed his dramatic structure. Dickens admitted that his friend Forster was right and, in the end, Little Nell died.[50]

Farewell readings

Between 1868 and 1869, Dickens gave a series of "farewell readings" in England, Scotland, and Ireland, until he collapsed on 22 April 1869, at Preston in Leeds showing symptoms of a mild stroke.[32] After further provincial readings were cancelled, he began work on his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In an opium den in Shadwell, he witnessed an elderly pusher known as "Opium Sal", who subsequently featured in his mystery novel. When he had regained sufficient strength, Dickens arranged, with medical approval, for a final series of readings to at least partially make up to his sponsors what they had lost due of his illness. There were to be twelve performances, running between January 11 and March 15, 1870, the last taking place at 8:00 pm at St. James's Hall in London. Although in grave health by this time, he read A Christmas Carol and The Trial from Pickwick. On 2 May, he made his last public appearance at a Royal Academy Banquet in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, paying a special tribute to the passing of his friend, illustrator Daniel Maclise.[33]

First visit to America

In 1842, Dickens made his first trip to America traveling with his wife to the United States and Canada, a journey which was successful in spite of his support for the abolition of slavery. He called upon President John Tyler at the White House.[16] At this time Georgina Hogarth, another sister of Catherine, joined the Dickens household to care for the young family they had left behind. She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser and friend until her brother-in-law's death in 1870. During this visit, Dickens spent time in New York City, where he gave lectures, raised support for copyright laws, and recorded many of his impressions of America. He toured the City for a month, and met such luminaries as Washington Irving and William Cullen Bryant. On 14 February 1842, a Boz Ball (named after his pseudonym) was held in his honour at the Park Theater, with 3,000 of New York’s elite present. Among the neighbourhoods he visited were Five Points, Wall Street, The Bowery, and the prison known as The Tombs.[17] The trip is described in the short travelogue American Notes for General Circulation and is also the basis of some of the episodes in Martin Chuzzlewit. Shortly thereafter, he began to show interest in Unitarian Christianity, although he remained an Anglican, at least nominally, for the rest of his life.[18] Dickens's work continued to be popular, especially A Christmas Carol written in 1843, the first of his Christmas books, which was reputedly a potboiler written in a matter of weeks to meet the expenses of his wife's fifth pregnancy. After living briefly abroad in Italy (1844) and Switzerland (1846), Dickens continued his success with Dombey and Son (1848); David Copperfield (1849–50).

Journalism and early novels

In 1833 Dickens was able to get his very first story, A Dinner at Poplar Walk, published in the London periodical, Monthly Magazine. The following year he rented rooms at Furnival's Inn becoming a political journalist, reporting on parliamentary debate and travelling across Britain by stagecoach to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle. His journalism, in the form of sketches which appeared in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces Sketches by Boz which was published in 1836 and led to the serialization of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, in March 1836. He continued to contribute to and edit journals throughout much of his subsequent literary career. Dickens's keen perceptiveness, intimate knowledge and understanding of the people, and tale-spinning genius were quickly to gain him world renown and wealth. In 1836, Dickens accepted the job of editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a position that he would hold for three years, when he fell out with the owner. At the same time, his success as a novelist continued, producing Oliver Twist (1837–39), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), The Old Curiosity Shop and, finally, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty as part of the Master Humphrey's Clock series (1840–41)—all published in monthly instalments before being made into books. Dickens had a pet raven named Grip which, when it died in 1841, Dickens had stuffed (it is now at the Free Library of Philadelphia).[14] On 2 April 1836, he married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1816 â€“ 1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the Evening Chronicle. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk, Kent, they set up home in Bloomsbury. They had ten children:[5] * Charles Culliford Boz Dickens C. C. B. Dickens, later known as Charles Dickens, Jr, editor for All the Year Round, author of the Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879). * Mary Dickens * Kate Macready Dickens * Walter Landor Dickens * Francis Jeffrey Dickens * Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens * Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens * Sir Henry Fielding Dickens * Dora Annie Dickens * Edward Dickens Emigrated to Australia. On March 25, 1837, Dickens moved with his family into 48 Doughty Street, London, (on which he had a three year lease at £80 a year) where he would remain until December 1839. A new addition to the household was Dickens younger brother Frederick. Also, Catherine's 17 year old sister Mary moved with them from Furnival's Inn to offer support to her newly married sister and brother-in-law. It was not unusual for a woman's unwed sister to live with and help a newly married couple. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837. She became a character in many of his books, and her death is fictionalized as the death of Little Nell.[15]

Last years

On 9 June 1865,[31] while returning from Paris with Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash in which the first seven carriages of the train plunged off a cast iron bridge that was being repaired. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Dickens spent some time trying to help the wounded and the dying before rescuers arrived. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for Our Mutual Friend, and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it. Typically, Dickens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story The Signal-Man in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He based the story around several previous rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash of 1861. Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the inquest into the crash, as it would have become known that he was travelling that day with Ternan and her mother, which could have caused a scandal. Athough unharmed, Dickens never really recovered from the Staplehurst crash, and his normally prolific writing shrank to completing Our Mutual Friend and starting the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood after a long interval. 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. In 1866 a series of public readings were undertaken in England and Scotland. The following year saw more readings in England and Ireland.

Legacy

A well-known personality, his novels proved immensely popular during his lifetime. His first full novel, The Pickwick Papers (1837), brought him immediate fame, and this success continued throughout his career. Although rarely departing greatly from his typical "Dickensian" method of always attempting to write a great "story" in a somewhat conventional manner (the dual narrators of Bleak House constitute a notable exception), he experimented with varied themes, characterisations, and genres. Some of these experiments achieved more popularity than others, and the public's taste and appreciation of his many works have varied over time. Usually keen to give his readers what they wanted, 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. Good examples of this are the American episodes in Martin Chuzzlewit which Dickens included 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.[46] Although his popularity has waned a little since his death, he continues to be one of the best known and most read of English authors. At least 180 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on Dickens's works help confirm his success.[53] 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 dictionaries due to Dickens's original portraits of such characters who were quixotic, hypocritical, or emotionlessly logical. Sam Weller, the carefree and irreverent valet of The Pickwick Papers, was an early superstar, perhaps better known than his author at first. It is likely that A Christmas Carol stands as his best-known story, with new adaptations almost every year. It is also the most-filmed of Dickens's stories, with many versions dating from the early years of cinema. This simple morality tale with both pathos and its theme of redemption, sums up (for many) the true meaning of Christmas. Indeed, it eclipses all other Yuletide stories in not only popularity, but in adding archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) to the Western cultural consciousness. A Christmas Carol was written by Dickens in an attempt to forestall financial disaster as a result of flagging sales of his novel Martin Chuzzlewit. Years later, Dickens shared that he was "deeply affected" in writing A Christmas Carol and the novel rejuvenated his career as a renowned author. 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 on specific issues—such as sanitation and the workhouse—but his fiction probably demonstrated its greatest prowess in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and repression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist, but flourished as a result. His most strident indictment of this condition is in Hard Times (1854), Dickens's only novel-length treatment of the industrial working class. In this work, he uses both vitriol and satire to illustrate how this marginalised social stratum was termed "Hands" by the factory owners; that is, not really "people" but rather only appendages of the machines that they operated. His writings inspired others, in particular journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. For example, the prison scenes in The Pickwick Papers are claimed to have been influential in having the Fleet Prison shut down. As Karl Marx said, Dickens, and the other novelists of Victorian England, "...issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together...".[54] The exceptional popularity of his novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (Bleak House, 1853; Little Dorrit, 1857; Our Mutual Friend, 1865) underscored not only his almost preternatural ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also ensured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored. His fiction, with often vivid descriptions of life in nineteenth century England, has inaccurately and anachronistically come to symbolise on a global level Victorian society (1837 â€“ 1901) as uniformly "Dickensian," when in fact, his novels' time span spanned from the 1770s to the 1860s. In the decade following his death in 1870, a more intense degree of socially and philosophically pessimistic perspectives invested British fiction; such themes stood in marked contrast to the religious faith that ultimately held together even the bleakest of Dickens's novels. Dickens clearly influenced later Victorian novelists such as Thomas Hardy and George Gissing, however their works display a greater willingness to confront and challenge the Victorian institution of religion. They also portray characters caught up by social forces (primarily via lower-class conditions), but they usually steered them to tragic ends beyond their control. Novelists continue to be influenced by his books; for instance, such disparate current writers as Anne Rice, Tom Wolfe, and John Irving evidence direct Dickensian connections. Humorist James Finn Garner even wrote a tongue-in-cheek "politically correct" version of A Christmas Carol, and other affectionate parodies include the Radio 4 comedy Bleak Expectations. Matthew Pearl's novel The Last Dickens is a thriller about how Charles Dickens would have ended Edwin Drood. Although Dickens's life has been the subject of at least two TV miniseries and two famous one-man shows, he has never been the subject of a Hollywood "big screen" biography.

Literary style

Dickens loved the style of 18th century gothic romance,[citation needed] although it had already become a target for parody.[citation needed] One "character" vividly drawn throughout his novels is London itself. From the coaching inns on the outskirts of the city to the lower reaches of the Thames, all aspects of the capital are described over the course of his body of work. His 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 often popular. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats, or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy. Many of his character's names provide the reader with a hint as to the roles played in advancing the storyline, such as Mr. Murdstone in the novel David Copperfield, which is clearly a combination of "murder" and stony coldness. His literary style is also a mixture of fantasy and realism.

Literary techniques

Dickens is often described as using 'idealised' characters and highly sentimental scenes to contrast with his caricatures and the ugly social truths he reveals. The story of Nell Trent in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) was received as incredibly moving by contemporary readers but viewed as ludicrously sentimental by Oscar Wilde:"You would need to have a heart of stone," he declared in one of his famous witticisms, "not to laugh at the death of Little Nell."[51] (although her death actually takes place off-stage). In 1903 G. K. Chesterton said, "It is not the death of Little Nell, but the life of Little Nell, that I object to."[52] In Oliver Twist Dickens provides readers with an idealised portrait of a young boy so inherently and unrealistically 'good' that his values are never subverted by either brutal orphanages or coerced involvement in a gang of young pickpockets. While later novels also centre on idealised characters (Esther Summerson in Bleak House and Amy Dorrit in Little Dorrit), this idealism serves only to highlight Dickens's goal of poignant social commentary. Many of his novels are concerned with social realism, focusing on mechanisms of social control that direct people's lives (for instance, factory networks in Hard Times and hypocritical exclusionary class codes in Our Mutual Friend).[citation needed] Dickens also employs incredible coincidences (e.g., Oliver Twist turns out to be the lost nephew of the upper class family that randomly rescues him from the dangers of the pickpocket group). Such coincidences are a staple of eighteenth century picaresque novels such as Henry Fielding's Tom Jones that Dickens enjoyed so much. But, to Dickens, these were not just plot devices but an index of the humanism that led him to believe that good wins out in the end and often in unexpected ways.[citation needed]

Middle years

In 1856, his popularity had allowed him to buy Gad's Hill Place. This large house in Higham, Kent, had a particular meaning 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 him. In 1857, in preparation for public performances of The Frozen Deep, a play on which he and his protégé Wilkie Collins had collaborated, Dickens hired professional actresses to play the female parts. With one of these, Ellen Ternan, Dickens formed a bond which was to last the rest of his life. When he separated from his wife, Catherine, in 1858, divorce was almost unthinkable, particularly for someone as famous as he was, and he financially supported her long afterwards. Although they appeared to be initially happy together, Catherine did not seem to share quite the same boundless energy for life which Dickens had. Nevertheless, her job of looking after their ten children, the pressure of living with a world-famous novelist, and keeping house for him, certainly did not help. An indication of his marital dissatisfaction may be seen when, in 1855, he went to meet his first love, Maria Beadnell. Maria was by this time married as well, but seemed to have fallen short of Dickens's romantic memory of her. During this period, whilst pondering about giving public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approached by the Great Ormond Street Hospital to help it survive its first major financial crisis through a charitable appeal. Dickens, whose philanthropy was well-known, was asked to preside by the hospital's founder Charles West, who happened to be a friend of the author's. He threw himself into the task, heart and soul[22] (a little known fact is that Dickens reported anonymously in the weekly The Examiner in 1849 to help mishandled children and wrote another article to help publicise the hospital's opening in 1852).[23] On February 9, 1858 Dickens he spoke at the hospital's first annual festival dinner at Freemasons' Hall and later gave a public reading of A Christmas Carol at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church hall. The events raised enough money to enable the hospital to purchase of the neighboring house, No. 48 Great Ormond Street, and increasing the bed capacity from 20 to 75.[24] That summer of 1858, after separating from his wife[25], Dickens would undertake his first series of public readings in London for pay which ended on July 22. After a mere 10 days rest, however, he began a grueling and ambitious tour, which would take him through the English provinces, Scotland and Ireland, beginning with a performance in Clifton on August 2 and closing in Brighton, more than three months later, on November 13. Altogether he was scheduled to read eighty-seven times, on some days giving both a matinée and an evening performance.[26] Major works, A Tale of Two Cities (1859); and Great Expectations (1861) soon followed and would prove resounding successes with both his critics and his fans. During this time he was also the publisher and editor of, and a major contributor to, the journals Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1858–1870). A recurring theme in Dickens's writing, both as reportage for these publications and as an inspiration for his fiction, reflected the public's interest in Arctic exploration: the heroic friendship between explorers John Franklin and John Richardson gave the idea for A Tale of Two Cities, The Wreck of the Golden Mary and the play The Frozen Deep.[27] After Franklin died in unexplained circumstances on an expedition to find the North West Passage it was natural for Dickens to write a piece in Household Words defending his hero against the discovery in 1854, some four years after the search began, of evidence that Franklin's men had, in their desperation, resorted to cannibalism.[28] Without adducing any supporting evidence he speculates that, far from resorting to cannibalism amongst themselves, the members of the expedition may have been "set upon and slain by the Esquimaux...We believe every savage to be in his heart covetous, treacherous, and cruel."[28] Although publishing in a subsequent issue of Household Words a defence of the Esquimaux, from another author who had actually visited the scene of the supposed cannibalism, Dickens refused to alter his view.[29] In early September 1860, in a field behind Gad's Hill, Dickens made a great bonfire of nearly his entire correspondence. Only those letters on business matters were spared. Since Ellen Ternan burned all of his letters as well, the dimensions of the affair between the two were unknown until the publication of Dickens and Daughter, a book about Dickens's relationship with his daughter Kate, in 1939. Kate Dickens worked with author Gladys Storey on the book prior to her death in 1929, and alleged that Dickens and Ternan had a son who died in infancy, though no contemporary evidence exists.[30] On his death, Dickens settled an annuity on Ternan which made her a financially independent woman. Claire Tomalin's book, The Invisible Woman, set out to prove that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life, and was subsequently turned into a play, Little Nell, by Simon Gray.

Museums and festivals

There are museums and festivals celebrating Dickens's life and works in many of the towns with which he was associated. * The Charles Dickens Museum, in Doughty Street, Holborn is the only one of Dickens's London homes to survive. He lived there only two years but in that time wrote The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby. It contains a major collection of manuscripts, original furniture and memorabilia. * Charles Dickens' Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth is the house in which Dickens was born. It has been re-furnished in the likely style of 1812 and contains Dickens memorabilia. * The Dickens House Museum in Broadstairs, Kent is the house of Miss Mary Pearson Strong, the basis for Miss Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield. It is visible across the bay from the original Bleak House (also a museum until 2005) where David Copperfield was written. The museum contains memorabilia, general Victoriana and some of Dickens's letters. Broadstairs has held a Dickens Festival annually since 1937. * The Charles Dickens Centre in Eastgate House, Rochester, closed in 2004, but the garden containing the author's Swiss chalet is still open. The 16th century house, which appeared as Westgate House in The Pickwick Papers and the Nun's House in Edwin Drood, is now used as a wedding venue.[57] The city's annual Dickens Festival (summer) and Dickensian Christmas celebrations continue unaffected. * Dickens World themed attraction, covering 71,500 square feet (6,643 m2), and including a cinema and restaurants, opened in Chatham on 25 May 2007.[58] It stands on a small part of the site of the former naval dockyard where Dickens's father had once worked in the Navy Pay Office. * Dickens Festival in Rochester, Kent. Summer Dickens is held at the end of May or in the first few days of June, it commences with an invitation only ball on the Thursday and then continues with street entertainment, and many costumed characters, on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Christmas Dickens is the first weekend in December- Saturday and Sunday only. Dickens festivals are also held across the world. Four notable ones in the United States are: * The Riverside Dickens Festival in Riverside, California, includes literary studies as well as entertainments. * The Great Dickens Christmas Fair (http://www.dickensfair.com/) has been held in San Francisco, California, since the 1970s. During the four or five weekends before Christmas, over 500 costumed performers mingle with and entertain thousands of visitors amidst the recreated full-scale blocks of Dickensian London in over 90,000 square feet (8,000 m2) of public area. This is the oldest, largest, and most successful of the modern Dickens festivals outside England. Many (including the Martin Harris who acts in the Rochester festival and flies out from London to play Scrooge every year in SF) say it is the most impressive in the world. * Dickens on The Strand in Galveston, Texas, is a holiday festival held on the first weekend in December since 1974, where bobbies, Beefeaters and the "Queen" herself are on hand to recreate the Victorian London of Charles Dickens. Many festival volunteers and attendees dress in Victorian attire and bring the world of Dickens to life. * The Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council (http://www.gpjac.org) holds a Dickens Festival in the Village of Port Jefferson, NY each year. In 2007, the Dickens Festival is 30 November, 1 December, and 2 December. It includes many events, along with a troupe of street performers who bring an authentic Dickensian atmosphere to the town.

Name 'Dickens'

Charles Dickens had, as a contemporary critic put it, a "queer name".[55] The name Dickens was used in interjective exclamations like "What the Dickens!" as a substitute for "devil". It was recorded in the OED as originating from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was also used as a substitute for "deuce" as in the phrase "to play the Dickens" in the meaning "to play havoc/mischief".[56]

Notable works by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens published over a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories (including a number of Christmas-themed stories), a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.

Novels

* The Pickwick Papers (Monthly serial, April 1836 to November 1837)[60] * The Adventures of Oliver Twist (Monthly serial in Bentley's Miscellany, February 1837 to April 1839) * The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (Monthly serial, April 1838 to October 1839) * The Old Curiosity Shop (Weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, 25 April 1840, to 6 February 1841) * Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty (Weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, 13 February 1841, to 27 November 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) * The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (Monthly serial, January 1843 to July 1844) * Dombey and Son (Monthly serial, October 1846 to April 1848) * David Copperfield (Monthly serial, May 1849 to November 1850) * Bleak House (Monthly serial, March 1852 to September 1853) * Hard Times: For These Times (Weekly serial in Household Words, 1 April 1854, to 12 August 1854) * Little Dorrit (Monthly serial, December 1855 to June 1857) * A Tale of Two Cities (Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 30 April 1859, to 26 November 1859) * Great Expectations (Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861) * Our Mutual Friend (Monthly serial, May 1864 to November 1865) * The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Monthly serial, April 1870 to September 1870. Only six of twelve planned numbers completed)

Other memorials

Charles Dickens was commemorated on the Series E £10 note issued by the Bank of England which was in circulation in the UK between 1992 and 2003. Dickens appeared on the reverse of the note accompanied by a scene from The Pickwick Papers.[59]

Philanthropy

In May 1846, Angela Burdett Coutts, the wealthy heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens about setting up home for the redemption of "fallen" women. Coutts envisioned a home that would offer a different approach to other organizations that offered a harsh and punishing regimen for these women, and instead provide a disciplined but supportive environment where they could learn to read and write and become proficient in domestic household chores so as to gently re-integrate them into society. After initially resisting Dickens eventually founded the home, named Urania Cottage, in the Lime Grove section of Shepherds Bush. He would end up becoming involved in many aspects of its day-to-day running, setting the house rules, reviewing the accounts and also interviewing prospective residents, some of whom became characters in his books. He would scour prisons and workhouses for potentially suitable candidates and relied on friends, such as the Magistrate John Hardwick to bring them to his attention. Once found, each potential candidate was given an anonymous printed invitation written by Dickens called ‘An Appeal to Fallen Women’, which he signed only as ‘Your friend’. If the woman accepted the invitation, Dickens would personally interview her and decide if she could be admitted to the home.[19][20] In late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House[21]where he would write Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1857). It was here he got up the amateur theatricals which are described in Forster's Life.

References

* Ackroyd, Peter, Dickens, (2002), Vintage, ISBN 0-09-943709-0 * Drabble, Margaret (ed.), The Oxford Companion to English Literature, (1997), London: Oxford University Press. * Michael Slater, "Dickens, Charles John Huffam (1812 â€“ 1870)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 6 June 2006 * Peter R Lewis, Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847, Tempus (2007) for a discussion of the Staplehurst accident, and its influence on Dickens. * John Glavin (ed.) Dickens on Screen,(2003), New York: Cambridge University Press. * Robert L. Patten (ed.) The Pickwick Papers (Introduction), (1978), Penguin Books. * Sidney P. Moss: Charles Dickens' Quarrel with Americ (New York: Whitson, 1984). * Fred Kaplan: Dickens: A Biography (New York: William Morros, 1988). * Jerome Meckier: Innocent Abroad: Charles Dickens' American Engagements (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990).

Second visit to America

On November 9, 1867 Dickens sailed from Liverpool embarking on his second American reading tour, which continued into 1868. Landing at Boston on November 19, he devoted the rest of the month to a round of dinners there with such notables as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his American publisher James Thomas Fields. In early December, the readings began and Dickens spent the month shuttling between Boston and New York. Although he had started to suffer from what he called the "true American catarrh," he kept to a schedule that would have challenged a much younger man, even managing to squeeze in some sleighing in Central Park. In New York, he gave 22 readings at Steinway Hall between 9 December 1867 and 18 April 1868, and four at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims between 16 January and 21 January 1868. During his travels, he saw a significant change in the people and the circumstances of America. His final appearance was at a banquet the American Press held in his honour at Delmonico’s on 18 April, when he promised to never denounce America again. By the end of the tour, the author could hardly manage solid food, subsisting on champagne and eggs beaten in sherry. On 23 April, he boarded his ship to return to Britain, barely escaping a Federal Tax Lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour.[17]

Selected non-fiction, poetry, and plays

* The Village Coquettes (Plays, 1836) * The Fine Old English Gentleman (poetry, 1841) * Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi (1838) * American Notes: For General Circulation (1842) * Pictures from Italy (1846) * The Life of Our Lord: As written for his children (1849) * A Child's History of England (1853) * The Frozen Deep (play, 1857) * Speeches, Letters and Sayings (1870)

Short story collections

* Sketches by Boz (1836) * The Mudfog Papers (1837) in Bentley's Miscellany magazine * Reprinted Pieces (1861) * The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1869) Christmas numbers of Household Words magazine: * What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older (1851) * A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1852) * Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1853) * The Seven Poor Travellers (1854) * The Holly-Tree Inn (1855) * The Wreck of the "Golden Mary" (1856) * The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) * A House to Let (1858) Christmas numbers of All the Year Round magazine: * The Haunted House (1859) * A Message From the Sea (1860) * Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861) * Somebody's Luggage (1862) * Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings (1863) * Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy (1864) * Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (1865) * Mugby Junction (1866) * No Thoroughfare (1867)

Siblings of Charles Dickens

* Frances (Fanny) Elizabeth Dickens c.1810 - 1847 * Letitia Dickens 1816 - 1893 * Harriet Dickens born after 1816 * Frederick Dickens * Alfred Lamert Dickens 1822 - 1860 * Augustus Newnham Dickens

Social commentary

Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime and was responsible for the clearing of the actual London slum that was the basis of the story, Jacob's Island. In addition, with the character of the tragic prostitute, Nancy, Dickens "humanised" such women for the reading public; women who were regarded as "unfortunates," inherently immoral casualties of the Victorian class/economic system. Bleak House and Little Dorrit elaborated expansive critiques of the Victorian institutional apparatus: the interminable lawsuits of the Court of Chancery that destroyed people's lives in Bleak House and a dual attack in Little Dorrit on inefficient, corrupt patent offices and unregulated market speculation.