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Charles Dickens

Dickens, Charles (1812-70), an English novelist, was the most popular writer of his time. He cared deeply about the sufferings of the poor, especially children, and in his novels attacked the injustices they endured. He also created some of the most lively characters in English fiction. Dickens, the son of a government clerk, was born in Portsmouth. His childhood was spent in poverty, and when he was ten his father was sent to the debtors' prison of Marshalsea. Dickens had to spend miserable months working at a blacking factory. He later drew on his unhappy experiences to provide the background for some of his books.

Dickens taught himself shorthand, and in 1835 became a reporter of parliamentary debates for the Morning Chronicle. He also contributed to other periodicals articles that were later republished as Sketches by Boz. The Pickwick Papers followed, in twenty monthly installments, which immediately established Dickens as a successful writer. In 1836 he married Catherine Hogarth.

In 1842, after completing several more of his books in serial form, Dickens visited America, where he advocated the abolition of slavery. At Christmas time, 1843, A Christmas Carol appeared the first of several Christmas books, which he continued in subsequent years with The Chimes and “The Cricket on the Hearth”.

In the next few years he traveled widely in Europe. Shortly after the appearance of David Copperfield in 1849-50, Dickens started the weekly periodical Household Words. He replaced this magazine by another very similar one in 1859, All the Year Round, which he continued to edit until his death.

He began public readings from his books in 1858, which he continued during his second visit to America in 1867-8. Although these readings were very popular, they undermined his health, and he died in 1870, leaving his last story, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.