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Charles dickens
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BIOGRAPHY OF CHARLES DICKENS
EARLY LIFE & CAREER
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England, on February 7, 1812, to John and
Elizabeth Dickens. He was the second of eight children. His mother had been in service to Lord
Crew, and his father worked as a clerk for the Naval Pay office. John Dickens was imprisoned
for debt when Charles was young. Charles Dickens went to work at a blacking warehouse,
managed by a relative of his mother, when he was twelve, and his brush with hard times and
poverty affected him deeply. He later recounted these experiences in the semi-autobiographical
novel David Copperfield. Similarly, the concern for social justice and reform that surfaced later
in his writings grew out of the harsh conditions he experienced in the warehouse.
As a young boy, Charles Dickens was exposed to many artistic and literary works that
allowed his imagination to grow and develop considerably. He was greatly influenced by the
stories his nursemaid used to tell him and by his many visits to the theater. Additionally, Dickens
loved to read. Among his favorite works were Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Tom Jones
by Henry Fielding, and Arabian Nights, all of which were picaresque novels composed of a
series of loosely linked adventures. This format no doubt played a part in Dickens' idea to
serialize his future works.
Dickens was able to leave the blacking factory after his father's release from prison, and
he continued his education at the Wellington House Academy. Although he had little formal
schooling, Dickens was able to teach himself shorthand and launch a career as a journalist. At the
age of sixteen, Dickens got himself a job as a court reporter, and shortly thereafter he joined the
staff of A Mirror of Parliament, a newspaper that reported on the decisions of Parliament.
During this time, Charles continued to read voraciously at the British Library, and he
experimented with acting and stage-managing amateur theatricals. His experience acting would
affect his work throughout his life--he was known to act out characters he was writing in the
mirror and then describe himself as the character in prose in his novels.
2. Quickly becoming disillusioned with politics, Dickens developed an interest in social
reform and began contributing to the True Sun, a radical newspaper. Although his main avenue
of work would consist in writing novels, Dickens continued his journalistic work until the end of
his life, editing The Daily News, Household Words, and All the Year Round. His connections to
various magazines and newspapers as a political journalist gave him the opportunity to begin
publishing his own fiction at the beginning of his career. He would go on to write fifteen novels.
(A final one, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was left unfinished upon his death.)
While he published several sketches in magazines, it was not until he serialized The
Pickwick Papers over 1836-37 that he experienced true success. A publishing phenomenon, The
Pickwick Papers was published in monthly installments and sold over forty thousand copies of
each issue. Dickens was the first person to make the serialization of novels profitable and was
able to expand his audience to include those who could not normally afford such literary works.
Within a few years, Dickens was regarded as one of the most successful authors of his
time, with approximately one out of every ten people in Victorian England avidly reading and
following his writings. In 1836 Dickens also married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a co-
worker at his newspaper. The couple had ten children before their separation in 1858. Catherine's
younger sister Mary lived with the couple, and Dickens was very attached to her. He was deeply
traumatized by her death at the age of seventeen, and she is believed to have provided inspiration
for a number of his idealized, angelic heroines such as Little Nell and Florence Dombey.
Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby followed in monthly installments, and both reflected
Dickens' understanding of the lower classes as well as his comic genius. In 1843, Dickens
published one of his most famous works, A Christmas Carol. His disenchantment with the
world's economic drives is clear in this work: he blames much of society's ills on people's
obsession with earning money and acquiring status based on money.
His travels abroad in the 1840s, first to America and then through Europe, marked the
beginning of a new stage in Dickens' life. His writings became longer and more serious. In David
Copperfield (1849-50), readers find the same flawed world that Dickens discovered as a young
boy. Dickens published some of his best-known novels, including A Tale of Two Cities and
Great Expectations, in his own weekly periodicals.
The inspiration to write a novel set during the French Revolution came from Dickens'
faithful annual habit of reading Thomas Carlyle's book The French Revolution, first published in
1839. When Dickens acted in Wilkie Collins' play The Frozen Deep in 1857, he was inspired by
his own role as a self-sacrificing lover. He eventually decided to place his own sacrificing lover
in the revolutionary period, a period of great social upheaval. A year later, Dickens went through
his own form of social change as he was writing A Tale of Two Cities: he separated from his
wife, and he revitalized his career by making plans for a new weekly literary journal called All
the Year Round. In 1859, A Tale of Two Cities premiered as a series in this journal. Its popularity
was based not only on the fame of its author, but also on its short length and radical (for Dickens'
time) subject matter.
3. Dickens became involved in theatrical collaborations with his friend, the novelist Wilkie
Collins. In 1857, while interviewing actresses for a play the two had written together, Dickens
met Ellen Ternan. Despite already being married, and the age difference between the two
(Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18), the two fell in love. This meeting precipitated the end for
Dickens of what was already an unhappy marriage. Dickens separated from his wife Catherine in
1858. While his relationship with Ellen was kept very discreet, especially considering Dickens's
celebrity, the two travelled together regularly, and Dickens supported her financially until the
time of his death.
Dickens' health began to deteriorate in the 1860s. In 1858, in response to his increasing
fame, he had begun public readings of his works. These exacted a great physical toll on him. An
immensely profitable but physically shattering series of readings in America in 1867-68 sped his
decline, and he collapsed during a "farewell" series in England.
On June 9, 1870, Charles Dickens died. He was buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster
Abbey. Though he left The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished, he had already written fifteen
substantial novels and countless shorter pieces. His legacy is clear. In a whimsical and unique
fashion, Dickens pointed out society's flaws in terms of its blinding greed for money and its
neglect of the lower classes of society. Through his books, we come to understand the virtues of
a loving heart and the pleasures of home in a flawed, cruelly indifferent world. Among English
writers, in terms of his fame and of the public's recognition of his characters and stories, many
consider him second only to William Shakespeare.
LITERARY WORKS
1. Bleak House
2. A Christmas Carol
3. David Copperfield
4. Dombey and Son
5. Great Expectations
6. Hard Times
7. Little Dorit
8. Oliver Twist
9. A Tale of Two Cities
BRIEF SINOPSIS OF FAMOUS WORKS
1. A Christmas Carol
Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly, cold-hearted creditor, continues his stingy, greedy ways
on Christmas Eve. He rejects a Christmas dinner invitation, and all the good tidings of the
4. holiday, from his jolly nephew, Fred; he yells at charity workers; and he overworks his
employee, Bob Cratchit. At night, Scrooge's former partner Jacob Marley, dead for seven
years, visits him in the form of a ghost. Marley's spirit has been wandering since he died as
punishment for being consumed with business and not with people while alive. He has come
to warn Scrooge and perhaps save him from the same fate. He tells him Three Spirits will
come to him over the next three nights.
2. David Copperfield
Charles Dickens' David Copperfield relates the story of a young boy's growth and
development into maturity. It is written from the point of view of the mature adult who
recounts his own obstacles and the obstacles of those around him and how it all shaped his life
and his beliefs.
3. Great Expectations
Great Expectations is the story of Pip, an orphan boy adopted by a blacksmith's family,
who has good luck and great expectations, and then loses both his luck and his expectations.
Through this rise and fall, however, Pip learns how to find happiness. He learns the meaning
of friendship and the meaning of love and, of course, becomes a better person for it.
4. Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist is the story of a young orphan, Oliver, and his attempts to stay good in a
society that refuses to help. Oliver is born in a workhouse, to a mother not known to anyone
in the town. She dies right after giving birth to him, and he is sent to the parochial orphanage,
where he and the other orphans are treated terribly and fed very little. When he turns nine, he
is sent to the workhouse, where again he and the others are treated badly and practically
starved. The other boys, unable to stand their hunger any longer, decide to draw straws to
choose who will have to go up and ask for more food. Oliver loses. On the appointed day,
after finishing his first serving of gruel, he goes up and asks for more. Mr. Bumble, the
beadle, and the board are outraged, and decide they must get rid of Oliver, apprenticing him to
the parochial undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. It is not great there either, and after an attack on his
mother’s memory, Oliver runs away.
SUMMARY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD
Charles Dickens' David Copperfield relates the story of a young boy's growth and
development into maturity. It is written from the point of view of the mature adult who recounts
his own obstacles and the obstacles of those around him and how it all shaped his life and his
beliefs.
5. The story starts with an account of the birth and childhood of David Copperfield at his
home, Blunderstone Rookery. He was born six months after the death of his father and under
circumstances which one of the nurses claimed would cause him to lead an unlucky life. He is
raised by his mother Clara and his nurse Peggotty, who give him a happy childhood. He
remembers his mother as carefree and recalls the relaxed atmosphere that the three of them had
together. He frequently says that this is one of the happiest times in his life.
Everything changes once his mother meets the dark but handsome Mr. Murdstone.
Peggotty immediately takes a disliking to him and often fights with Clara about him, but Clara
refuses to heed her advice. Peggotty and David visit Yarmouth, Peggotty's hometown, for a
week, which is when David first meets Mr. Barkis, the carrier driver, Mr. Peggotty, Peggotty's
brother, Ham, and Little Em'ly. When David and Peggotty return, however, his mother and Mr.
Murdstone have been married, and their former life disappears forever. Mr. Murdstone is a very
controlling man who forces the principle of firmness on Clara with the help of his sister, Miss
Murdstone.
After David bites Mr. Murdstone while being beaten by him, David is sent away to Salem
House, a boarding school for boys. There he meets Steerforth, a handsome, cultured boy whom
he admires dearly, and Traddles, an overweight but jovial and kind-hearted boy. He learns a lot
at the school and has one more good day with his mother, but he soon receives the bad news that
his mother has passed away. He returns home for the funeral and never goes back to Salem
House. Peggotty is fired by Mr. Murdstone and marries Mr. Barkis, and although she writes to
David and sees him from time to time, she can no longer be there for him the way she was
before.
David is constantly neglected before he is finally sent away to London to work in one of
Mr. Murdstone's warehouses, which he does not like at all, despite the respect he earns. He does
get to meet the Micawbers, a kind yet financially troubled family. They are eventually forced to
move away to evade all of their debts, and once they move, David decides to leave as well and to
find his aunt, Miss Betsey, who abandoned him and his mother at his birth because he was not a
girl. After a difficult journey, he finds the home of his aunt in Dover, and after a rude encounter
with the Murdstones, she decides to let him stay, along with her other houseguest, Mr. Dick.
David begins attending school in Canterbury and does well, He quickly rises to the top of
his class. He lives with family friends Mr. Wickfield and his daughter, Agnes. Agnes is around
David's age and will continue to be a significant influence in David's life. He also meets Uriah
Heep, Mr. Wickfield's servant to whom David takes an immediate disliking, Dr. Strong, the
master of his school, and Dr. Strong's wife Annie.
After he graduates, Miss Betsey and David decide that he should take some time to
decide what he wants to do. He decides to go visit Peggotty, and along the way he runs into
Steerforth, who takes him to his home. There, David meets his mother, Mrs. Steerforth, and Miss
6. Dartle, Steerforth's cousin (who was scarred on the lip by Steerforth when they were younger).
David and Steerforth go to Yarmouth and spend some time there, arriving just in time to hear the
announcement of Little Em'ly's and Ham's engagement, which Steerforth is not entirely happy
about.
After conferring with his aunt, David decides to pursue the career of a proctor. He moves
into Doctors' Commons in London and works at the offices of Spenlow and Jorkins. He even
gets his own apartment with a landlady named Mrs. Crupp. He encounters old friends of his,
including Tommy Traddles from Salem House, who is studying to be a lawyer and is working to
save money for his wedding to his fiancee, and Mr. Micawber. Soon, however, Mr. Micawber is
forced to leave once again due to financial issues. David meets Mr. Spenlow's daughter, Dora, a
very beautiful but childish girl with whom he falls completely in love.
David returns to Yarmouth when he hears that Mr. Barkis is about to die, and he remains
there to settle Peggotty's affairs for some time afterwards. During this time, Little Em'ly runs
away with Steerforth, and Mr. Peggotty begins his quest to find her and to bring her back home
to her family. Meanwhile, Miss Betsey shows up at David's door, having lost her fortune due to
Uriah Heep's scheming. He has weaseled his way into a partnership with Mr. Wickfield.
Although David is poor, he is determined to work hard so that his marriage with Dora can work
out. However, Mr. Spenlow soon finds out about the affair and forbids it, only to die in a carriage
accident later that day, leaving Dora distraught and unwilling to see David. Eventually, though,
the two marry and lead a happy life, although Dora is very bad at keeping house and is very
childlike in many ways. Her premature death is a serious blow to David, and it is mainly Agnes'
support that keeps him afloat.
Dr. Strong and Annie go through some difficult times when Uriah hints that Annie may
be having an affair with her cousin, Jack Maldon. However, Mr. Dick reconciles the two, and
they go back to being very affectionate. This episode only deepens the disliking of Uriah, and
soon he is exposed as a fraud and taken down by Mr. Micawber (who was working for him) and
Traddles.
Meanwhile, Mr. Peggotty and David hear from Littimer, Steerforth's servant, that Little
Em'ly has run away from Steerforth. They ask her friend Martha for help finding her, and Martha
eventually finds Little Em'ly and leads Mr. Peggotty to her. He decides to move to Australia,
where Little Em'ly can start a new life, as does the Micawber family. Steerforth dies in a storm
just outside of Yarmouth, and Ham dies trying to rescue him.
David moves away to recover from all that he has been through. During this time, he
discovers that he truly loves Agnes. Not long after he returns to London, the two get married and
live happily with three children as well as Miss Betsey, Peggotty, and Mr. Dick.
