Dickens: An approach to his work

1. An approach to his work
Complementos para la formación
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Ester Gutiérrez San Pedro

2. The Writer…
Charles Dickens, oil painting, William Powell
Frith, 1859.
Victoria & Albert Museum
English writer
S. XIX (Portsmouth, 1812 – Gads Hill Place,
1870)
His childhood was marked by economic
hardship but full of imagination
He started to work when he was fifteen as a
solicitor’s clerk)
In November 1828 he left this job for starting
his career of journalist
If there were no bad people, there would be no
good lawyers (Dickens)

3. A young Journalist
From Solicitor’s clerk to Journalist
Mirror of Parliament
Doctor’s Commons, Reportero (1828)
True Sun, Cronista parlamentario (1832)
Morning Chronicle, Periodista político (1834)
…
He wrote under the pseudonym Boz
In 1836 the first volume of Sketches by Boz was
published.
A man never knows what he is capable until he tries (Dickens)

4. A Journalist
In the Morning Chronicle (Five Guineas per week)
September 1934, “Street Sketches”
The first volume of Sketches by Boz (1836) , published by
John Macrone and illustrated by George Cruikshank (a
renowned comic artist)
Previously publishes between 1833 and 1836:
•The Morning Chronicle
•The Evening Chronicle
•The Monthly Magazine
•The Carlton Chronicle
•Bell's Life in London
The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish'
and start saying 'I will‘ (Dickens)

5. Pickwick Papers, (1836 – 1837)
Original cover of Pickwick Papers, 1836.
Edward Chapman and William Hall offered him
to comment a engraving by Robert Seymour about
the misfortune of a group of hunters , the wage
was 14 £ per month.
He started 31 of March of 1836 (He got married
the 2 of April and Seymour committed suicide 20
of April). Seymour was replaced by the young Phiz
(Hablot Knight Browne).
In 1937 the hilarious adventures of Samuel
Piclwick, his servant Sam Weller and his friends,
became a mass phenomenon and its monthly
installements were followed for more than 40.000
readers.
Popularity is here.
The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there
still (Dickens, Pickwick Papers)

6. Oliver Twist (1837 – 1839)
Original cover, design by George Cruikshank,
of The Adventures of Oliver Twist" , 1846.
… or The Parish Boy’s Progress
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
in Bentley’s Miscellany (1837 – 1838).
During the first ten deliveries the work
coincides with the end of the publication of
Pickwick Papers.
The novel , with the idea of satirizing the new
poor law of 1834, became a critic towards the
social hypocrisy and the first novel in having
a child as a main character (a orphan).
There are books of which the backs and covers
are by far the best parts (Dickens, Oliver Twist)

7. Nicholas Nickleby (1838 – 1839)
Full Title: The Life and Adventures of
Nicholas Nickleby
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
(1838 – 1839).
Dickens started to write Nickleby while he is
writing Olver Twist. A drama in which, after
the death of his father, Nicholas has to support
his mother and sisters, under the eyes of his
uncle Ralph, who hates him.
Dickens used as scenarios, his native town,
Porstmoust
There are people enough in the world, Heaven knows!
and even in London (Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby)

8. Old Curiosity Shop (1840 – 1841)
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
Master Humphrey's Clock (1843 – 1844).
Sentimental genre, tells the story of an
orphan(Nell Trent) and her grandfather,
owner of an antique shop.
Night is generally my time for walking
(Dickens, starting of Old Curiosity Shop)

9. Barbany Rudge (1841)
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
Master Humphrey's Clock (1843 – 1844).
It is an historical novel set during the Gordon
Riots (A Tale of the Riots of Eighty),los
disturbios anticatólicos acaecidos en 1780.
The main character is an insane young and
through his eyes we will see what is
happening in London.
Edward Allan Poe wrote about the novel and
got inspiration for his famous poem The
raven.
The Maypole was an old building, with more gable
ends than a lazy man would care to count on a
sunny day (Dickens, Barbany Rudge)
Cover of Master Humprey’s Clock, 1841.

10. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843 – 1844)
Cover of Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843.
Full Title: The Life and Adventures of Martin
Chuzzlewit
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
(1843 – 1844).
It is a satirical novel, portraying the life of the
Chuzzlewit family and their selfishness.
“…Early sales of the monthly parts were
disappointing, compared to previous works, so
Dickens changed the plot to send the title
character to America”.
The first rule of business is: Do other men for
they would do you (Dickens)

11. A Christmas Carol (1843)
Original cover A Christmas Carol, 1843
Subtitle: A Ghost Story Of Christmas…
Publishing by Chapman & Hall
19Th December 1843…
… and signed with his real name
What to say about Ebenezer Scrooge!
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it (Dickens)

12. Dombey and Son (1846 – 1848)
Cover of Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843.
Full title: Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and
Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation.
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
(1856 – 1848).
Another critic novel, about Paul Dombey´s
family, Paul Dombey wants to have a son to
continue his business.
Well!" observed R. Wilfer, cheerfully, "money
and goods are certainly the best of references
(Dickens, Our Mutual Friends)

13. David Copperfield (1849)
Cover of first edition, 1849
Full title: The Personal History, Adventures,
Experience and Observation of David
Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone
Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish
on Any Account).
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
(1849).
Characteristics: With many autobiographical
elements and told in first person
Subject: Discipline and pulses
“Like many fond parents, I have in my heart
of hearts a favourite child. And his name is
David Copperfield (Dickens, Preface 1867
edition).

14. Bleak House (1852 – 1853)
Cover of first edition, 1852
If there were no bad people, there would be no
good lawyers (Dickens)
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
(1852 - 1853).
Characteristics: Told, part in first person
(Esther Summerson) and part by a
omniscient narrator
Subject: Jarndyce versus Jarndyce, a very long
– running litigation
At the core of this novel, we find a hard critic
to the British judicial system. The novel is
based in his own experiences as a solicitor’s
clerk.

15. Hard Times (1854)
Househol Words , 1st April 1854 edition. Hard
times has neither a preface nor illustrations.
"Some persons hold," he pursued, still hesitating,
"that there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there
is a wisdom of the Heart. . . .(Dickens, Hard Times)
Full title: Hard Times – For These Times
Original Publishing: Weekly installments in
Household Words, conducted by Dickens himself,
between 1 April and 12 August 1854.
Characteristics: The story takes place in an
ficticional city in the north of England, Coketown
(Preston?). It is his only novel in which we cannot
find London.
Subject: Social critic, clash between working class
and bourgeoisie.

16. Little Dorrit (1855 – 1857)
Original cover, 1856
Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand
with all the public departments in the art of perceiving—HOW NOT TO DO
IT (Dickens, Little Dorrit)
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
(1855 - 1857).
Characteristics: With many autobiographical
elements and told in first person
In this novel Dickens focuses his ire upon the
instituitons of debtors´prisons: His father
had been in one of them.
Prisons are a recurrent topic in his
work.(Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities,
Barnaby Rudge, Great Expectations…

17. A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Original cover, 1859
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it
was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair… (Dickens, starting of A Tale of two
Cities).
Original Publishing: Weekly installments in
All the Year Round (1859).
Historical novel, set in two cities, London &
Paris, before and durig the French Revolution
A comparison: Peace and order (London)
against chaos and revolution (Paris).

18. Great Expectations (1860 – 1861)
A handwritten manuscript by Charles Dickens of Great
Expectations, Museum of London
So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began to contract
a quantity of debt (Dickens)
Original Publishing: Weekly
installments in All the Year Round
(1860 - 1861).
Characteristics: An orphan(Pip) and
afugitive, poverty, children abuse,
based on his own experiences.
Settle in the countryside(Kent) and
in London.

19. Our Mutual Friends (1864 – 1865)
Original cover, 1864
“Money, money, money, and what money can
make of life“ (Dickens, Bella in Our Mutual
Friends)
Original Publishing: Monthly installments
(1864 - 1865).
Characteristics: With many autobiographical
elements and told in first person
Subject: Money, money, money… and human
values.
A will, the heir has to married to a
woman(Bella Wilfer) whom he does not
know, but he died before arriving to London
and the fortune passes to an illiterate laborer
This is the last novel finished by Dickens…

20. Edwin Drood (1870)
Original cover of last number,
6Th September 1870
Stranger, pause and ask thyself the question,
canst thou do likewise? If not, with a blush
retire (Dickens, Edwin Drood)
Full title: The Mistery of Edwin Drood
Original Publishing: Monthly installmets…
but only six were published.
Characteristics: detective story… in a
fictitious city ¿Rocherster, Kent?)
orphans, a killer…
… Dickens’ death prevent to know the end.
Even nowadays is a matter of debate. Who
was the killer?

21. Travel books
The two pound sterling coin with the image of
Charles Dickens (reverse), made up from
some of the titles of his most famous novels,
which has been created to celebrate the 200th
anniversary of his birth on 7 February 1812.
Charles Dickens: The First Great Travel Writer?
http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-books/charles-dickens-the-first-great-
travel-writer-20100330/
•American Notes for General Circulation (1842)
•Pictures from Italy
•Dickens's Dictionary of the Thames
•A Journey Through Italy: In the Company of
Dickens, Hazlitt, Twain, and Other Travellers
•Dickens' Dictionary of London 1888
•Early Travellers in North America - Eyewitness
Reports from the first Visitors to the New World
•Dickens' Journalism: Uncommercial Traveller
v.4 (Vol 4)

22. … and Poems
Popular poems…
•A Child's Hymn
•Lucy's Song
•The Song Of The Wreck
•The Ivy Green
•Gabriel's Grub Song
•A fine Old English Gentleman
•Little Nell's Funeral
•George Edmunds' Song
•The Hymn Of The Wiltshire Laborers
•Squire Norton's Song

23. … and A Child’s History of England
Publishing from 1851 to 1853 in
Household Words…
If you look at a Map of the World, you will
see, in the left-hand upper corner of the
Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the
sea. They are England and Scotland, and
Ireland. England and Scotland form the
greater part of these Islands. Ireland is the
next in size. The little neighbouring islands,
which are so small upon the Map as to be
mere dots, are chiefly little bits of Scotland,
— broken off, I dare say, in the course of a
great length of time, by the power of the
restless water.

24. Resumen: Work, homes and familiy
Fuente: http://charlesdickenspage.com/timeline.html

25. Sources
Jordan, J. O. The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens (Cambridge Companions to
Literature). Cambridge University Press. 2001
Slater, M. Dickens, Charles John Huffam (181 – 1870). Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford Universty Press. 2014 – 2015
https://www.gutenberg.org/
http://dickens.stanford.edu/index.html
Charlesdicknespage.com
Charlesdickensinfo.com
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/10586114/Charles-Dickens-best-
characters-in-pictures.html (7 February 2015)
http://es.slideshare.net/aumatell/power-point-charles-dickens
http://literature.pppst.com/DEF/charles-dickens.html