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Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens’s full name is Charles John Huffham Dickens. He was born on the 7th February 1812, in Landport, a suburb of Portsmouth, Hampshire. He was the second of seven children. His father John Dickens was a pay clerk at the nearby naval dockyard and his mother was Elizabeth Dickens nee Barrow. Soon after Charles’ birth the family moved to London and then to Chatham in Kent where he went for a while to a local school. In 1822 the family moved back to London, but his father was unable to provide properly for his growing family and, having sold all the household goods, was committed to the debtor’s prison, the Marshalsea. Charles worked from the age of 12 at a Camden Town blacking factory. He received six shillings a week. His father eventually came into a small inheritance and was released from the prison and Charles returned to school, this time to a private one, ‘The Wellington House Academy’. He was not a very capable student and left aged 15 to begin work as an office boy in a form of solicitors. His ambition at this time was to become a reporter and so he taught himself shorthand. A year later he found employment as a court reporter. Later he was employed by ‘The Mirror of Parliament’, a paper that specialised in reporting the work of parliament. Though he found many faults, the young Dickens was impressed by those who sought to make the world a better place. He became interested in the subject of social reform and began to contribute articles to a reforming newspaper, ‘The True Sun’ which at that time had a circulation of 30,000 a day, though this rose greatly over time. In 1830 he met Maria Beadnell, his first love. Their relationship ended three years later as her father felt he was too young and had no prospects. In 1834 he met his future wife, Catherine Hogarth. They married two years later and had 10 children despite the fact that they did not always agree. Catherine suffered a nervous breakdown in 1851. Their early years were happy, but he blamed Catherine for having so many children and did not seem to understand her resulting lack of energy. In 1833 Charles had his first story published in the ‘Monthly Magazine’. Stories in other papers soon followed, all under the name of Boz. These proved so popular that they were collected together and published as a book under the title ‘Sketches by Boz’. By 1839 he was the most popular writer in Britain, most of his early books being published in monthly instalments. In 1846 he began to publish his own newspaper with himself as editor. The aim of the paper was education and improvement. It was not a great success so in 1850 he began to publish ‘Household Words’ which also contained humour and stories. After only a year it was selling 40,000 copies each week. However in 1859 he quarrelled with the publisher and the magazine was closed. It was replaced by ‘All the Year Round’, a magazine still concerned with social reform, but also with good literary content. In 1853 Dickens gave the first of many public readings of his work. He found these exhausting and eventually the doctors told him they must cease. Charles died suddenly on June 9th 1870 at Gadshill, near Rochester. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Dickens wasn’t just a good writer. He was able to use his skills to make people aware of problems in society and to seek to improve the situation. His works are still popular today. NOW TAKE THE QUIZ
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