Charles John Huffam Dickens(eng. Charles John Huffam Dickens [ˈtʃɑrlz ˈdɪkɪnz]; 7 February 1812, Portsmouth, England - 9 June 1870, Higham (English) Russian, England) - English writer, novelist and essayist. The most popular English-language writer during his lifetime. A classic of world literature, one of the greatest prose writers of the 19th century. Dickens's work is considered to be the pinnacle of realism, but his novels reflected both sentimental and fairy-tale beginnings. Dickens's most famous novels: "", "Oliver Twist", "Nicholas Nickleby", "David Copperfield", "Bleak House", "A Tale of Two Cities", "Great Expectations", "Our Mutual Friend", "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" "

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Biography

Literary activity

Dickens found himself primarily as a reporter. As soon as Dickens completed - on trial - several reporting assignments, he was immediately noticed by the reading public.

"David Copperfield"

This novel is largely autobiographical. Its theme is serious and carefully thought out. The spirit of praising the old foundations of morality and family, the spirit of protest against the new capitalist England resounds loudly here too. Many connoisseurs of Dickens's work, including such literary authorities as: L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoevsky, Charlotte Brontë, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, considered this novel his greatest work.

Personal life

Dickens was of average height. His natural liveliness and unpretentious appearance were the reason that he gave those around him the impression of a man of short stature or, in any case, of a very miniature build. In his youth, he had a cap of brown hair that was too extravagant, even for that era, and later he wore a dark mustache and a thick, fluffy, dark goatee of such an original shape that it made him look like a foreigner.

The former transparent pallor of his face, the sparkle and expressiveness of his eyes remained; “I’ll also note the actor’s moving mouth and his extravagant manner of dressing.” Chesterton writes about this:

He wore a velvet jacket and some incredible vests, their color reminiscent of completely implausible sunsets, white hats unprecedented at that time, completely unusual, eye-catching whiteness. He willingly dressed up in stunning robes; they even say that he posed for a portrait in such attire.

Behind this appearance, in which there was so much posing and nervousness, lay a great tragedy.

The needs of Dickens' family members exceeded his income. His disorderly, purely bohemian nature did not allow him to bring any kind of order into his affairs. Not only did he overwork his rich and fertile brain by over-working his creative mind, but, being an extraordinarily brilliant reader, he endeavored to earn handsome fees by lecturing and reading excerpts from his novels. The impression from this purely acting reading was always colossal. Apparently, Dickens was one of the greatest reading virtuosos. But on his trips he fell into the hands of some dubious entrepreneurs and, while earning money, at the same time brought himself to exhaustion.

On 2 April 1836, Charles married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (19 May 1815 – 22 November 1879), eldest daughter his friend, journalist George Hogarth. Katherine was faithful wife and bore him 10 children: 7 sons - Charles Culliford Bose Dickens Jr. (January 6, 1837 - July 20, 1896), Walter Savage Landor (February 8, 1841 - December 31, 1863), Francis Jeffrey (January 15, 1844 - June 11, 1886), Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson (28 October 1845 - 2 January 1912), Sidney Smith Galdimand (18 April 1847 - 2 May 1872), Henry Fielding (16 January 1849 - 21 December 1933) and Edward Bulwer-Lytton (13 March 1852 - 23 January 1902), - three daughters - Mary (March 6, 1838 - July 23, 1896), Catherine Elizabeth Macready (October 29, 1839 - May 9, 1929) and Dora Annie (August 16, 1850 - April 14, 1851).But Dickens's family life did not work out quite successfully. Disagreements with his wife, some complex and dark relationships with her family, fear for sick children made the family a source of constant worries and torment for Dickens. In 1857, Charles met 18-year-old actress Ellen Ternan and immediately fell in love. Filmed for her apartment, long years visited my love. Their romance lasted until the writer's death. She never went on stage again. The feature film “The Invisible Woman” (UK, 2013, directed by Ralph Fiennes) is dedicated to this close relationship.

But all this is not as important as the melancholy thought that overwhelmed Dickens that, in essence, what is most serious in his works - his teachings, his appeals to the conscience of those in power - remains in vain, that, in reality, there is no hope for improving that the terrible situation created in the country, from which he saw no way out, even looking at life through humorous glasses that softened the sharp contours of reality in the eyes of the author and his readers. He writes at this time:

Personal oddities

Dickens often spontaneously fell into a trance, was subject to visions and from time to time experienced states of déjà vu. When this happened, the writer nervously fiddled with the hat in his hands, which is why the headdress quickly lost its presentable appearance and became unusable. For this reason, Dickens eventually stopped wearing hats [ ] .

George Henry Lewis, editor-in-chief of the Fortnightly Review magazine (and close friend writer George Eliot). Dickens once told him that every word, before going on paper, is first clearly heard by him, and his characters are constantly nearby and communicate with him.

While working on “The Antiquities Shop,” the writer could not eat or sleep peacefully: little Nell was constantly hovering under his feet, demanding attention, crying out for sympathy and being jealous when the author was distracted from her by talking with someone from outside.

While working on the novel Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens was tired of Mrs. Gump with her jokes: he had to fight her off with force. “Dickens warned Mrs. Gump more than once: if she did not learn to behave decently and did not appear only when called, he would not give her another line at all!” - Lewis wrote. That is why the writer loved to wander through crowded streets. “During the day you can somehow manage without people,” Dickens admitted in one of his letters, “but in the evening I simply cannot free myself from my ghosts until I get lost in the crowd.”

“Perhaps only the creative nature of these hallucinatory adventures keeps us from mentioning schizophrenia as a probable diagnosis,” notes parapsychologist Nandor Fodor, author of the essay “The Unknown Dickens” (1964, New York).

Later works

Dickens' social novel Hard Times (1854) is also permeated with melancholy and hopelessness. This novel was a tangible literary and artistic blow dealt to capitalism XIX century with its idea of ​​unstoppable industrial progress. In his own way, the grandiose and terrible figure of Bounderby is written with genuine hatred. But Dickens in the novel does not spare the leader of the strike movement - the Chartist Slackbridge, who is ready to make any sacrifice to achieve his goals. In this work, the author for the first time questioned - undeniable in the past for him - the value of personal success in society.

The end of Dickens's literary activity was marked by a number of other significant works. For the novel "Little Dorrit" ( Little Dorrit,-) followed by Dickens's historical novel A Tale of Two Cities ( A Tale of Two Cities,), dedicated to the French revolution. Recognizing the necessity of revolutionary violence, Dickens turns away from it as if it were madness. This was quite in the spirit of his worldview, and, nevertheless, he managed to create an immortal book in his own way.

“Great Expectations” dates back to the same time ( Great Expectations) () - a novel with autobiographical features. His hero - Pip - rushes between the desire to preserve the petty bourgeois comfort, to remain faithful to his middle peasant position and the upward desire for splendor, luxury and wealth. Dickens put a lot of his own tossing, his own melancholy into this novel. According to the original plan, the novel was supposed to end in tears for the main character, although Dickens always avoided catastrophic endings in his works and, out of his own good nature, tried not to upset particularly impressionable readers. For the same reasons, he did not dare to lead the hero’s “great hopes” to their complete collapse. But the whole concept of the novel suggests the regularity of such an outcome.

Dickens reaches new artistic heights in his swan song- in a large multi-faceted canvas, the novel “Our Mutual Friend”. In this work, Dickens's desire to take a break from intense social topics is discernible. Fascinatingly conceived, filled with the most unexpected types, all sparkling with wit - from irony to touching, gentle humor - this novel, according to the author's plan, was probably supposed to turn out to be light, sweet, and funny. His tragic characters are drawn as if in halftones and are largely present in the background, and the negative characters turn out to be either ordinary people who have put on a villainous mask, or such petty and funny personalities that we are ready to forgive them for their treachery; and sometimes such unhappy people that they can arouse in us, instead of indignation, only a feeling of bitter pity. In this novel, Dickens is noticeably turning to a new style of writing: instead of ironic verbosity, parodying the literary style of the Victorian era, there is a laconic style reminiscent of cursive writing. The novel introduces the idea of ​​the poisonous effect of money - a garbage heap becomes its symbol - on public relations and the meaninglessness of the vain aspirations of members of society.

In this last completed work, Dickens demonstrated all the powers of his humor, shielding the wonderful, cheerful, pretty images of this idyll from the gloomy thoughts that took possession of him.

Apparently, gloomy thoughts were supposed to find a way out again in Dickens’s detective novel “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood).

From the very beginning of the novel, a change in Dickens's creative style is visible - his desire to amaze the reader with a fascinating plot, to immerse him in an atmosphere of mystery and uncertainty. Whether he would have succeeded in this fully remains unclear, since the work remained unfinished.

Major works

Novels

• The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, published monthly, April 1836 - November 1837
• The Adventures of Oliver Twist, February 1837 - April 1839
• Nicholas Nickleby (The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby), April 1838 - October 1839
• The Old Curiosity Shop, weekly issues, April 1840 - February 1841
• Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of "Eighty", February-November 1841
• The Christmas stories:
  • 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
• Martin Chuzzlewit (The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit), January 1843 - July 1844
• Trading house of Dombey and Son, wholesale, retail and export trade (Dombey and Son), October 1846 - April 1848
• David Copperfield, May 1849 - November 1850
• Bleak House, March 1852 - September 1853
• Hard Times: For These Times, April-August 1854
• Little Dorrit, December 1855 - June 1857
• A Tale of Two Cities, April-November 1859
• Great Expectations, December 1860 - August 1861
• Our Mutual Friend, May 1864 - November 1865
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood, April 1870 - September 1870. Only 6 of 12 issues published, novel not completed.

Collections of stories

• Sketches by Boz, 1836
• The Mudfog Papers, 1837
• "The traveler is not trade affairs"(The Uncommercial Traveller), 1860-1869

Bibliography of Dickens editions

• Charles Dickens. Dombey and son. - Moscow: “State Publishing House”, 1929.
• Charles Dickens. Collected works in 30 volumes.. - Moscow.: “Fiction”., 1957-60.
• Charles Dickens. Collected works in ten volumes.. - Moscow.: “Fiction”., 1982-87.
• Charles Dickens. Collected works in 20 volumes.. - Moscow.: “Terra-Book Club”, 2000.
• Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.. - "Ensign", 1986
• Charles Dickens. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. - Moscow: “Kostik”, 1994 - 286 p. - ISBN 5-7234-0013-4.
• Charles Dickens. Bleak House.. - "Wordsworth Editions Limited", 2001. - ISBN 978-1-85326-082-7.
• Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.. - Penguin Books Ltd., 1994.

Film adaptations

• Scrooge or Marley's Ghost, directed by Walter Boof. USA, Great Britain, 1901
• The Cricket Behind the Hearth, directed by David Wark Griffith. USA, 1909

Charles Dickens biography is summarized in this article.

Charles Dickens short biography

Charles John Huffam Dickens - English writer, novelist and essayist.

February 7, 1812- was born in Landport near Portsmouth in the family of an employee of the financial department of the maritime department.

From 1817 to 1823, the Dickens family lived in the town of Chatham, where Charles began attending school. He later called these years the happiest of his life. The end of his serene childhood was brought about by financial troubles, because of which his father was sent to debtor’s prison, and 11-year-old Charles was forced to work for several months in a factory that produced wax.

1824–1826 years of study at the Wellington House Academy private school.

1827 - entered the position of junior clerk in a law office.

In 1828 he got a job as a free reporter in the court chamber, and in 1832 as a parliamentary correspondent.

In 1833, the writer published his first essay in a monthly magazine, “Lunch at Poplar Wok,” signed under the pseudonym “Bose.”

1836 - published the first sections of the novel “Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club”, which had great success among readers. That same year, Dickens married the lawyer and journalist J. Hogarth's daughter Kate; they had 10 children, but separated in 1868.

1837–1841 - the famous novels of Charles Dickens are published: “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” (1839), “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” (1839), “The Antiquities Shop” (1840), etc.

In 1842, the writer traveled to the USA, during which he experienced deep disappointment in American democracy and the American way of life. These impressions were reflected in the novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1844). Then the cycle “Christmas Tales” (1848), the novels “Dombey and Son” (1848), “The Life of David Copperfield, Told by Himself” (1850) appeared.

In the 1850s - the novels “Bleak House” (1853), “Hard Times” (1854) and “Little Dorrit” (1857) were written. For some time, Dickens worked as editor of the magazine Home Reading, in which he published his own works. After a conflict with publishers, he founded a similar magazine, “Round the Year.”

Brief biography of Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens is a 19th-century English writer, an outstanding novelist and one of the greatest prose writers. The most famous works: “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, “A Christmas Stories”, “Great Expectations”. Most of his works were written in the spirit of realism, but had both a sentimental and fairy-tale beginning. The writer was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth in the family of a wealthy but frivolous official. His father adored children and spoiled them in every possible way, especially the imaginative Charlie. However, he soon incurred large debts, and the family was ruined. For the pampered and spoiled boy, this was a heavy blow. Charles had to work in a factory where wax was produced.

Later, he did not like to remember this period, but he remembered for the rest of his life what exploitation of child labor was. Subsequently, he put his childhood memories into the plot of some of his works. In particular, the main character of the novel The Life of David Copperfield as Told by Himself (1850) is a boy working as a bottle washer in a factory where he was sent by his evil stepfather. In Little Dorrit (1857), he described the debtor's prison in which his father was imprisoned. Dickens quickly realized that literature was his calling. Immediately after several reporter's essays, the public noticed him.

The first serious work, “Sketches of Bose” (1836), told about the life of the bankrupt petty bourgeoisie, which was quite consistent social status the author himself. However, real success awaited him with the publication of the book “Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club” (1836-37). This novel told about the good traditions of “old” England, about its inhabitants and the noble eccentric Mr. Pickwick. A couple of years later, two more successful novels appeared about Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. These works were educational in nature. The cult of comfort and beautiful traditions at Christmas were described by the author in “Christmas Tales” in the 1840s. During the same period, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Daily News newspaper.

Dickens's fame grew before our eyes. He gave public readings not only in England, but also in the USA. The public everywhere greeted him with enthusiasm. During his life, the writer reached the apogee of fame. He was able to become a famous writer and an outstanding personality. He was admired and considered a creative mentor by many other prominent writers. Thus, F. M. Dostoevsky said that Dickens is an unsurpassed master of the art of depicting reality. After the success of Little Dorrit, the writer began writing the historical novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859). The partially autobiographical novel Great Expectations (1961) dates back to approximately the same period. The writer’s gloomy thoughts found a way out in the detective novel “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” This was his last and unfinished novel. The writer died on June 9, 1870 at his estate due to a stroke.

Name: Charles Dickens

Age:: 58 years old

Place of Birth: Portsmouth, England

A place of death: Higham, Kent, UK

Activity: English writer, novelist

Family status: was married

Charles Dickens - biography

Charles Dickens composed the most tender and touching love stories in English XIX literature century. He, like no one else, knew how to describe home comfort and glorified family values. But all this remained only on paper - fantasies that decorated the lives of readers. Dickens was the most popular writer of his era, but he never became happy man, having spent his whole life searching for an ideal, as evidenced by the biography of his life.

On February 7, 1812, John Dickens, a modest employee of the Admiralty and a great lover of all kinds of entertainment, persuaded his kind-hearted and meek wife Elizabeth to go to the ball, even though she was pregnant. They even danced a little, and then Elizabeth went into labor and a frail baby was born, who was christened Charles.

He was born in Portsmouth, but the family soon moved from there to Portsea, and then to London. Charles remembered his biography from an early age, from the age of two. He remembered a time when their family lived well, and there were only two children in the house: his older sister Fanny and himself. But for some reason my mother kept giving birth to new babies. Two of them died, but four survived, and in total there were eight children, and they began to live poorer. Charles, who had no idea how children were made, blamed his mother for everything.

Charles Dickens - childhood, studies

And this childish feeling of anger against women who give birth and give birth to children for some reason, and cannot stop, remained with him throughout his life. His mother taught him to read and write, but he loved his father, with whom it was always fun and who became the first grateful spectator of Charles’s performances: the boy really enjoyed singing and reading poetry in front of the public. Charles was growing up and, it would seem, could understand that his mother was exhausted, saving on everything, trying to provide a tolerable existence for the family, and his father thoughtlessly incurring debts and spending money on his own entertainment. But the mother was constantly worried and tired.

And she didn't have time to talk to her son. But my father had it. That's why Charles was always on his side. Even when my father went to debtor's prison. Even when the entire Dickens family moved to the same prison, because it was the only place where they were not pestered by creditors. Even when the most precious thing to him was sold for debts: his books. Even when he had to go to work in a factory, where he spent whole days packing wax into jars. All the same, Charles considered his cheerful and kind father to be the best of people. And the mother was to blame for the fact that in her presence the degree of fun in the father decreased.

The older sister, Fanny, studied at a music school. Charles could only dream of teaching. After Fanny was presented with an award for her success in his presence, he cried all night and in the morning he took cold compresses for a long time so as not to show up at the factory with traces of tears on his face. “No one suspected that I suffered, secretly and bitterly,” Dickens admitted in a letter much later.

Charles's adolescence was joyless until his father received a small inheritance, and in 1824 he was retired, and his brother was able to pay off his debts and rescue the family from debtor's prison. Only then was Charles able to enroll in a private school. Charles studied excellently in all subjects, including dancing, but most of all he excelled in English literature. Became one of the first students. Together with a friend I started producing school newspaper on pieces of paper torn from a notebook.

Then he tried himself as a playwright: he wrote and staged small moralizing plays at school. In the spring of 1827, Charles Dickens graduated from school. His parents got him a job as a clerk in the Ellis and Blackmore office, where he was mercilessly bored. The only consolation was new novels and theatrical productions, which he watched from the gallery, because he had very little free money: he had to give almost everything he earned to his mother.

Unhappy Elizabeth Dickens was afraid that Charles would grow up to be the same scoundrel and spendthrift as his father, and tried to instill in him a sense of duty and modesty. And Charles dreamed of an interesting job. For example, in a real newspaper. To do this, he tried to master shorthand: on his own, using a textbook, with great difficulty.

Charles Dickens - first love

But all plans were crushed by first love. Her name was Maria Beadnell, she was the daughter of a banker, and she met Charles at a musical evening hosted by Fanny Dickens. Maria was a desperate flirt and enjoyed playing with Charles to fall in love, knowing full well that this poor young man could never become her husband. But Charles fell in love seriously and was ready to make any sacrifice just to unite with Maria. “For three or four years she completely dominated all my thoughts.

Countless times I had an Imaginary Conversation with her mother about our marriage. “I wrote so many matrimonial messages to this prudent lady... I didn’t even think about sending them, but coming up with them and tearing them up a few days later was a divine activity,” Dickens recalled. - Imagination, fantasy, passion, energy, will to win, fortitude - everything that I am rich in - for me is inextricably and forever connected with the hard-hearted little woman, for whom I was ready a thousand times - and with the greatest joy - to give my life "

In the end, Mary got tired of Charles and she rejected him. Later, it was her that Dickens blamed for the fact that his character changed in the most decisive way: “My selfless affection for you, the tenderness that I wasted in vain in those difficult years, which are both terrible and sweet to remember, left a deep imprint on my soul, taught me to restraint, which is not at all characteristic of my nature and makes me skimp on affection even towards my own children, with the exception of the smallest ones.” However, Charles Dickens always blamed someone for his shortcomings or failures. And, as a rule, he blamed women. First - mother, then - Maria, then - wife...

Charles collaborated with The Morning Chronicle and often traveled to the provinces, collecting material for essays on the morals of society. He used these materials for his first literary work, “Sketches of Boz.” He wrote stories about provincials and signed himself as Boz.

The reading public liked the essays. The talented author was lured to another publication: The Evening Chronicle.

Charles Dickens and Catherine

Charles became friends with his new publisher, George Hogarth. The young man liked the Hogarth family so much that he decided to become one of its members and for this purpose he wooed the eldest of the daughters, Katherine, although he didn’t even really like her. Quiet, easy-going, good-natured Catherine was similar to his mother, which was already a flaw in Dickens’s eyes. But it was also important for him to take revenge from the female sex, and Charles played the lover so brilliantly that Catherine gave him reciprocity, which on her part was quite sincere. On April 2, 1836 they got married.

To earn money for the wedding and rent a house for his wife, Charles agreed to write text for a series of comic drawings about the adventures of members of a hunting club from the province who go on trips and find themselves in all sorts of ridiculous situations. They paid for volume, and Charles gave free rein to his imagination. This is how The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club appeared, and Charles Dickens became famous: overnight and forever. True, since the idea belonged to the publishers, he received nothing for reprints.

But Dickens concluded the contract for his next novel, The Adventures of Oliver Twist, much more wisely. On January 6, 1837, the first-born of the Dickens couple was born. The birth was difficult. Katherine was ill for a long time and could not take care of baby Charles on her own. Her younger sister, Mary, arrived to help her. When Charles saw her in last time, she was still a clumsy girl, and suddenly she blossomed so charmingly. Thin, gentle, with a spiritual gaze, Mary, at 16 years old, made a sharp contrast with Katherine, who had gained weight after pregnancy, was tired, and was concerned about the baby’s health and setting up her household.

Charles believed that an ideal unity of souls was established between him and Mary from the very first day. When he talked to her about literature, she listened with delight and was never distracted by something insignificant, like orders for dinner or the squeak of a baby. Since Catherine could not leave the baby for a long time, it was Mary who accompanied Dickens to all social events. Charles basked in the rays of glory and in the radiance of Mary's eyes, fixed on him with constant delight.

Sometimes he allowed himself to dream that his wife was not boring Catherine, who was also pregnant again, but this glowing, fragile girl... On May 6, 1837, Charles took Catherine and Mary to the theater. They had a wonderful evening, and Mary went up to her room “perfectly healthy and in her usual wonderful mood.” She began to undress and suddenly fell... They sent for a doctor, but he only assumed a congenital heart defect and could not help.

“Thank God she died in my arms,” Dickens wrote, “and the last thing she whispered was about me.”

His mother-in-law, Mrs. Hogarth, hearing of his death youngest daughter, fell ill. Catherine had to look after her mother, despite her own grief and the realization that her husband was in love with her sister: after all, Charles did not consider it necessary to hide his feelings now that Mary was gone. Katherine has a miscarriage. Charles was unusually callous about this. He was too unhappy to give attention to anyone other than himself - and the bright little ghost who from now on accompanied his entire life.

Charles could not keep his grief to himself and poured it out in letters: “She was the soul of our home. We should have known that we were all too happy together. I lost my best friend, the dear girl I loved more dearly than anyone else. Living being. Words cannot describe how much I miss her, and the devotion that I had for her... Her departure left a void, which there is not the slightest hope of filling.”

Charles did not part with a lock of her hair. He wore her ring on his little finger. He wrote to the deceased, hoping that her soul would visit the house and read his words: “I want you to understand how much I miss... the sweet smile and friendly words that we exchanged with each other during such sweet, cozy evenings by the fireplace, for me they are more valuable than any words of recognition that I can ever hear. I want to relive everything that we said and did in those days.”

When Mrs. Hogarth recovered, Charles wrote to her about the feelings he had for Mary: “Sometimes she appeared to me as a spirit, sometimes as a living creature, but never in these dreams was there a drop of that bitterness that fills my earthly life.” sadness: rather, it was some kind of quiet happiness, so important to me that I always went to bed with the hope of seeing her again in these images. She was constantly present in my thoughts (especially if I was successful in something). The thought of her has become an integral part of my life and is inseparable from it, like the beating of my heart.”

On January 1, 1838, Dickens wrote in his diary: “A sad New Year... If only she were with us now, in all her charm, joyful, friendly, understanding, like no one else, all my thoughts and feelings, a friend like whom I have I never have been and never will be. It seems that I would wish for nothing more, if only this happiness would always continue... Never again will I be as happy as in that apartment on the third floor - never, even if I am destined to bathe in gold and glory. If I could afford it, I would rent these rooms so that no one would live in them...”

“I solemnly declare that such a perfect creature has never seen the light of day. The innermost recesses of her soul were revealed to me, I was able to appreciate her at her true worth. There was not a single flaw in her,” Dickens insisted, reviving Mary in the image of little Nell. Catherine understood that Charles regretted that of the two sisters, death chose the younger one: it would have been easier for Dickens to lose his wife. But what could she do? Just do your duty. And she did what a Victorian wife should: she kept the house in order, gave birth and raised children.

The daughter born after Mary's death took her name. Following Mary, Kate, Walter, Francis, Alfred came into the world... Catherine was almost constantly pregnant, or recovering after childbirth, or sick after miscarriages. A couch was installed for her in the living room so that she could receive visitors reclining: it was difficult for her to sit, her back hurt. Charles continually sneered at his wife’s immoderate fertility. As if he had nothing to do with it, as if Sidney, Henry, Dora and Edward were conceived without his participation.

Even after birth fourth child Charles wrote to his brother: “I hope my mistress will not allow herself anything like this again.”

But Catherine, unfortunately for herself, was fertile and gave Dickens new reasons for complaints to relatives: “It looks like we will celebrate the New Year with the arrival of another child. Unlike the king in the fairy tale, I constantly pray to the Magi not to disturb myself anymore, since what I have is quite enough for me. But they are extremely generous to those who have earned their favor.”

In 1842, another of the Hogarth sisters, the youngest, tenth, moved into the house of the Dickens couple.

Her name was Georgina, she was fifteen years old, and she was sent to help Catherine, and at the same time learn housekeeping. Catherine feared that the story with Mary would repeat itself: Charles would fall in love with his young sister-in-law. But this did not happen. But Georgina fell in love with Charles so desperately that she decided to stay by his side forever. She never really got married. And in the end, Dickens appreciated her devotion, began to honor her with conversation, and called her his friend. Georgina was happy with this too.

In 1844, Charles Dickens performed in Liverpool at the opening of a school for workers and there he met the young pianist Christiane Weller. She looked phenomenally like the lost Mary. Dickens - no, not that he fell in love - but collapsed into the sweet illusion that Mary had miraculously returned from oblivion. He shared his feelings with his friend, T.J. Thompson:

“I can’t talk about Miss Weller in a joking tone: she’s too good. The interest that aroused in me in this creature - so young and, I'm afraid, condemned to early death, turned into a serious feeling. God, what a madman they would consider me if anyone could guess what an amazing feeling she inspired in me.”

Charles wrote to his sister Fanny: “I don’t know, but it seems that if it weren’t for the memories of Miss Weller (although there is a lot of torment in them), I would quietly and with great pleasure hang myself, so as not to live anymore in this vain, absurd , a crazy, unsettled and unlike anything else world.” To convince Thompson of the incredible similarity between Christiana and Mary, Dickens invited him and Christiana, accompanied by their father, to visit at the same time. It is not known what Thompson thought about the resemblance to the deceased, but he fell in love with Christiane at first sight, began to court her and eventually married.

They were very happily married, and Dickens felt his heart had been broken once again. If only it were possible to find freedom and start life again, with another woman. Charles considered his early marriage a mistake, and Katherine considered a down-to-earth person unworthy of being the companion of a genius. He was confident in his genius, for he created masterpiece after masterpiece: “The Antiquities Shop”, “Nicholas Nickleby”, “Barnaby Rudge”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Dombey and Son”, “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, “Bleak House” - All his books were greedily bought.

Dickens did not spare his wife's feelings, indignant at her plumpness, her stupidity, and especially the fact that she was constantly giving birth. Katherine fell into depression, and then a disgusting character and an eternally sour expression were added to the list of shortcomings. “There was nothing terrible about my mother,” her daughter Kate later said. “She, like all of us, had her faults, but she was a meek, sweet, kind person and a real lady.” At home, Dickens demanded order in everything, every chair and every trifle had its own place, and God forbid you move a chair or forget a book on the table.

It was forbidden to be late for lunch and dinner, but it was also not allowed to arrive early. They sat down at the table at the first stroke of the clock. Of course, it was unacceptable to make noise; both Katherine and Georgina watched over this, and the older daughters instructed the younger ones. And yet, throughout the Christmas holidays, during which children from schools and boarding schools came home, Dickens constantly complained to friends: “The whole house is filled with boys, and each boy (as usual) has an inexplicable and terrifying ability to find himself in all parts of the house at the same time, having on his feet no less than fourteen pairs of creaking shoes.”

By 1852, the Dickens couple had 10 children. In the books of Charles Dickens, the heroes received a happy family life and many, many children as a reward for their virtue, but the writer himself would prefer some other happiness. Which one, he himself didn’t really know. In 1850, the novel “David Copperfield,” 3 published, like all of Dickens’s works, in separate notebooks with a continuation, 2 was republished in book form. And Charles received a letter from Mrs. Henry Winter, who was once called Maria Beadnell.

She sent a copy of David Copperfield and asked the rejected admirer for his autograph. She recognized herself in the image of Dora Spenlow. Dickens wanted to meet her. Maria warned that she had become “toothless, fat, old and ugly.” He shrugged it off: the charming Maria simply could not grow old and look ugly. He was looking forward to a delightful affair and a revival of old feelings. However, the meeting horrified him. In Little Dorrit, Dickens described his experience: “He raised his head, looked at the object of his former love - and at the same moment everything that remained of this love trembled and crumbled to dust.”

Only the unforgettable Mary still did not disappoint Dickens, because she could not change. Charles dreamed of being buried in the same grave with her, and years later this dream did not leave him, he wrote: “I know (for I am sure that such love has not existed and will not exist) that this desire will never disappear.” True, he also knew that this would not be possible: the places in the immediate vicinity of Mary were occupied by her prematurely deceased brothers. When Dickens turned 45, he suffered a spiritual crisis. Life seemed meaningless and boring.

He started looking new source inspiration. And he found him on stage: he appeared as an actor in his friend Wilkie Collins’ play “The Frozen Abyss.” He played, of course, a noble hero. At first - in a home theater, for friends, and the female roles were played by the grown-up daughters and Georgina. He liked it and wrote to Collins with delight: “Becoming someone else - how much charm there is in this for me. From what? God knows. There are many reasons, and the most ridiculous ones.

Dickens's last love

This is such a pleasure for me that, having lost the opportunity to become someone completely different from me, I feel the loss...” Dickens decided to perform on the big stage. And he needed professional actresses. On the recommendation of the director of the Olympic Theater, he approached Mrs. Ternan and her daughters Maria and Ellen. During the first rehearsal, Charles realized that he could not look at Ellen Ternan without emotion. She was 18 years old, the same age as his daughter Kate. But next to her, Charles felt young, full of strength and energy, ready to love and be loved.

Dickens's last love was the most furious, almost insane. Ellen did not reciprocate his feelings, but he persistently courted her, as if he were not a married man. By the way, it was then, in 1857, that the English Parliament read the marriage law, according to which civil (but not church) divorce was allowed. Dickens dreamed of getting rid of Katherine, who had bored him, and, perhaps, of an alliance with young Ellen. True, divorce was granted on the condition that one of the spouses was caught adultery. Charles could not hope that Catherine would give him such a gift.

But he himself did not want to be guilty: he needed an impeccable reputation in the eyes of the public. In the end, Dickens resolved the issue with his wife, who irritated him, radically: he divided the house into two parts and forbade her to appear on his half. He even ordered the door between their rooms to be blocked with bricks. Charles continued to court Ellen Ternan and one day (either absent-mindedly or on purpose) ordered her a diamond bracelet as a gift, but dictated his home address. The decoration, along with the accompanying letter, fell into the hands of Catherine.

She accused Charles of treason, to which he responded with noble indignation: his relationship with Miss Ternan is absolutely innocent, and it is Catherine who is vicious if she can assume such a thing. She offended the young girl with her suspicions. Dickens demanded that his wife go to Ellen and apologize to her and her mother for the insult inflicted in absentia.

Kate Dickens recalled that she went into her mother's bedroom while she was getting dressed, crying. “Your father told me to go to Ellen Ternan,” she said. Kate claims that she even stamped her foot, demanding that her mother show pride and refuse this humiliation. But Mrs. Dickens still apologized to Miss Ternan. When Katherine's parents found out the whole story, they invited her to return to her father's house.

She agreed because she couldn't stand it anymore. That's all Charles needed. His wife left him on her own. Now all he had to do was justify himself in the eyes of society. Dickens published an “Address to Readers” in his magazine “Home Reading”: “For some time now my family life has been complicated by a number of difficult circumstances, about which it is only appropriate to note here that they are of a purely personal nature and therefore, I hope, have the right to for respect." >than, he described the breakup to his regular correspondents less correctly, blaming his wife for everything: “She is doomed to suffer, because she is surrounded by some kind of fatal cloud, in which everyone who is especially dear to her is suffocating.” He argued that she was worn out by everyone around her, her own mother, she rejected her and never loved her, so they treated her as a stranger.

Dickens expected unanimous support from society and was amazed when faced with condemnation of his actions. He didn't feel guilty about Catherine at all. His dislike for his wife intensified when, “through her fault,” he lost several old friends. Among those with whom Charles broke off relations was William Thackeray, who aloud pitied Mrs. Dickens: “Just think, after twenty-two years married life leave your home. Poor thing." Georgina fully supported Charles in the family conflict and remained in his house. She even stopped talking to her sister and parents because they "insulted Mr. Dickens."

Georgina hoped that now her time had come, because Charles had so loudly praised her, his friend and assistant, and called her a fairy hearth and home" But alas, in the drama being played out, she was given the role of embodied virtue, sacrificing herself for the sake of her loved ones. And in order to stay close to Charles, Georgina had to play this role.

The heroine was Ellen Ternan. She didn't like Dickens; he was physically unpleasant to her. Dickens was aware of this, suffered, but unhappy love gave him inspiration: Bella Wilfer in “Our Mutual Friend” and Estela in “Great Expectations” are two literary portraits of Ellen Ternan. Confessing his love for Estela, the writer used his letters to Ellen Ternan: “You are part of my existence, part of myself. I see you everywhere: in the river and on the sails of a ship, in the swamp and in the clouds, in the light of the sun and in the darkness of the night, in the wind, in the sea, on the street... Whether you like it or not, you will remain until the last moment of my life part of my being..."

Exquisite declarations of love left Ellen indifferent. But she appreciated the benefits that Dickens showered on her family, and the comfort with which he surrounded her in the house rented for her, and his generosity: Ellen realized that a love affair with famous writer could bring her a fortune.

Charles achieved his goal, but for some reason did not experience the expected happiness from victory. And when Ellen also became pregnant, I felt offended and deceived. Ellen gave birth to a boy, but even the name of this child was not preserved in history, his existence was so carefully hidden. The baby died before reaching the age of one year. And Charles gradually became disillusioned with Ellen: she turned out to be the same ordinary woman as Catherine, only beautiful and greedy. Dickens began to think about how he would appear in the eyes of his descendants. And I decided to slightly correct my biography.

For example, erase from it latest story love - as unsuccessful and insufficiently elevated. It seemed to him that this would not be difficult, because he never decided to cohabit with Ellen openly. Dickens lived in his own house. With faithful Georgina and children who were afraid to leave their father: he could deprive them of their inheritance for disobedience. In 1868, Charles left Ellen. But first, he took all his letters from her and burned them along with her notes, which he kept like a jewel during the years of love. And from then on he told everyone that he had nothing in common with Miss Ternan except friendship.

Nobody believed him, but Dickens knew how to turn a blind eye to reality. He provided for Ellen and, in his will, gave her as much as was necessary so that she would never have to work. Charles wrote several conciliatory letters to his wife. He didn't ask for forgiveness, but Catherine forgave him. She still loved him, and for the well-being of the children it was necessary that the parents at least not be at odds. True, he never wanted to meet Katherine. On June 8, 1870, during lunch, Dickens suddenly felt unwell. He got up from the table, wanting to go to his room, and suddenly fell.

Georgina sank down next to him and placed his head in her lap. The last thing Charles saw, already losing consciousness, was her face, and this was the consolation of the woman in love the next day, when Dickens died, and for the rest of his life: even if he loved others, even if he married someone else, but his last look belonged to her. .. Charles Dickens's last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, remained unfinished.

English literature

Charles Dickens

Biography

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in the town of Landport, near Portsmouth. His father was a fairly wealthy official, a very frivolous man, but cheerful and good-natured, who enjoyed with relish that coziness, that comfort that every wealthy family of old England treasured. Mr. Dickens surrounded his children, and in particular his pet Charlie, with care and affection. Little Dickens inherited from his father a rich imagination and ease of speech, apparently adding to this some seriousness in life inherited from his mother, on whose shoulders all the everyday worries of preserving the family’s well-being fell.

The boy’s rich abilities delighted his parents, and the artistically inclined father literally tormented his son, forcing him to act out different scenes, tell his impressions, improvise, read poetry, etc. Dickens turned into a little actor, full of narcissism and vanity.

However, Dickens's family was suddenly completely ruined. The father was thrown into debtor's prison for many years, and the mother had to fight poverty. Pampered, fragile in health, full of imagination, a boy in love with himself found himself in difficult operating conditions at a blacking factory.

Throughout his subsequent life, Dickens considered this ruin of his family and this wax of his to be the greatest insult to himself, an undeserved and humiliating blow. He did not like to talk about it, he even hid these facts, but here, from the bottom of poverty, Dickens drew his ardent love for the offended, for the needy, his understanding of their suffering, understanding of the cruelty that they meet from above, deep knowledge of the life of poverty and such horrifying social institutions, like the then schools for poor children and orphanages, like the exploitation of child labor in factories, like debtor's prisons, where he visited his father, etc. Dickens also carried out from his adolescence a great, dark hatred of the rich, of the ruling classes . Colossal ambition possessed young Dickens. The dream of rising back into the ranks of the wealthy, the dream of outgrowing his original social place, of winning wealth, pleasure, freedom - that was what excited this teenager with a shock of brown hair over a deathly pale face, with huge eyes burning with a healthy fire.

Dickens found himself primarily as a reporter. Expanded political life, deep interest in the debates taking place in Parliament and in the events that accompanied these debates, increased the English public's interest in the press, the number and circulation of newspapers, and the need for newspaper workers. As soon as Dickens completed several reporting assignments as a test, he was immediately noted and began to rise, the further he went, the more surprising his fellow reporters with irony, vividness of presentation, and richness of language. Dickens feverishly took up his newspaper work, and everything that blossomed in him as a child and that received a peculiar, somewhat painful twist at a later time, now poured out from under his pen, and he was well aware not only that by doing so he communicates his ideas to the public, but also what makes his career. Literature was now for him the ladder by which he would rise to the top of society, while at the same time doing a good deed in the name of all mankind, in the name of his country, and above all and most of all in the name of the oppressed.

Dickens's first morally descriptive essays, which he called "Sketches of Boz", were published in 1836. Their spirit was quite consistent with Dickens's social position. It was to some extent a fictional declaration in the interests of the bankrupt petty bourgeoisie. However, these essays went almost unnoticed.

But Dickens had a meteoric success that same year with the appearance of the first chapters of his The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. A 24-year-old young man, inspired by the luck that smiled upon him, naturally thirsting for happiness and fun, in this young book of his tries to completely ignore the dark sides of life. He paints old England from its most varied sides, glorifying either its good nature, or the abundance of living and sympathetic forces in it that riveted the best sons of the petty bourgeoisie to it. He portrays old England in the most good-natured, optimistic, noble old eccentric, whose name - Mr. Pickwick - was established in world literature somewhere not far from the great name of Don Quixote. If Dickens had written this book of his, not a novel, but a series of comic, adventure pictures, with a deep calculation, first of all, to win over the English public, flattering it, allowing it to enjoy the charm of such purely English positive and negative types, like Pickwick himself, the unforgettable Samuel Weller - a sage in livery, Jingle, etc., then one could marvel at the fidelity of his instincts. But rather, youth and the days of first success took their toll here. This success was elevated to extraordinary heights by Dickens's new work, and we must give him justice: he immediately used the high platform on which he ascended, forcing all of England to laugh until the colic at the cascade of oddities of the Picquiciad, for more serious tasks.

Two years later, Dickens appeared with Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.

Oliver Twist (1838) is the story of an orphan trapped in the slums of London. The boy meets on his way baseness and nobility, criminals and respectable people. Cruel fate gives way to his sincere desire for an honest life. The pages of the novel capture pictures of life and society in 19th century England in all their vibrant splendor and diversity. In this novel, Charles Dickens acts as a humanist, affirming the power of good in man.

Dickens's fame grew rapidly. Both liberals saw him as their ally, because he defended freedom, and conservatives, because he pointed out the cruelty of new social relationships.

After traveling to America, where the public greeted Dickens with no less enthusiasm than the British, Dickens wrote his “Martin Chuzzlewit” (The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843). Except unforgettable images Pecksniff and Mrs. Gump, this novel is remarkable for its parody of Americans. Much in the young capitalist country seemed extravagant, fantastic, disorderly to Dickens, and he did not hesitate to tell the Yankees a lot of the truth about them. Even at the end of Dickens’s stay in America, he allowed himself “tactlessness”, which greatly darkened the attitude of Americans towards him. His novel caused violent protests from the overseas public.

But Dickens knew how, as already said, to soften and balance the sharp, piercing elements of his work. It was easy for him, for he was also a gentle poet of the most fundamental features of the English petty bourgeoisie, which penetrated far beyond the boundaries of this class.

The cult of coziness, comfort, beautiful traditional ceremonies and customs, the cult of family, as if embodied in the hymn for Christmas, this holiday of the philistinism, was expressed with amazing, exciting power in his “Christmas Stories” - in 1843 “A Christmas Carol” was published (A Christmas Carol), followed by The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, The Haunted Man. Dickens did not have to prevaricate here: he himself was one of the most enthusiastic admirers of this winter holiday, during which the home fire, dear faces, ceremonial dishes and delicious drinks created some kind of idyll among the snows and winds of a merciless winter.

At the same time, Dickens became editor-in-chief of the Daily News. In this newspaper he expressed his socio-political views.

All these features of Dickens's talent are clearly reflected in one of his best novels - Dombey and Son (Dombey and Son, 1848). The huge series of figures and life positions in this work are amazing. Dickens's imagination and inventiveness seem inexhaustible and superhuman. There are very few novels in world literature that, in terms of richness of color and variety of tone, can be ranked alongside Dombey and Son, and among these novels it is necessary to place some of the later works of Dickens himself. Both petty-bourgeois characters and poor ones were created by him with great love. All these people are almost entirely eccentrics. But this eccentricity that makes you laugh makes them even closer and sweeter. True, this friendly, this affectionate laughter makes you not notice their narrowness, limitations, difficult conditions in which they have to live; but that's how Dickens is. It must be said, however, that when he turns his thunder against the oppressors, against the arrogant merchant Dombey, against scoundrels like his senior clerk Carker, he finds such thunderous words of indignation that they actually sometimes border on revolutionary pathos.

The humor is even more weakened in Dickens's next major work, David Copperfield (1849-1850). This novel is largely autobiographical. His intentions are very serious. The spirit of praising the old foundations of morality and family, the spirit of protest against the new capitalist England resounds loudly here too. You can have different attitudes towards “David Copperfield”. Some take it so seriously that they consider it Dickens's greatest work.

In the 1850s. Dickens reached the zenith of his fame. He was the darling of fate - a famous writer, master of thoughts and a rich man - in a word, a person for whom fate did not skimp on gifts.

Chesterton drew a portrait of Dickens at that time quite successfully:

Dickens was of average height. His natural liveliness and unpretentious appearance were the reason that he gave those around him the impression of a short man and, in any case, a very miniature build. In his youth, he had a cap of brown hair on his head that was too extravagant, even for that era, and later he wore a dark mustache and a thick, fluffy, dark goatee of such an original shape that it made him look like a foreigner.

The former transparent pallor of his face, the sparkle and expressiveness of his eyes remained with him, “noting the actor’s still mobile mouth and his extravagant manner of dressing.” Chesterton writes about this:

He wore a velvet jacket, some incredible vests, their color reminiscent of completely implausible sunsets, white hats, unprecedented at that time, of a completely unusual, eye-catching whiteness. He willingly dressed up in stunning robes; they even say that he posed for a portrait in such attire.

Behind this appearance, in which there was so much posing and nervousness, lay a great tragedy. Dickens's needs were broader than his income. His disorderly, purely bohemian nature did not allow him to bring any kind of order into his affairs. He not only tormented his rich and fertile brain by over-working it creatively, but being an extraordinarily brilliant reader, he endeavored to earn enormous fees by lecturing and reading excerpts from his novels. The impression from this purely acting reading was always colossal. Apparently, Dickens was one of the greatest reading virtuosos. But on his trips he fell into the hands of some entrepreneurs and, while earning a lot, at the same time brought himself to exhaustion.

His family life was difficult. Disagreements with his wife, some complex and dark relationships with her entire family, fear for sick children made Dickens from his family rather a source of constant worries and torment.

But all this is less important than the melancholy thought that overwhelmed Dickens that what was essentially most serious in his works - his teachings, his calls - remained in vain, that in reality there was no hope for improving the terrible situation that was clear to him, despite humorous glasses that were supposed to soften the harsh contours of reality for both the author and his readers. He writes at this time:

Dickens often spontaneously fell into a trance, was subject to visions and from time to time experienced states of déjà vu. Another oddity of the writer was told by George Henry Lewis, editor-in-chief of the Fortnightly Review magazine (and close friend of the writer George Eliot). Dickens once told him that every word, before going on paper, is first clearly heard by him, and his characters are constantly nearby and communicate with him. While working on “The Antiquities Shop,” the writer could not eat or sleep peacefully: little Nell was constantly hovering under his feet, demanding attention, crying out for sympathy and being jealous when the author was distracted from her by talking to someone else. While working on the novel Martin Chuzzlewitt, Dickens was tired of Mrs. Gump with her jokes: he had to fight her off with force. “Dickens warned Mrs. Gump more than once: if she did not learn to behave decently and did not appear only when called, he would not give her another line at all!” Lewis wrote. That is why the writer loved to wander through crowded streets. “During the day you can somehow manage without people,” Dickens admitted in one of his letters, but in the evening I simply am not able to free myself from my ghosts until I get lost in the crowd from them. “Perhaps it is only the creative nature of these hallucinatory adventures that keeps us from mentioning schizophrenia as a possible diagnosis,” notes parapsychologist Nandor Fodor, author of the essay “The Unknown Dickens” (1964, New York).

Dickens’s magnificent novel “Hard Times” is also imbued with this melancholy. This novel is the strongest literary and artistic blow to capitalism that was dealt to it in those days, and one of the strongest that was dealt to it in general. In his own way, the grandiose and terrible figure of Bounderby is written with genuine hatred. But Dickens hastens to dissociate himself from the advanced workers.

The end of Dickens's literary career was marked by a number of other excellent works. The novel Little Dorrit (1855-1857) gives way to the famous A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Dickens's historical novel dedicated to the French Revolution. Dickens recoiled from her as if from madness. This was quite in the spirit of his entire worldview, and, nevertheless, he managed to create an immortal book in his own way.

“Great Expectations” (1860), an autobiographical novel, dates back to the same time. His hero - Pip - rushes between the desire to preserve the petty bourgeois comfort, to remain faithful to his middle peasant position and the upward desire for splendor, luxury and wealth. Dickens put a lot of his own tossing, his own melancholy into this novel. According to the original plan, the novel was supposed to end in tears, while Dickens always avoided difficult endings for his works, both out of his own good nature and knowing the tastes of his audience. For the same reasons, he did not dare to end Great Expectations with their complete collapse. But the whole plan of the novel clearly leads to such an end.

Dickens rises to the heights of his creativity again in his swan song - in the large canvas “Our Mutual Friend” (1864). But this work was written as if with a desire to take a break from tense social topics. Superbly conceived, filled with the most unexpected types, sparkling with wit - from irony to touching humor - this novel should, according to the author's plan, be affectionate, sweet, funny. His tragic characters are brought out as if only for variety and largely in the background. Everything ends well. The villains themselves turn out to be either wearing a villainous mask, or so petty and ridiculous that we are ready to forgive them for their treachery, or so unhappy that they arouse acute pity instead of anger.

In this last work, Dickens gathered all the strength of his humor, shielding the wonderful, cheerful, pretty images of this idyll from the melancholy that had taken possession of him. Apparently, however, this melancholy was to flood us again in Dickens' detective novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. This novel was begun with great skill, but where it was supposed to lead and what its intention was, we do not know, for the work remained unfinished. On June 9, 1870, fifty-eight-year-old Dickens, not old in years, but exhausted by colossal work, a rather chaotic life and a lot of all sorts of troubles, dies in Gadeshill from a stroke.

Dickens's fame continued to grow after his death. He was turned into a real god of English literature. His name began to be mentioned next to the name of Shakespeare, his popularity in England in the 1880-1890s. eclipsed Byron's fame. But critics and readers tried not to notice his angry protests, his peculiar martyrdom, his tossing and turning among the contradictions of life. They did not understand and did not want to understand that humor was often for Dickens a shield from the excessively wounding blows of life. On the contrary, Dickens primarily gained fame as a cheerful writer of merry old England. Dickens is a great humorist - that's what you will hear first of all from the lips of ordinary Englishmen from the most diverse classes of this country.

Title page of the first volume of the Complete Works (1892)

Translations of Dickens's works appeared in Russian in the late 1830s. In 1838, excerpts from the “Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club” appeared in print, and later stories from the series “Sketches of Boz” were translated. All his major novels have been translated several times, and all his small works have also been translated, even those that did not belong to him, but were edited by him as an editor. Dickens was translated by V. A. Solonitsyn (“The Life and Adventures of the English Gentleman Mr. Nicholas Nickleby, with a true and reliable Description of successes and failures, ups and downs, in a word, the full career of his wife, children, relatives and the entire family of the said gentleman”, “Library for reading”, 1840), O. Senkovsky (“Library for reading”), A. Kroneberg (“ Yuletide Stories Dickens", "Contemporary", 1847 No. 3 - retelling with translation of excerpts; the story “The Battle of Life”, ibid.) and I. I. Vvedensky (“Dombey and Son”, “The Pact with the Ghost”, “The Grave Notes of the Pickwick Club”, “David Copperfield”); later - Z. Zhuravskaya (“The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit”, 1895; “No Exit”, 1897), V. L. Rantsov, M. A. Shishmareva (“Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club”, “Hard Times” and others) , E. G. Beketova (abbreviated translation of “David Copperfield” and others), etc.

The characterization that Chesterton gives to Dickens is close to the truth: “Dickens was a vivid exponent,” writes this English writer who is in many ways related to him, “a kind of mouthpiece of the universal inspiration that took possession of England, impulse and intoxicating enthusiasm, calling everyone to high goals. His best works are an enthusiastic hymn to freedom. All his work shines with the reflected light of the revolution.”

Charles Dickens's prose is permeated with wit, which influenced the originality of the national character and way of thinking, known in the world as “ English humor»

Dickens Charles (1812-1870) – English writer. Born on February 7, 1812 in the city of Landport in the family of a wealthy official. The elder Dickens loved his children very much, and in Charles he saw acting talent and forced him to act out acting roles or read a work of fiction. But soon Charles's father was arrested for debt and thrown into prison for many years, and the family had to struggle with poverty. Young Dickens had to study at a school for poor children and work in a blacking factory.

At this time, debates in the English Parliament aroused great public interest, so the demand for newspaper workers increased. Dickens completed trial assignments and began working as a reporter.

The first publication of “Essays by Bose” with an expressed protest from the bankrupt petty bourgeoisie in 1836 did not arouse interest among readers. In the same year, the initial chapters of the “Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club” were published, which had great success among the English.

Two years later, Dickens published Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. He becomes a popular writer.

After a trip to America, where there were also many admirers of his talent, Dickens wrote the novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1843) with a certain ironic description of American society. This book caused a lot of negative criticism from the overseas state.

The writer depicted a special attitude towards Christmas in 1843 in “Christmas Stories.” In the same year, Dickens became editor-in-chief of the Daily News newspaper, where he expressed his political views.

In the 1850s Dickens is England's most famous and richest writer. But his family life was not easy, since he often quarreled with his wife and worried about his sick children.

In 1860, the autobiographical novel “Great Expectations” was published, which he ended on a positive note, like most of his works. But melancholy began to overcome him. Sometimes the writer could be in a state of trance, observing visions. In 1870, Dickens began writing a detective novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, but did not have time to finish it.

Works

Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club