Charles John Huffam Dickens. Born 7 February 1812 in Portsmouth, England - died 9 June 1870 in Higham, 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 (published in separate editions with continuations): “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, “Oliver Twist”, “David Copperfield”, “Great Expectations”, “A Tale of Two Cities”.
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in the Portsmouth suburb of Landport. He was the second child of eight children of John Dickens (1785-1851) and Elizabeth Dickens née Barrow (1789-1863).
His father served as an official at a Royal Navy naval base; in January 1815 he was transferred to London; in April 1817 the family moved to Chatham. Here Charles attended the school of the Baptist minister William Gilles, even when the family moved again to London. Living beyond his means in the capital led his father to debtor's prison in 1824.
His elder sister continued to study at the Royal Academy of Music until 1827, and Charles worked at Warren's Blacking Factory, where he received six shillings a week. But on Sunday they too were in prison with their parents. A few months later, after the death of his paternal grandmother, John Dickens, thanks to the inheritance he received, was released from prison, received a pension from the Admiralty and a position as a parliamentary reporter in one of the newspapers. However, at the insistence of his mother, Charles was left at the factory, which influenced his attitude towards women in later life. After some time, he was assigned to Wellington House Academy, where he studied until March 1827.
In May 1827 he was hired by Ellis and Blackmore as a junior clerk at 13 shillings a week. Here he worked until November 1828. Having studied shorthand according to the system of T. Garnier (Thomas Gurney), he began to work as a free reporter, together with his distant relative, Thomas Charlton.
In 1830, Charles was invited to the Morning Chronicle. In the same year, Charles Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, the daughter of a bank director.
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.
Literature was what was most important to him now.
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 of the interests of the bankrupt petty bourgeoisie. Psychological sketches and portraits of Londoners, like all Dickens's novels, were also first published in a newspaper version and have already brought the young author enough fame.
Dizzying success awaited Dickens in the same year with the publication of the chapters of his The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.
In this novel, he paints old England from its most varied sides, admiring its good nature and the abundance of lively and sympathetic features inherent in the best representatives of the English petty bourgeoisie. All these traits are embodied in the most good-natured optimist, the noblest 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 as 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 depicting such purely English positive and negative types, like Pickwick himself, the unforgettable Sam Weller - a sage in livery, [Alfred Jingle], etc., then even then one could marvel at the fidelity of his instincts. But most likely, the unbridled energy of the author’s youth and the effect of unexpected success, which had an inspiring effect on him, took its toll here. This novel by Dickens aroused an extraordinary surge of reader interest, and we must do justice to the author: he immediately used the high platform of the writer - which he ascended, making the whole of England laugh until the colic at the cascade of oddities of the Picwickiad - for more serious tasks.
Two years later, Dickens performed Oliver Twist and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839).
"The Adventures of Oliver Twist" (Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress), (1838) - the story of an orphan born in a workhouse and living 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 the life of English society of the 19th century in all their living splendor and ugliness. A broad social picture from the workhouses and criminal dens of London's bottom to the society of the rich and Dickensian-kind-hearted bourgeois do-gooders. In this novel, Charles Dickens acts as a humanist, affirming the power of good in man.
The novel caused a wide public response. After his release, a number of scandalous proceedings took place in the workhouses of London, which, in fact, were semi-prison institutions where child labor was mercilessly used.
Dickens's fame grew rapidly. Both liberals saw him as their ally, because they defended freedom, and conservatives, because they 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). In addition to the unforgettable images of Pecksniff and Mrs. Gump, this novel is remarkable for its parody of Americans. The novel caused violent protests from the overseas public.
A Christmas Carol was released in 1843, followed by The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and Possessed. "(The Haunted Man).
At the same time, Dickens became editor-in-chief of the Daily News. In this newspaper he had the opportunity to express his socio-political views.
One of his best novels is “The Dombey and Son Trading House.” Trade in wholesale, retail and for export" (Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation, 1848). The endless string of figures and life positions in this work is amazing. There are few novels in world literature that, in terms of richness of color and variety of tone, can be placed on a par with Dombey and Son, not counting some of the later works of Dickens himself. Both petty-bourgeois characters and representatives of the London poor were created by him with great love. All these people are almost entirely eccentrics, but the eccentricity that makes you laugh makes these characters even closer and more endearing. True, this friendly, this harmless laughter makes you not notice their narrowness, limitations, difficult conditions in which they have to live; but that’s Dickens... It should be noted, however, that when he turns his thunder and lightning against the oppressors, against the arrogant merchant Dombey, against scoundrels like his senior clerk Carker, he finds such striking words of indignation that they sometimes border on revolutionary pathos.
The humor is even more weakened in Dickens's next major work, “David Copperfield” (The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account), (1849-1850).
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 Charlotte Bronte, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, considered this novel his greatest work.
In the 1850s, Dickens reached the zenith of his fame. He was the darling of fate - a famous writer, a master of thoughts and a wealthy man - in a word, a person for whom fate did not skimp on gifts.
Dickens often spontaneously fell into a trance, was subject to visions and from time to time experienced states of déjà vu.
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 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' social novel Hard Times (1854) is also permeated with melancholy and hopelessness. This novel was a tangible literary and artistic blow dealt to 19th-century capitalism 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.
End literary activity Dickens was marked by a number of other significant works. The novel Little Dorrit (1855-1857) was followed by Dickens's historical novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859), dedicated to 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 (1861), a novel with autobiographical features, 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 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” (English: Our Mutual Friend, 1864). In this work, Dickens's desire to take a break from tense social topics is guessed. 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’s appeal to a new style of writing is noticeable: instead of ironic verbosity, parodying the literary style victorian era- a laconic manner reminiscent of cursive writing. The novel conveys the idea of the poisonous effect of money - the trash heap becomes its symbol - on social 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”.
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.
On June 9, 1870, fifty-eight-year-old Dickens, exhausted by colossal work, a rather chaotic life and many troubles, died of a stroke in his home Gadshill Place (English) Russian, located in the village of Higham (Kent).
Dickens's fame continued to grow after his death. He was turned into a real idol 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.
A crater on Mercury is named after Dickens.
A USSR postage stamp was issued for the 150th anniversary of the writer's birth (1962).
Dickens' portrait was featured on the English 10 pound note issued 1993-2000.
To mark the 200th anniversary of Dickens's birth, the UK's Royal Mint is issuing a commemorative £2 coin featuring Dickens's portrait of his works, from Oliver Twist to David Copperfield to Great Expectations.
Despite the fact that in his will the writer asked not to erect monuments to him, in 2012 it was decided to erect a monument in the main square of Portsmouth. The monument was unveiled on June 9, 2013, by Martin Jeggins.
Novels by Charles Dickens:
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 books: 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, the novel is not finished.
Collections of stories by Charles Dickens:
Sketches by Boz, 1836
The Mudfog Papers, 1837
"The traveler is not trade affairs"(The Uncommercial Traveler), 1860-1869.
Charles Dickens. Biography and review of creativity
The most famous English novelist, creator of the comedy genre and social critic Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Landport and was the second of eight children of his father John Dickens. As a child, Dickens went to local school, however, being precocious, he early read the entire family library, which consisted of cheap literary publications, and lost interest in studying at school. In 1822, after the family moved to London, the financial situation of the Dickens family deteriorated significantly. Charles was forced to leave his studies and was busy selling books from the family library and pawning silverware. At the age of twelve, the boy was forced to go to work in a local blacking factory for six shillings a week. After working there for four months, he decided to get out of this poverty at any cost (later he considered this short period of work at the factory the most shameful in his entire life). In 1824, Charles's father was arrested for debt and placed in prison. Three months later, having received a small inheritance, he paid off his debts and was released from prison. The inheritance was even enough to educate Charles at a private school for two years.
Since 1826, Charles has worked as a junior clerk in a law office, studying shorthand and preparing to become a newspaper reporter. At the end of 1928, the young man received the position of court reporter, and by the age of majority he received the right to visit the British Museum and began to fill in the gaps in his education. In 1832, he received a position as a reporter in two leading newspapers and began to stand out from the rest of the reporter fraternity.
Since 1832, he begins to write essays about life and typical London. Since 1833 he has been a regular reporter for The Morning Chronicle, which publishes reports on all significant events cities.
In 1835, Charles married the daughter of the publisher of a major London newspaper, Catherine Hogarth.
And in 1836, all the writer’s essays and several previously unpublished works were published in a separate collection called “Essays of Boz.” After the publication of these essays, Dickens was offered to write a story for the satirical engravings of the caricaturist Seymour. To which Dickens made a counter-offer - to make engravings for his original texts, and on April 2 of the same year the first issue of The Pickwick Club was published. At first, readers coldly accepted the new work, but the number of admirers grew, and in March 1836, when it was published the last part The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club sold 40,000 copies each issue. This work is a kind of comic epic in which the main character, accompanied by his servant, travels around England - a kind of parody of Cervantes' Don Quixote. The work shines with a cheerful and joyful mood, humor, satire and sometimes even high comedy.
At the end of 1836, Dickens gave up his job at the newspaper and headed a new monthly publication, Bentley's Almanac. The first issue was published in January 1837, and a few days later the writer’s first son, Charles Jr., was born. And already in the February issue of the almanac the first chapters of “Oliver Twist” appeared, on which the writer began working back in 1835. After the joyful and sunny “Pickwick”, Dickens in “Oliver Twist” reflected the dark sides of life, tracing the life path of an orphan boy , from the workhouse to the crime slums. And in his next novel, Nicholas Nickleby, written in 1839, he combined the lightness and humor of Pickwick and the gloom of Oliver Twist.
In March 1837, Charles moved with his family to a large four-story house, where his two daughters were born. Dickens hosts the theater critic Foster, who became his best friend, executor, advisor in literary matters, and later wrote his biography.
As the writer's popularity grew, so did his position in society. He was invited to become a member of the Garrick Club, and then a member of the Athenaeum Club. Due to disagreements with the owner of the almanac, Dickens stops working there and begins publishing the weekly Mr. Humphrey's Clock. In this weekly from April 1839 to January 1841. His “Antiquities Shop” was published, which attracted many fans.
In January 1842, Dickens and his family sailed to America, where the writer was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of fans. However, the writer’s impressions of America were not the best. He was very irritated by the widespread literary piracy in the States, which they did not want and could not fight. And in the South of the country he was received very poorly because of his hostility to slavery. After the trip, Dickens published “American Notes,” which were enthusiastically received in the writer’s homeland and caused outright indignation in America.
In 1845, Charles decides to found the newspaper “The Daily News”, but disagreements with the owners force him to abandon this idea, and he decides to fight for reforms only with the help of his books. In May 1846 he published a book travel notes“Pictures from Italy”, In 1848 his novel “Dombey and Son” was published.
Since 1849, the writer has been working on his best creation (according to the author himself), the novel “David Copperfield,” which is largely related to the biography of Dickens himself.
In 1850, he began publishing the weekly Home Readings, which became very popular. And at the end of the year, he, together with Bulwer-Lytton, founded a literary guild to help young writers. For charitable purposes, the writer writes a comedy called “We are not as bad as we seem,” in which he himself plays. Even Queen Victoria attended the premiere. At this point, Dickens already had eight children and a ninth was about to be born. In the winter of 1851, the family moved to a more spacious house located in Tavistock Square, and work began on the novel Bleak House. In this work, the author demonstrates the pinnacle of satirical art - his vision of the world becomes more and more gloomy.
Dickens was very dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the country; he was categorically dissatisfied with the presence of riots, strikes, corruption, and unemployment. All this forced him to join the Association of Administrative Reforms.
In 1857, Dickens took part in Collins's charity play The Frozen Deeps, during which he fell in love with actress Ellen Ternan. Despite all the assurances that he was faithful to his wife, Catherine still left his home. The eldest son, Charles Jr., left with his mother after the divorce, and the other children remained to live with their father, being raised by Katherine’s sister, Georgina.
In August 1861, the novel “Great Expectations” was published. Since 1860, the writer began public readings of excerpts from his works in England and Paris, which were a stunning success.
Charles's health gradually deteriorated, but despite this he undertook a huge tour of America, which brought him more than £20,000 in income. Money attracted the writer much less than the admiration of the public, which was always necessary for the writer and his ambition. After a month's rest, he began a new tour of Europe, but in April 1869 in Liverpool, after 74 performances, his left arm and leg became numb.
He stopped risking his health and, sitting at home, began work on The Mystery of Edwin Drood, intending to make 12 monthly issues (the novel was only half written). Having persuaded his doctor to allow him to give 12 final readings in London, he performed from January 11 to March 15, 1870.
On June 8, 1870, Dickens worked all day in the garden of his house, and in the evening he had a stroke. The next day the great English writer died. His body is buried in Westminster Abbey.
"Oliver Twist"
Oliver Twist, written in 1838, was the second major work written by Dickens, after The Pickwick Papers. He became the ideal representative of the Victorian novel.
This is a completely fictional story about the life of an orphan boy. Oliver was illegitimate son a wealthy man who specified in his will that upon his death, Oliver should receive half of his fortune upon reaching 18 years of age. However, there is one clause in the will, according to which the boy will receive the inheritance only if, before reaching adulthood, he does not stray from the righteous path and does not tarnish his name with a dishonest or criminal act. It is quite natural that Oliver’s brother, Monke, who moves in social circles, wants to get rid of his brother and keep the entire family fortune for himself. In order to realize his insidious plans, Monke comes to an agreement with the head of the London criminal gang, Fagin, and he fraudulently lures Oliver into his gang. However, around Oliver, in addition to enemies and envious people, there are a lot of kind and good people who help him in difficult times and restore his honest reputation. According to the traditions established in classical English literature, the novel ends happily: Oliver finds his family and receives an inheritance, and the bandits are severely punished.
Initially, Dickens wanted to write an adventure detective novel, with detailed description crimes, intrigues, with the obligatory participation of aristocrats with an impeccable reputation, who actually push people to heinous crimes and sometimes commit them themselves. However, as the author accumulated material for the novel, he decided to saturate it with the most pressing social topics. For example, his attention was drawn to workhouses (they were created only in 1834 to help the poor), which, according to the law, were financed from the state treasury, although previously all care for the poor fell on the shoulders of church parishes. Of course, the poor people in these houses were forced to work, but in return they were provided with at least some kind of maintenance (food and shelter). Many beggars still died from exhaustion, and most preferred to end up in prison for vagrancy rather than end up in a workhouse. Very soon, serious controversy broke out in English society around this innovation. Dickens became an ardent opponent of these institutions, which he himself visited several times while collecting material for the novel.
In the first chapters of his book, he described in detail everything he saw: the “baby farm”, the cruelty and rudeness that reigned in the workhouse in which Oliver grew up.
The image of Oliver, a pure and kind boy, was specially selected by the author. The writer deliberately exaggerates and exaggerates in order to evoke quite predictable feelings in readers. After all, it is impossible not to feel sympathy for a child who has never seen his family and at the same time endured hardships and cruel punishments. Just as one cannot help but hate those scoundrels who remain indifferent to the boy’s suffering or push him to commit crimes. Dickens introduces characters into his novel with whom the reader cannot help but sympathize - these are people who, trying to help the boy, snatch him from the tenacious clutches of the villains and help him return to the bosom of his family.
The entire concept of the Victorian novel is built precisely on these foundations: predictability of plot development, victory of good, punishment of evil and some kind of moral lesson. In this sad work, Dickens weaved together social, family, and legal problems. “Oliver Twist” is the writer’s first attempt to penetrate the depths of child psychology, which is probably why the image of Oliver turned out to be the least realistic: he is the embodiment of goodness and purity - an ideal, unspoiled, angelic soul that resists the vices of society. Dickens explains to us such a sublime intensity of the protagonist's feelings by his noble origin, the aristocratic blood flowing in his veins, although the boy himself is not aware of this. In this novel, the author attributes all the basest and vicious traits to the lowest social classes, which you will no longer find in his later works, in which he, on the contrary, endows high society with disgusting traits. Through the common efforts of the good and positive heroes of the work (Mr. Brownlow - best friend Oliver's late father, his friend Grimwig, Rose Maylie, who turns out to be the orphan's aunt) it comes to a happy ending.
There is another aspect of the novel that made it so popular. Before Dickens in English classical literature it was customary to draw beautiful, proud, lush London, with its majestic buildings, beautiful women, worthy men, theaters and other splendor. And Dickens was able to reflect not appearance, but inner world city, its atmosphere. It was as if he turned the city inside out, showing the very bottom, dark nooks and crannies, dirty gateways in which townspeople are robbed and killed at night. The author spent his childhood in this city, which was very difficult, because he lived in poverty. This is probably why the novel was so popular among its contemporaries.
The famous literary critic, a person who studied the biography of Dickens, H. Pearson wrote: “Dickens was London itself. He merged with the city, he became a particle of every brick, every drop of the bonding mortar. To what other writer does any other city owe so much? This, after his humor, is his most valuable and original contribution to literature. He was the greatest poet streets, embankments and squares, but in those days this unique feature of his work escaped the attention of critics.”
Charles Dickens (full name Charles John Huffam Dickens) is a famous English realist writer, a classic of world literature, and the greatest prose writer of the 19th century. - lived a rich and difficult life. His homeland was the town of Landport, located near Portsmouth, where he was born on February 7, 1812 into a poor family of a minor official. His parents did their best to nurture Charles, who was precocious and gifted, but their financial situation did not allow him to develop his abilities and give him a quality education.
In 1822, the Dickens family was transferred to London, where they lived in extreme poverty, periodically selling simple household belongings. 12-year-old Charles had to go to work part-time at a blacking factory, and although he seniority on it was calculated in only four months, this is the time when he, selfish, not accustomed to physical labor and not brilliant good health, was forced to work hard for mere pennies, was a serious moral shock for him, left a huge imprint on his worldview, and determined one of his life goals - to never again be in need or find himself in such a humiliating position.
The plight of the family, in which six children grew up, was further aggravated when in 1824 the father was under arrest for several months due to debts. Charles left school and got a job in a law office as a copyist. The next point of his career was the parliament, where he worked as a stenographer, and then he managed to find himself in the field of a newspaper reporter. In November 1828, young Dickens took up the position of independent reporter working at Doctor's Commons Court. Having not received a systematic education in childhood and adolescence, 18-year-old Charles diligently educated himself, becoming a regular at the British Museum. At 20, he worked as a reporter for the Parliamentary Mirror and True Sun and stood out compared to most of his fellow writers.
At the age of 24, Dickens released his debut collection of essays entitled “The Notes of Boz” (this was his newspaper pseudonym): the ambitious young man realized that it was literary studies that would help him enter high society, and at the same time do a good deed for the sake of those who were also offended by fate and oppressed what he was like. In 1837 he made his debut as a novelist with The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. As he wrote more works, Dickens's literary fame grew, his financial position strengthened, and his social status increased. When Dickens, who had married back in 1836, sailed with his wife to Boston, he was greeted in American cities as a very famous person.
From July 1844 to 1845, Dickens and his family lived in Genoa; upon returning home, he devoted all his attention to founding the Daily News newspaper. 50s became his personal triumph: Dickens achieved fame, influence, wealth, more than compensating for all previous blows of fate. Since 1858, he constantly organized public readings of his books: in this way he not so much increased his fortune as realized his outstanding acting abilities that remained unclaimed. In the personal life of the famous writer, not everything was smooth; He perceived his family with its demands, quarrels with his wife, and eight sickly children, rather as a source of constant headache than a safe haven. In 1857, a love affair with a young actress appeared in his life, which lasted until his death; in 1858 he divorced.
A stormy personal life was combined with intense writing: during this period of biography, novels also appeared that made a significant contribution to his literary fame - “Little Dorrit” (1855-1857), “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859), “Great Expectations” (1861), “Our Mutual Friend” (1864). A difficult life did not have the best effect on his health, but Dickens worked, not paying attention to numerous “bells”. A long tour of American cities aggravated the problems, but after a little rest he went to a new one. In April 1869, things came to the point where the writer was taken away left leg and a hand when he finished another performance. On the evening of June 8, 1870, Charles Dickens, who was at his Gadeshill estate, suffered a stroke and died the next day; buried one of the most popular English writers in Westminster Abbey.
CHARLES DICKENS
(1812-1870)
Charles Dickens is a writer of the Victorian era who not only reflected it in his own works and raised the difficulties that troubled English society, but also tried to solve them. His active literary and social activity contributed to enormous changes - the elimination of debtor's prisons, reforms in education and justice, an increase in the number of charitable organizations and the revival of philanthropy. His love for the poor and downtrodden was true, and not fake, for him they were the same full members of society as the rich, he gave them all the power of his own talent, all his love, revealing to them the poetry of their everyday life, and became the emblem of Great Britain worldly.
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in the family of a small bureaucrat of the naval treasury, John Dickens. At first, Charles's ancestors lived relatively prosperously, but after some time, obstacles began to appear. The reason for the problems was that the writer’s father was very frivolous about family well-being, was very fond of theater and wine, often borrowed funds without having the ability to Lately return them. In addition, he neglected the upbringing of his son, who would remember this forever. Charles also lacked maternal affection and attention. Mom simply didn’t have time for him, since she tried to give advice to all her children (and there were eight of them).
So, books and life itself were his most important educators; Charles received his initial education at Chatham School, where Oxford graduate William Giles then taught; He instilled in the boy a love of British literature and reading in general.
The idyll of his young years did not last long: the father became completely entangled in debt, and the family went to London. The situation was getting worse. When Charles's father ended up in debt in the Marshalsea, the family moved in with him (this was allowed under English law). In order to somehow contribute to the failure, Charles is hired to work in a factory. 6 months spent in a dirty ancient room were almost the most terrible for the impressionable boy: the same work lasted from morning to evening. This was also a moral injury for Charles, who strived to learn.
At this time, the guy developed another hobby - London. Dickens could wander the streets for hours. It was here, in the English slums, that he, without even suspecting it, received his true education. This is how little Charles created the future Dickensian London in his own imagination. He paved the way for his heroes: in whatever nook and cranny of this town they were hiding, he had been there before.
Mother's inheritance, which went to John and William Dickens, was enough to pay off creditors and provide the family with a more or less decent life. Charles left the factory with great joy and continued his studies at a private school, after which he began working as a junior clerk for lawyer Blackmore. But, having a lively disposition, he attends performances and, dreaming of a theatrical future, takes stage acting lessons. In addition, Charles was attracted to the work of a reporter. That’s why he stubbornly studies shorthand at night and studies laws during the day.
From 1832, Charles worked for a local newspaper, then was an employee of the Mirror of Parliament magazine, which belonged to his relative. Dickens very quickly managed to stand out among other editorial employees: his reports were fascinating and even clearer than the reports of his colleagues, although all journalists were forbidden to take notes. The solution is extraordinary and original: Charles put on long and hard cuffs, and later wrote them off in a small letter.
In addition to professional worries, personal ones were added - the family was trying to find money, and the father again fell into debt. This decided the next steps - Dickens took up the pen. The new job didn’t require much effort: so much had been changed, experienced, seen, that one only had to put pen to paper, and then it was a matter of reporter’s experience and time.
At the end of 1833, the story “Lunch at the Poplar Wok” appeared in the Munsley Magazine, although without the name of the creator. Readers began to eagerly await the stories of the creator, who decided to hide his name under the pseudonym "Boz" (a humorous nickname younger brother Charles Dickens, which later became clear to hundreds of thousands of readers). This is how the writer continued to be called when he became famous. The essays, the creator of which was Bop, were published in various magazines, sometimes against Dickens's wishes, as evidenced by letters to friends. The writer turned to the essay genre not by chance: even in childhood, for the sake of joy, he loved to write down something about the people with whom fate brought him together, about worthy of attention places I've been. With age, such recordings became more numerous - it was invaluable material, awaiting its own time.
Convinced that the essays were a hit with readers, Dickens ventured to publish them as a separate book. Thus, in 1836, “Essays by Boz” appeared on the shelves in 2 volumes. Critics, for the most part, underestimate Dickens's first book and write about it condescendingly and condescendingly: some believed that the creator was characterized by verbosity caused by uncertainty and apprehension, as well as a desire to please the reader.
Thus, in the essays one can find a lot of unfinished and imperfect things, but this is explained by the lack of literary experience, but not talent. And apprenticeship is a period through which almost every writer goes through, but for one it is small, while the other remains a student until the end of his life.
From the pages of the series “Drawings from Life” the reader sees fast paced life capital, which is depicted brightly and colorfully.
Dickens is a real master of the cityscape. London is not only a populated area for him, but also a part of his life. Dickens's descriptions are, in fact, impressionistic sketches, where visual, auditory and even taste memories play a huge role (“Streets. Evening”). Dickens devotes his attention to the burning difficulties of our time: the miserable existence of the lower classes leads to the degradation of the individual, who begins to find solace in wine (essay on “A House for Living”).
The theme of human loneliness in the bourgeois world is raised in the essay “Thoughts about People.” In the essay “Christmas Dinner,” Dickens first addressed the theme of the Christmas holiday as a sign of domestic well-being and comfort. The creator’s sympathies belong to ordinary people, who are close and understandable to him, while the representative of the “middle class” - the bourgeois - becomes a target for satirical arrows. Snobbery and vanity, stinginess and narrow-mindedness - these are the main features of rich people who could be funny if they did not pose a danger to the usual balance of society. The reader is presented with a gallery of very specific and individualized characters (essays “Horatio Sparkins”, “Excursion on a Steamboat” and others).
The significance of the works included in the “Stories” cycle should not be underestimated; Charles Dickens used his future experience in subsequent works.
“The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” is a work that made Dickens famous, but it seems incomprehensible to the modern reader. It's a matter of the writer's day, the literary situation.
The life of that time gave rise to literature, perhaps in almost all cases primitive, but not devoid of what the British would later revere Dickens for: healthy optimism, sincerity and gaiety. After the publication of "Sketches of Boz" before Charles Dickens, one of Chapman's company friends approached him and offered him a role in a publication that would be partially reminiscent of modern comics. This should be a joyful story about a sports club.
The great sensation of the notes forced the creator to believe in his own strength and he, without finishing this work, signed a contract for new novel"The Adventures of Oliver Twist."
The novel “Club Notes” was completed in 1837. The name of the creator was clear to every Briton. This novel showed the growth of the writer's skill, who with his heroes went through a difficult path: from the conventional hero of a funny story to unusual person, from a humorist writer to a brave fighter against evil. This is not only the most optimistic and cloudless work of Dickens, it turned out to be the prototype of all novels and their plot structure.
On January 6, 1842, Dickens and his wife sailed to the United States. The writer has long had the intention of visiting overseas. At first it was a desire to go to America to see for himself the advantages of American democracy, which the Americans were shouting about to the whole world. He also wanted to completely resolve the issue of copyright, since English writers and, at first, himself, suffered for its absence.
South American memories were the material for Charles Dickens' novel “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit” (1844). He immediately worked on the story “A Christmas Song in Prose”, which founded a recognizable cycle of Christmas stories and tales.
After breaking with the publishing house in 1844, he traveled to Italy, France, and Switzerland. Memories from the trip are reproduced in the series “Pictures of Italy”.
The beginning of the 50s was a new step in Dickens's work. In 1850, he began work on A History of Great Britain for Children, which was intended to be interesting and romantic. During this period, Dickens worked intensively in various genres, but gave preference to the novel and its genre forms: historical novel (“The Tale of Two Towns” 1859), social novel (“Little Dorrin” 1855-1857), social adventure (“ Great Expectations" 1861), detective stories ("The Secret of Edwin Drood" 1870), a utopian novel ("Dark Times" 1854).
Charles Dickens failed to finish his own last novel"The Secret of Edwin Drood." On June 8, 1870, he became ill; The news of the death of the beloved writer practically shocked Great Britain. It was a national disaster. He was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Charles Dickens is an English writer, one of the greatest English-language prose writers of the 19th century, a humanist, and a classic of world literature.
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.”
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."
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 various scenes, tell his impressions, improvise, read poetry, etc. Dickens turned into a little actor, full of narcissism and vanity.
However, Dickens' family suddenly went bankrupt. 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, in love with himself, the boy found himself in difficult operating conditions at a factory for the production of blacking.
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 life, poverty and such horrific social institutions as the then schools for poor children and orphanages, the exploitation of child labor in factories, the 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 interest of the English public 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 seized on his newspaper work, and everything that blossomed in him in childhood 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 thereby he communicates his ideas to the public, but also what makes his career. Literature was now the ladder for him to climb 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 moral 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. Psychological sketches, portraits of Londoners. Like all Dickens's novels, these sketches were also first published in a newspaper version and have already brought the young author enough fame.
But Dickens enjoyed a dizzying success that same year with the appearance of the first chapters of his “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.” This success was elevated to extraordinary heights new job Dickens, and we must give him justice: he immediately used the high platform on which he ascended, forcing the whole of England to laugh until the colic at the cascade of oddities of the Pickwickiad, for more serious tasks.
Two years later, Dickens appeared with Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. Dickens's fame grew rapidly. Both liberals saw him as their ally, because they defended freedom, and conservatives, because they 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.” At the same time, Dickens became editor-in-chief of the Daily News. In this newspaper he expressed his socio-political views.
In subsequent years, 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.
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 1880s and 1890s eclipsed the fame of Byron. 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,” - this is what you will hear primarily from the lips of ordinary Englishmen from the most diverse classes of this country.
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