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{{short description|Victorian English writer and social critic}}
{{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]] -->
{{Redirect2|Dickens|Dickensian|the television series|Dickensian (TV series)|other uses|Dickens (disambiguation)}}
| name = Charles Dickens
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
{{pp-move-indef|small=yes}}
{{Use British English|date=November 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Infobox writer
| image = Dickens Gurney head.jpg
| image = Dickens Gurney head.jpg
| image_upright = .91
| imagesize = 200
| alt = Charles Dickens
| caption =  
| caption = Dickens in New York, circa 1867–1868
| birth_name = Charles John Huffam Dickens
| birth_name = Charles John Huffam Dickens
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1812|2|7}}
| birth_date = {{birth date|1812|2|7|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Landport]], [[Hampshire]], England
| birth_place = [[Portsmouth]], England
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1870|6|9|1812|2|7}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|1870|6|9|1812|2|7|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Higham, Kent|Higham]], [[Kent]], England
| death_place = [[Kent]], England
| resting_place = [[Poets' Corner]], [[Westminster Abbey]], England
| resting_place = [[Poets' Corner]], [[Westminster Abbey]]
| resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{coord|LAT|LONG|display=inline,title}} -->
| occupation = Novelist
| nationality = British
| notableworks = ''[[Sketches by Boz]]'', ''[[Oliver Twist]]'', ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'', ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'', ''[[David Copperfield]]'', ''[[Great Expectations]]''
| education =
| alma_mater =  
| notableworks = {{hlist|''[[The Pickwick Papers]]''|''[[Oliver Twist]]''|''[[Nicholas Nickleby]]''|''[[A Christmas Carol]]''|''[[David Copperfield]]''|''[[Bleak House]]''|''[[Little Dorrit]]''|''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]''|''[[Great Expectations]]''}}
| occupation = Writer
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Catherine Dickens|Catherine Thomson Hogarth]]|1836|1858|end={{abbr|sep.|separated}}}}
| partner = [[Ellen Ternan]]<br>(1857–1870, his death)
| children = {{hlist|[[Charles Dickens Jr.]]|[[Mary Dickens]]|[[Kate Perugini]]|[[Walter Landor Dickens]]|[[Francis Dickens]]|[[Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens]]|[[Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens]]|[[Henry Fielding Dickens]]|[[Dora Annie Dickens]]|[[Edward Dickens]]}}
| relations =
| awards =
| signature = Charles Dickens Signature.svg
| signature = Charles Dickens Signature.svg
| signature_alt =
| footnotes =
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRSA|size=100%}}
}}
}}
'''Charles Dickens''' (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870)<ref name="adb">{{cite book|url=http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A040065b.htm|title=Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)|last=Lansbury|first=Coral|work=Australian Dictionary of Biography On Line Edition|publisher=Australian National University|language=English|accessdate=2010-03-16}}</ref> was one of the great [[English people|English]] writers of the [[19th century]].


'''Charles John Huffam Dickens''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRSA}} ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|ɪ|k|ɪ|n|z}}; 7 February 1812&nbsp;– 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the [[Victorian era]].<ref name=autogenerated1>{{harvnb|Black|2007|p=735}}.</ref> His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.<ref>{{harvnb|Mazzeno|2008|p=76}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Chesterton|2005|pp=100–126}}.</ref>
== Early life ==
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England.<ref name=adb/> His parents were John Dickens (1785-1851),<ref name="myheritage.com">[http://www.myheritage.com/FP/family-tree.php?s=50445521&familyTreeID=1 Dickens Family Tree website]</ref> a [[navy|naval]] pay clerk, and Elizabeth Barrow (1789–1863).<ref name="myheritage.com"/>


Born in [[Portsmouth]], Dickens left school to work in a factory when [[John Dickens|his father]] was incarcerated in a [[debtors' prison]]. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five [[novellas]], hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed [[Penny reading|readings]] extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education and other social reforms.
When Dickens was born, he had [[dyslexia]] and so he could not read or write properly, unlike other kids. When Charles was 12 years old, his family moved to [[Camden]], [[London]]. He worked in a blacking [[factory]] there while his father was in [[prison]] for [[debt]]. Dickens's hard times in the factory served as a foundation of ideas for many of his [[novel]]s. Many of them, like ''[[Oliver Twist]]'', later became famous. When his great-grandmother died and transmitted [[money]], Charles' father paid off his debts and was released from prison. Charles did not like working and wished to stop after his father had been released. However, his mother said that the family needed the money and so Charles was forced to continue working. Charles then finished his schooling and got a job as an office boy for an [[attorney]]. After finding that job dull, he taught himself [[shorthand]] and became a [[journalist]] that reported on the government. Dickens was a [[Unitarian]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/charlesdickens.html|title=Charles Dickens|publisher=25.uua.org|accessdate=November 30, 2013}}</ref>


Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of ''[[The Pickwick Papers]]'', a publishing phenomenon—thanks largely to the introduction of the character [[Sam Weller (character)|Sam Weller]] in the fourth episode—that sparked ''Pickwick'' merchandise and spin-offs. Within a few years Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the [[serial (literature)|serial]] publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication.<ref name="Grossman 2012 54">{{harvnb|Grossman|2012|p=54}}</ref><ref name="Lodge 2002 118">{{harvnb|Lodge|2002|p=118}}.</ref> [[Cliffhanger]] endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense.<ref name="NewYorker">{{cite magazine |title=Tune in next week |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/30/tune-in-next-week |magazine=The New Yorker |date=2 December 2017}}</ref> The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback.<ref name="Lodge 2002 118"/> For example, when his wife's [[chiropodist]] expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in ''[[David Copperfield]]'' seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features.<ref>{{harvnb|Ziegler|2007|pp=46–47}}.</ref> His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives.<ref>{{harvnb|Stone|1987|pp=267–268}}.</ref> Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a [[Halfpenny (British pre-decimal coin)|halfpenny]] to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.<ref>{{harvnb|Hauser|1999|p=116}}.</ref>
He was once involved in a train crash near Stapleford, Kent.


His 1843 novella ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' and ''[[Great Expectations]]'' are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'' (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career.<ref name="Garratt"/>
== Writer ==
His first book was ''[[Sketches by Boz]]'' in 1836, a collection of the short pieces that he had been writing for the ''Monthly Magazine'' and the ''Evening Chronicle''.<ref name="cousin">{{cite web|url=http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dickens/charles/|title=Charles Dickens (1812-1870)|last=Cousin|first=John W.|date=1910|work=A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature|publisher=University of Adelaide|language=English|accessdate=2010-03-16|archive-date=2009-08-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090826223427/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dickens/charles/|url-status=dead}}</ref> This was followed by ''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' in 1837.<ref name=adb/> Both books became popular as soon as they were printed.<ref name=adb/>


The term ''Dickensian'' is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters.<ref>[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/Dickensian "Oxford Dictionaries&nbsp;– Dickensian"]. [[Oxford University Press]].</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Dickensian <nowiki>|</nowiki> meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dickensian |publisher=Cambridge University Press |access-date=19 February 2021}}</ref>
Charles Dickens died of a stroke on June 9, 1870. He was buried in [[Poets' Corner]] in [[Westminster Abbey]].


==Early years==
== Books ==
{{Main article|Dickens family}}
Charles Dickens wrote many books, including:
[[File:CharlesDickens house Portsmouth.JPG|thumbnail|Charles Dickens's birthplace, 393 Commercial Road, Portsmouth]]
* ''[[Sketches by Boz]]'' (1836)
[[File:ChathamOrdnanceTerrCrop.jpg|thumb|alt=photograph|2 Ordnance Terrace, [[Chatham, Medway|Chatham]], Dickens's home 1817&nbsp;– May 1821<ref name=Callow2012p9>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=9}}</ref>]]
* ''The Pickwick Papers'' (1837)
* ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' (1838)
* ''Nicholas  Nickelby'' (1838)
* ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' (1840)
* ''Barnaby Rudge'' (1841)
* ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' (1843)
* ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' (1843)
* ''Dombey and Son'' (1846—1848)
* ''[[David Copperfield (novel)|David Copperfield]]'' (1849—1850)
* ''Bleak House'' (1851—1853)
* ''Hard Times'' (1854)
* ''Little Dorritt'' (1855—1857)
* ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'' (1859)
* ''Great Expectations'' (1861)
* ''Our Mutual Friend'' (1865)
* ''[[The Mystery of Edwin Drood]]'' (1869—1870) (unfinished)


Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 at 1 Mile End Terrace (now 393 Commercial Road), [[Landport]] in [[Portsea Island]] ([[Portsmouth]]), [[Hampshire]], the second of eight children of [[Elizabeth Dickens]] (née Barrow; 1789–1863) and [[John Dickens]] (1785–1851). His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam,<ref name=West1999>{{cite journal |last=West |first=Gilian |title=Huffam and Son |journal=The Dickensian |volume=95 |number=447 |date=Spring 1999 |pages=5–18 |publisher=Dickens Fellowship}}</ref> rigger to His Majesty's Navy, gentleman, and head of an established firm, to act as godfather to Charles. Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's novel ''[[Dombey and Son]]'' (1848).<ref name=West1999/>
== References ==
{{Reflist}}


In January 1815, John Dickens was called back to London and the family moved to Norfolk Street, [[Fitzrovia]].<ref name=Callow2012p5>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=5}}</ref> When Charles was four, they relocated to [[Sheerness]] and thence to [[Chatham, Kent|Chatham]], [[Kent]], where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he thought himself a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy".<ref>{{harvnb|Forster|2006|p=13}}.</ref>
== External links ==
 
Charles spent time outdoors, but also read voraciously, including the [[picaresque novel]]s of [[Tobias Smollett]] and [[Henry Fielding]], as well as ''[[Robinson Crusoe]]'' and ''[[Gil Blas]]''. He read and reread ''[[The Arabian Nights]]'' and the Collected Farces of [[Elizabeth Inchbald]].<ref name=Callow2012p7>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=7}}</ref> He retained poignant memories of childhood, helped by an excellent memory of people and events, which he used in his writing.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=22–24:29–30}}.</ref> His father's brief work as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office afforded him a few years of private education, first at a [[dame school]] and then at a school run by William Giles, a [[English Dissenters|dissenter]], in Chatham.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=41}}.</ref>
[[File:Dickens-at-the-Blacking-Warehouse.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=drawing|Illustration by Fred Bernard of Dickens at work in a shoe-blacking factory after his father had been sent to the [[Marshalsea]], published in the 1892 edition of Forster's ''Life of Charles Dickens''<ref>{{harvnb|Schlicke|1999|p=158}}.</ref>]]
 
This period came to an end in June 1822, when John Dickens was recalled to Navy Pay Office headquarters at [[Somerset House]] and the family (except for Charles, who stayed behind to finish his final term at school) moved to [[Camden Town]] in London.<ref name=Callow2009p13>{{harvnb|Callow|2009|p=13}}</ref> The family had left Kent amidst rapidly mounting debts and, living beyond his means,<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=76}}:'recklessly improvident'.</ref> John Dickens was forced by his creditors into the [[Marshalsea]] [[debtors' prison]] in [[Southwark]], London in 1824. His wife and youngest children joined him there, as was the practice at the time. Charles, then 12 years old, boarded with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, at 112 College Place, Camden Town.<ref>{{harvnb|Pope-Hennessy|1945|p=11}}.</ref> Mrs Roylance was "a reduced [impoverished] old lady, long known to our family", whom Dickens later immortalised, "with a few alterations and embellishments", as "Mrs Pipchin" in ''Dombey and Son''. Later, he lived in a back-attic in the house of an agent for the [[Insolvency|Insolvent Court]], Archibald Russell, "a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman ... with a quiet old wife" and lame son, in [[Lant Street]] in Southwark.<ref>{{harvnb|Forster|2006|p=27}}.</ref> They provided the inspiration for the Garlands in ''[[The Old Curiosity Shop]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=76}}.</ref>
 
On Sundays – with his sister [[Fanny Dickens|Frances]], free from her studies at the [[Royal Academy of Music]] – he spent the day at the Marshalsea.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1972|p=53}}.</ref> Dickens later used the prison as a setting in ''[[Little Dorrit]]''. To pay for his board and to help his family, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren's [[shoe polish|Blacking]] Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present [[Charing Cross railway station]], where he earned six [[shilling]]s a week pasting labels on pots of boot blacking. The strenuous and often harsh working conditions made a lasting impression on Dickens and later influenced his fiction and essays, becoming the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigours of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor. He later wrote that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age".<ref name=Foster23/> As he recalled to [[John Forster (biographer)|John Forster]] (from ''Life of Charles Dickens''):
 
<blockquote>The blacking-warehouse was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist.<ref name=Foster23>{{harvnb|Forster|2006|pp=23–24}}.</ref></blockquote>
 
When the warehouse was moved to Chandos Street in the smart, busy district of [[Covent Garden]], the boys worked in a room in which the window gave onto the street. Small audiences gathered and watched them at work – in Dickens's biographer [[Simon Callow]]'s estimation, the public display was "a new refinement added to his misery".<ref name=Callow2009p25>{{harvnb|Callow|2009|p=25}}</ref>
 
[[File:Courtyard of the former Marshalsea prison, 1897 (2).png|upright|thumb|The [[Marshalsea]] around 1897, after it had closed. Dickens based several of his characters on the experience of seeing his father in the debtors' prison, most notably [[Little Dorrit|Amy Dorrit]] from ''Little Dorrit''.]]
A few months after his imprisonment, John Dickens's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens was released from prison. Under the [[Act of Parliament|Insolvent Debtors Act]], Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors and he and his family left the Marshalsea,<ref>{{harvnb|Schlicke|1999|p=157}}.</ref><!-- not for the bequest --> for the home of Mrs Roylance.
 
Charles's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, did not immediately support his removal from the boot-blacking warehouse. This influenced Dickens's view that a father should rule the family and a mother find her proper sphere inside the home: "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back." His mother's failure to request his return was a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1972|p=58}}.</ref>
 
Righteous indignation stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which [[working class|working-class]] people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most [[autobiographical novel|autobiographical, novel]], ''[[David Copperfield]]'':<ref>{{harvnb|Cain|2008|p=91}}.</ref> "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!"<ref name="Wilson61"/>
 
Dickens was eventually sent to the Wellington House Academy in [[Camden Town]], where he remained until March 1827, having spent about two years there. He did not consider it to be a good school: "Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr Creakle's Establishment in ''David Copperfield''."<ref name="Wilson61">{{harvnb|Wilson|1972|p=61}}.</ref>
 
Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, [[Gray's Inn]], as a junior [[Law clerk|clerk]] from May 1827 to November 1828. He was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers and clerks. He went to theatres obsessively: he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every day. His favourite actor was [[Charles Mathews]] and Dickens learnt his "monopolylogues" (farces in which Mathews played every character) by heart.<ref name=Callow2009p34>{{harvnb|Callow|2009|pp=34, 36}}</ref> Then, having learned [[Thomas Gurney (shorthand writer)|Gurney]]'s system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at [[Doctors' Commons]] and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years.<ref>{{harvnb|Pope-Hennessy|1945|p=18}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Wilson|1972|p=64}}.</ref> This education was to inform works such as [[Nicholas Nickleby]], ''Dombey and Son'' and especially ''Bleak House'', whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much to enlighten the general public and served as a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to "go to law".
 
In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in ''David Copperfield''. Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris.<ref>{{harvnb|Davis|1998|p=23}}.</ref>
 
==Journalism and early novels==
 
[[File:Catherine Dickens.jpg|thumb|upright|Catherine Hogarth Dickens by [[Samuel Laurence|Samuel Lawrence]] (1838). She met the author in 1834, and they became engaged the following year before marrying in April 1836.]]
In 1832, at the age of 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self-confident.<ref name=Callow2009p48>{{harvnb|Callow|2009|p=48}}</ref> He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become, and yet knew he wanted fame. Drawn to the theatre – he became an early member of the [[Garrick Club]]<ref name=Tomalin1992p7>{{harvnb|Tomalin|1992|p=7}}</ref> – he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager [[George Bartley (comedian)|George Bartley]] and the actor [[Charles Kemble]] were to see him. Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate the comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold. Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer.<ref name=Tomalin1992p76>{{harvnb|Tomalin|1992|p=76}}</ref> In 1833, he submitted his first story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical ''[[Monthly Magazine]]''.<ref name="Patten(2001)16ff">{{harvnb|Patten|2001|pp=16–18}}.</ref> William Barrow, Dickens's uncle on his mother's side, offered him a job on ''The Mirror of Parliament'' and he worked in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] for the first time early in 1832. He rented rooms at [[Furnival's Inn]] and worked as a political journalist, reporting on [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliamentary]] debates, and he travelled across Britain to cover election campaigns for the ''[[Morning Chronicle]]''. His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: ''[[Sketches by Boz]]'' – Boz being a family nickname he employed as a pseudonym for some years.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=174–176}}.</ref><ref name="Glancy 1999 6">{{harvnb|Glancy|1999|p=6}}.</ref> Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname 'Moses', which he had given to his youngest brother [[Augustus Dickens]], after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's ''[[The Vicar of Wakefield]]''. When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, "Moses" became "Boses" – later shortened to ''Boz''.<ref name="Glancy 1999 6"/><ref>{{harvnb|Van De Linde|1917|p=75}}.</ref> Dickens's own name was considered "queer" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: "Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations." Dickens contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career.<ref name="Patten(2001)16ff"/> In January 1835, the ''Morning Chronicle'' launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the ''Chronicle''{{'}}s music critic, [[George Hogarth]]. Hogarth invited him to contribute ''Street Sketches'' and Dickens became a regular visitor to his Fulham house – excited by Hogarth's friendship with [[Walter Scott]] (whom Dickens greatly admired) and enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters: Georgina, Mary and 19-year-old Catherine.<ref name=Callow2009p54>{{harvnb|Callow|2009|p=54}}</ref>
 
[[File:Sam-weller-kyd.jpeg|thumb|left|upright|The wise-cracking, warm-hearted servant [[Sam Weller (character)|Sam Weller]] from ''[[The Pickwick Papers]]''—a publishing phenomenon that sparked numerous spin-offs and ''Pickwick'' merchandise—made the 24-year-old Dickens famous.<ref name="Paris Review">{{cite news |title=The Sam Weller Bump |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/04/14/the-sam-weller-bump/ |access-date=26 June 2021 |magazine=The Paris Review}}</ref> ]]
 
Dickens made rapid progress both professionally and socially. He began a friendship with [[William Harrison Ainsworth]], the author of the highwayman novel ''[[Rookwood (novel)|Rookwood]]'' (1834), whose bachelor salon in [[Harrow Road]] had become the meeting place for a set that included [[Daniel Maclise]], [[Benjamin Disraeli]], [[Edward Bulwer-Lytton]] and [[George Cruikshank]]. All these became his friends and collaborators, with the exception of Disraeli, and he met his first publisher, John Macrone, at the house.<ref name=Callow2012p56>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=56}}</ref> The success of ''Sketches by Boz'' led to a proposal from publishers [[Chapman and Hall]] for Dickens to supply text to match [[Robert Seymour (illustrator)|Robert Seymour]]'s engraved illustrations in a monthly [[Letterpress printing|letterpress]]. Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired "[[Hablot Knight Browne|Phiz]]" to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for the story. The resulting story became ''[[The Pickwick Papers]]'' and, although the first few episodes were not successful, the introduction of the Cockney character [[Sam Weller (character)|Sam Weller]] in the fourth episode (the first to be illustrated by Phiz) marked a sharp climb in its popularity.<ref name=Callow2012p60>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=60}}</ref> The final instalment sold 40,000 copies.<ref name="Patten(2001)16ff"/> On the impact of the character, ''[[The Paris Review]]'' stated, "arguably the most historic bump in English publishing is the Sam Weller Bump."<ref name="Paris Review"/> A publishing phenomenon, [[John Sutherland (author)|John Sutherland]] called ''The Pickwick Papers'' "[t]he most important single novel of the Victorian era".<ref>{{cite news |title=Chapter One - The Pickwick Phenomenon |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/plagiarizing-the-victorian-novel/pickwick-phenomenon/D6F9FF564AD9BDD6865963E107255374 |access-date=26 June 2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref> The unprecedented success led to numerous spin-offs and merchandise ranging from ''Pickwick'' cigars, playing cards, china figurines, Sam Weller puzzles, Weller boot polish and joke books.<ref name="Paris Review"/>
 
{{quote|The Sam Weller Bump testifies not merely to Dickens’s comic genius but to his acumen as an "authorpreneur," a portmanteau he inhabited long before ''The Economist'' took it up. For a writer who made his reputation crusading against the squalor of the [[Industrial Revolution]], Dickens was a creature of capitalism; he used everything from the powerful new printing presses to the enhanced advertising revenues to the expansion of railroads to sell more books. Dickens ensured that his books were available in cheap bindings for the lower orders as well as in morocco-and-gilt for people of quality; his ideal readership included everyone from the pickpockets who read ''Oliver Twist'' to Queen Victoria, who found it "exceedingly interesting."
| source = How ''The Pickwick Papers'' Launched Charles Dickens's Career, ''The Paris Review''.<ref name="Paris Review"/>}}
 
On the creation of modern mass culture, Nicholas Dames in ''[[The Atlantic]]'' writes, “Literature” is not a big enough category for ''Pickwick''. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call “entertainment.”<ref>{{cite news |last1=Dames |first1=Nicholas |title=Was Dickens a Thief? |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/was-dickens-a-thief/392072/ |access-date=27 June 2021 |magazine=The Atlantic |date=June 2015}}</ref> In November 1836, Dickens accepted the position of editor of ''[[Bentley's Miscellany]]'', a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner.<ref>{{harvnb |Ackroyd|1990|pp= 201, 278–279}}.</ref> In 1836, as he finished the last instalments of ''The Pickwick Papers'', he began writing the beginning instalments of ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' – writing as many as 90 pages a month – while continuing work on ''Bentley's'' and also writing four plays, the production of which he oversaw. ''Oliver Twist'', published in 1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories and was the first Victorian novel with a child [[protagonist]].<ref name="Smiley12ff">{{harvnb|Smiley|2002|pp =12–14}}.</ref>
 
[[File:Charles Dickens by Daniel Maclise.jpg|thumb|upright|Young Charles Dickens by [[Daniel Maclise]], 1839]]
 
On 2 April 1836, after a one-year engagement, and between episodes two and three of ''The Pickwick Papers'', Dickens married [[Catherine Dickens|Catherine Thomson Hogarth]] (1815–1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the ''[[Evening Chronicle]]''.<ref name="Schlicke1999">{{harvnb|Schlicke|1999|p=160}}</ref> They were married in St Luke's Church,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chelseaparish.org/stlukes.htm |work=St Luke’s and Christ Church |title=Notable people connected with St Luke's |location=Chelsea |access-date=25 February 2019}}</ref> [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]], London. After a brief honeymoon in [[Chalk, Kent|Chalk]] in Kent, the couple returned to lodgings at [[Furnival's Inn]].<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=162, 181–182}}.</ref> The first of their [[Dickens family|ten children]], Charles, was born in January 1837 and a few months later the family set up [[Charles Dickens Museum, London|home in Bloomsbury]] at 48 Doughty Street, London (on which Charles had a three-year lease at £80 a year) from 25 March 1837 until December 1839.<ref name="Schlicke1999"/><ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=221}}.</ref> Dickens's younger brother [[Frederick Dickens|Frederick]] and Catherine's 17-year-old sister [[Mary Hogarth]] moved in with them. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837. Unusually for Dickens, as a consequence of his shock, he stopped working, and he and Catherine stayed at a little farm on [[Hampstead Heath]] for a fortnight. Dickens idealised Mary; the character he fashioned after her, [[Rose Maylie]], he found he could not now kill, as he had planned, in his fiction,<ref name=Callow2012p74>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=74}}</ref> and, according to Ackroyd, he drew on memories of her for his later descriptions of [[Little Nell (Dickens)|Little Nell]] and Florence Dombey.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=225–229:p=227}}.</ref> His grief was so great that he was unable to meet the deadline for the June instalment of ''The Pickwick Papers'' and had to cancel the ''Oliver Twist'' instalment that month as well.<ref name="Smiley12ff"/> The time in Hampstead was the occasion for a growing bond between Dickens and John Forster to develop; Forster soon became his unofficial business manager and the first to read his work.<ref name=Callow2012p77>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|pp=77, 78}}</ref>
 
[[File:Dolly Varden by William Powell Frith.jpg|thumb|left|upright| ''Barnaby Rudge'' was Dickens's first popular failure but the character of Dolly Varden, "pretty, witty, sexy, became central to numerous theatrical adaptations"<ref name=Callow2012p97>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=97}}</ref>]]
 
His success as a novelist continued. The young [[Queen Victoria]] read both ''Oliver Twist'' and ''The Pickwick Papers'', staying up until midnight to discuss them.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/search/displayItem.do?FormatType=fulltextimgsrc&QueryType=articles&ResultsID=2738809599926&filterSequence=1&PageNumber=1&ItemNumber=3&ItemID=qvj02315&volumeType=ESHER |title=Queen Victoria's Journals |date=26 December 1838 |publisher=RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) |access-date=24 May 2013}}</ref> ''[[Nicholas Nickleby]]'' (1838–39), ''[[The Old Curiosity Shop]]'' (1840–41) and, finally, his first historical novel, ''[[Barnaby Rudge|Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty]]'', as part of the ''[[Master Humphrey's Clock]]'' series (1840–41), were all published in monthly instalments before being made into books.<ref>{{harvnb|Schlicke|1999|p=514}}.</ref>
 
In the midst of all his activity during this period, there was discontent with his publishers and John Macrone was bought off, while [[Richard Bentley (publisher)|Richard Bentley]] signed over all his rights in ''Oliver Twist''. Other signs of a certain restlessness and discontent emerged; in [[Broadstairs]] he flirted with Eleanor Picken, the young fiancée of his solicitor's best friend and one night grabbed her and ran with her down to the sea. He declared they were both to drown there in the "sad sea waves". She finally got free, and afterwards kept her distance. In June 1841, he precipitously set out on a two-month tour of Scotland and then, in September 1841, telegraphed Forster that he had decided to go to America.<ref name=Callow2012p98>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=98}}</ref> ''Master Humphrey's Clock'' was shut down, though Dickens was still keen on the idea of the weekly magazine, a form he liked, an appreciation that had begun with his childhood reading of the 18th-century magazines ''[[Tatler (1709 journal)|Tatler]]'' and ''[[The Spectator]]''.
 
Dickens was perturbed by the return to power of the Tories, whom he described as "people whom, politically, I despise and abhor."<ref name=Slater2009p167>{{harvnb|Slater|2009|pp=167–168}}</ref> He had been tempted to stand for the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberals]] in Reading, but decided against it due to financial straits.<ref name=Slater2009p167/> He wrote three anti-Tory verse satires ("The Fine Old English Gentleman", "The Quack Doctor's Proclamation", and "Subjects for Painters") which were published in ''[[The Examiner (1808–86)|The Examiner]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schlicke |first1=Paul |title=The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens |edition=Anniversary |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199640188 |pages=462–463}}</ref>
 
==First visit to the United States==
On 22 January 1842, Dickens and his wife arrived in [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]] aboard the [[RMS Britannia|RMS ''Britannia'']] during their first trip to the United States and Canada.<ref>{{cite news |last=Miller |first=Sandra A. |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2012/03/17/when-charles-dickens-came-boston/LwCtpA83DGQWqFfVEoyfZL/story.html |title=When Charles Dickens came to Boston |work=[[The Boston Globe]] |date=18 March 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140214082528/http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2012/03/17/when-charles-dickens-came-boston/LwCtpA83DGQWqFfVEoyfZL/story.html |archive-date=14 February 2014 |access-date=22 January 2019}}</ref> At this time [[Georgina Hogarth]], another sister of Catherine, joined the Dickens household, now living at Devonshire Terrace, [[Marylebone]] to care for the young family they had left behind.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|2004|p=7}}</ref> She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser and friend until Dickens's death in 1870.<ref name="Smith10ff"/> Dickens modelled the character of [[Agnes Wickfield]] after Georgina and Mary.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=225–229}}</ref>
[[File:Charles Dickens sketch 1842.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Sketch of Dickens in 1842 during his first American tour. Sketch of Dickens's sister Fanny, bottom left]]
 
He described his impressions in a [[Travel literature|travelogue]], ''[[American Notes|American Notes for General Circulation]]''. In ''Notes'', Dickens includes a powerful condemnation of slavery which he had attacked as early as ''The Pickwick Papers'', correlating the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad<ref>{{harvnb|Moore|2004|pp=44–45}}</ref> citing newspaper accounts of runaway slaves disfigured by their masters. In spite of the abolitionist sentiments gleaned from his trip to America, some modern commentators have pointed out inconsistencies in Dickens's views on racial inequality. For instance, he has been criticized for his subsequent acquiescence in Governor [[Edward John Eyre|Eyre's]] harsh crackdown during the 1860s [[Morant Bay rebellion]] in Jamaica and his failure to join other British progressives in condemning it.<ref>{{cite news |title=Marlon James and Charles Dickens: Embrace the art, not the racist artist |url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/10/marlon-james-and-charles-dickens |access-date=21 October 2015 |work=[[The Economist]] |date=20 October 2015}}</ref> From [[Richmond, Virginia]], Dickens returned to Washington, D.C., and started a trek westward to St Louis, Missouri. While there, he expressed a desire to see an American prairie before returning east. A group of 13 men then set out with Dickens to visit Looking Glass Prairie, a trip 30 miles into [[Illinois]].
 
During his American visit, Dickens spent a month in New York City, giving lectures, raising [[History of copyright law|the question of international copyright laws]] and the pirating of his work in America.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=345–346}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Tomalin|2011|p=127}}.</ref> He persuaded a group of 25 writers, headed by [[Washington Irving]], to sign a petition for him to take to Congress, but the press were generally hostile to this, saying that he should be grateful for his popularity and that it was mercenary to complain about his work being pirated.<ref>{{harvnb|Tomalin|2011|pp=128–132}}.</ref>
 
The popularity he gained caused a shift in his self-perception according to critic Kate Flint, who writes that he "found himself a cultural commodity, and its circulation had passed out his control", causing him to become interested in and delve into themes of public and personal personas in the next novels.<ref name="flint35">{{harvnb|Flint|2001|p=35}}.</ref> She writes that he assumed a role of "influential commentator", publicly and in his fiction, evident in his next few books.<ref name="flint35"/> His trip to the U.S. ended with a trip to Canada – Niagara Falls, Toronto, Kingston and Montreal – where he appeared on stage in light comedies.<ref>{{cite news |title=Charles Dickens in Toronto |url=https://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/sites/fisher.library.utoronto.ca/files/halcyon_nov_1992.pdf |work=Halcyon: The Newsletter of the Friends of the [[Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library]] |publisher=University of Toronto |date=November 1992 |access-date=13 October 2017 |archive-date=14 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014034207/https://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/sites/fisher.library.utoronto.ca/files/halcyon_nov_1992.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>
 
[[File:Portrait of Charles John Huffman Dickens.png|thumb|upright|Dickens's portrait by [[Margaret Gillies]], 1843. Painted during the period when he was writing ''A Christmas Carol'', it was in the [[Royal Academy of Arts]]' 1844 summer exhibition. After viewing it there, [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]] said that it showed Dickens with "the dust and mud of humanity about him, notwithstanding those eagle eyes".<ref name="Brown"/>]]
Soon after his return to England, Dickens began work on the first of his Christmas stories, ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'', written in 1843, which was followed by ''[[The Chimes]]'' in 1844 and ''[[The Cricket on the Hearth]]'' in 1845. Of these, ''A Christmas Carol'' was most popular and, tapping into an old tradition, did much to promote a renewed enthusiasm for the joys of Christmas in Britain and America.<ref>{{harvnb|Callow|2009|pp=146–148}}</ref> The seeds for the story became planted in Dickens's mind during a trip to Manchester to witness the conditions of the manufacturing workers there. This, along with scenes he had recently witnessed at the Field Lane [[Ragged School]], caused Dickens to resolve to "strike a sledge hammer blow" for the poor. As the idea for the story took shape and the writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. He later wrote that as the tale unfolded he "wept and laughed, and wept again" as he "walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed".<ref>{{harvnb|Schlicke|1999|p=98}}.</ref>
 
After living briefly in Italy (1844), Dickens travelled to Switzerland (1846), where he began work on ''[[Dombey and Son]]'' (1846–48). This and ''[[David Copperfield]]'' (1849–50) mark a significant artistic break in Dickens's career as his novels became more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early works.
 
At about this time, he was made aware of a large embezzlement at the firm where his brother, [[Augustus Dickens|Augustus]], worked (John Chapman & Co). It had been carried out by [[Thomas Powell (1809-1887)|Thomas Powell]], a clerk, who was on friendly terms with Dickens and who had acted as mentor to Augustus when he started work. Powell was also an author and poet and knew many of the famous writers of the day. After further fraudulent activities, Powell fled to New York and published a book called ''The Living Authors of England'' with a chapter on Charles Dickens, who was not amused by what Powell had written. One item that seemed to have annoyed him was the assertion that he had based the character of Paul Dombey (''[[Dombey and Son]]'') on Thomas Chapman, one of the principal partners at John Chapman & Co. Dickens immediately sent a letter to [[Lewis Gaylord Clark]], editor of the New York literary magazine ''[[The Knickerbocker]]'', saying that Powell was a forger and thief. Clark published the letter in the ''[[New-York Tribune]]'' and several other papers picked up on the story. Powell began proceedings to sue these publications and Clark was arrested. Dickens, realising that he had acted in haste, contacted John Chapman & Co to seek written confirmation of Powell's guilt. Dickens did receive a reply confirming Powell's embezzlement, but once the directors realised this information might have to be produced in court, they refused to make further disclosures. Owing to the difficulties of providing evidence in America to support his accusations, Dickens eventually made a private settlement with Powell out of court.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Moss|first1=Sidney P.|last2=Moss|first2=Carolyn J.|title=The Charles Dickens-Thomas Powell Vendetta|date=1996|publisher=The Whitston Publishing Company|location=Troy New York|pages=42–125}}</ref>
 
==Philanthropy==
[[Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts|Angela Burdett Coutts]], heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens in May 1846 about setting up a home for the redemption of [[Fallen woman|fallen women]] of the working class. Coutts envisioned a home that would replace the punitive regimes of existing institutions with a reformative environment conducive to education and proficiency in domestic household chores. After initially resisting, Dickens eventually founded the home, named [[Urania Cottage]], in the Lime Grove area of [[Shepherds Bush]], which he managed for ten years,<ref>{{harvnb|Nayder|2011|p=148}}.</ref> setting the house rules, reviewing the accounts and interviewing prospective residents.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=249; 530–538; 549–550; 575}}</ref> Emigration and marriage were central to Dickens's agenda for the women on leaving Urania Cottage, from which it is estimated that about 100 women graduated between 1847 and 1859.<ref>{{harvnb|Hartley|2009|pp={{Pages needed|date=October 2017}}}}.</ref>
 
==Religious views==
[[File:Portrait of Charles Dickens (4671094).jpg|thumb|175px|Portrait of Dickens, ca. 1850. [[National Library of Wales]]]]
 
As a young man, Dickens expressed a distaste for certain aspects of organised religion. In 1836, in a pamphlet titled ''Sunday Under Three Heads'', he defended the people's right to pleasure, opposing a plan to prohibit games on Sundays. "Look into your churches – diminished congregations and scanty attendance. People have grown sullen and obstinate, and are becoming disgusted with the faith which condemns them to such a day as this, once in every seven. They display their feeling by staying away [from church]. Turn into the streets [on a Sunday] and mark the rigid gloom that reigns over everything around."<ref name=Callow2012p63>{{harvnb|Callow|2012|p=63}}</ref><ref name=Dickens1836>{{cite web |url=http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/dickens/sun_3hea.pdf |last=Dickens |first=Charles |title=Sunday under Three Heads |publisher=Electronics Classics Series |year=2013 |orig-year=1836 |access-date=25 February 2019 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140925203511/http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/dickens/sun_3hea.pdf |archive-date=25 September 2014}}</ref>
 
Dickens honoured the figure of [[Jesus|Jesus Christ]].<ref>Simon Callow, 'Charles Dickens'. p.159</ref><!-- which Callow book is this? 2009 or 2012? --> He is regarded as a professing Christian.<ref>{{cite book |first=Gary |last=Colledge |year=2012 |title=God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author |page=24 |publisher=Brazos Press |isbn=978-1441247872}}</ref> His son, [[Henry Fielding Dickens]], described him as someone who "possessed deep religious convictions". In the early 1840s, he had shown an interest in [[Unitarianism|Unitarian Christianity]] and [[Robert Browning]] remarked that "Mr Dickens is an enlightened Unitarian."<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Rost |first1=Stephen |title=The Faith Behind the Famous: Charles Dickens |url=http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-27/faith-behind-famous-charles-dickens.html |magazine=Christianity Today |url-access=subscription |access-date=20 December 2016}}</ref> Professor Gary Colledge has written that he "never strayed from his attachment to popular lay [[Anglicanism]]".<ref>{{harvnb|Colledge|2009|p=87}}.</ref> Dickens authored a work called ''[[The Life of Our Lord]]'' (1846), a book about the life of Christ, written with the purpose of sharing his faith with his children and family.<ref>{{cite web |first=Stephen |last=Skelton |url=https://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/churchandministry/Skelton_Christmas_Carol_A.aspx |title=Reclaiming 'A Christmas Carol' |work=Christian Broadcasting Network |access-date=25 February 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chucknorris.com/Christian/Christian/ebooks/dickens_life.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107040114/http://chucknorris.com/Christian/Christian/ebooks/dickens_life.pdf |url-status=dead |title=The Life Of Our Lord |archive-date=7 November 2012}}</ref>
 
Dickens disapproved of [[Roman Catholicism]] and 19th-century [[evangelicalism]], seeing both as extremes of Christianity and likely to limit personal expression, and was critical of what he saw as the hypocrisy of religious institutions and philosophies like [[spiritualism]], all of which he considered deviations from the true spirit of Christianity, as shown in the book he wrote for his family in 1846.<ref name="KSmith">{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Karl |title=Dickens and the Unreal City: Searching for Spiritual Significance in Nineteenth-Century London |date=2008 |publisher=Springer |pages=11–12}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/religion1.html |title=Dickens and Religion: ''The Life of Our Lord'' (1846) |date=June 2011 |publisher=Victorian Web |editor-first=Philip V |editor-last=Allingham}}</ref> While Dickens advocated equal rights for Catholics in England, he strongly disliked how individual civil liberties were often threatened in countries where Catholicism predominated and referred to the Catholic Church as "that curse upon the world."<ref name="KSmith"/> Dickens also rejected the Evangelical conviction that the Bible was the infallible word of God. His ideas on Biblical interpretation were similar to the Liberal Anglican [[Arthur Penrhyn Stanley]]'s doctrine of "[[Progressive revelation (Christianity)|progressive revelation]]."<ref name="KSmith"/> [[Leo Tolstoy]] and [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]] referred to Dickens as "that great Christian writer".<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Sally |editor1-last=Ledger |editor2-first=Holly |editor2-last=Furneaux |year=2011 |title=Charles Dickens in Context |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=318 |isbn=978-0521887007}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Cedric Thomas |last=Watts |year=1976 |title=The English novel |publisher=Sussex Books |page=55 |isbn=978-0905272023}}</ref>
 
==Middle years==
[[File:David reaches Canterbury, from David Copperfield art by Frank Reynolds.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[David Copperfield (character)|David]] reaches Canterbury, from ''David Copperfield''. The character incorporates many elements of Dickens's own life. Artwork by [[Frank Reynolds (artist)|Frank Reynolds]].]]
In December 1845, Dickens took up the editorship of the London-based ''[[The Daily News (UK)|Daily News]]'', a [[liberalism|liberal]] paper through which Dickens hoped to advocate, in his own words, "the Principles of Progress and Improvement, of Education and Civil and Religious Liberty and Equal Legislation."<ref name="Roberts">{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=David |title=Charles Dickens and the "Daily News": Editorials and Editorial Writers |journal=Victorian Periodicals Review |date=1989 |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=51–63 |jstor=20082378 }}</ref> Among the other contributors Dickens chose to write for the paper were the radical economist [[Thomas Hodgskin]] and the social reformer [[Douglas William Jerrold]], who frequently attacked the [[Corn Laws]].<ref name="Roberts"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Slater |first1=Michael |title=Douglas Jerrold |date=2015 |publisher=Gerald Duckworth & Co |pages=197–204 |isbn=978-0715646588}}</ref> Dickens lasted only ten weeks on the job before resigning due to a combination of exhaustion and frustration with one of the paper's co-owners.<ref name="Roberts"/>
 
The Francophile Dickens often holidayed in France and, in a speech delivered in Paris in 1846 in French, called the French "the first people in the universe".<ref name="Soubigou pages 154-167">Soubigou, Gilles "Dickens's Illustrations: France and other countries" pp. 154–167 from ''The Reception of Charles Dickens in Europe'' edited by Michael Hollington London: A&C Black 2013 p. 159.</ref> During his visit to Paris, Dickens met the French literati [[Alexandre Dumas]], [[Victor Hugo]], [[Eugène Scribe]], [[Théophile Gautier]], [[François-René de Chateaubriand]] and [[Eugène Sue]].<ref name="Soubigou pages 154-167"/> In early 1849, Dickens started to write ''[[David Copperfield]]''. It was published between 1849 and 1850. In Dickens's biography, ''Life of Charles Dickens'' (1872), [[John Forster (biographer)|John Forster]] wrote of ''David Copperfield'', "underneath the fiction lay something of the author's life".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hiu Yen Lee |first1=Klaudia |title=Charles Dickens and China, 1895–1915: Cross-Cultural Encounters |date=2015 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |page=56}}</ref> It was Dickens's personal favourite among his own novels, as he wrote in the author's preface to the 1867 edition of the novel.<ref>{{cite book |first=Charles |last=Dickens |title=David Copperfield |chapter=Preface |edition=1867 |location=London |publisher=Wordsworth Classics |page=4}}</ref>
 
In late November 1851, Dickens moved into [[Tavistock House]] where he wrote ''[[Bleak House]]'' (1852–53), ''[[Hard Times (novel)|Hard Times]]'' (1854) and ''[[Little Dorrit]]'' (1856).<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=628; 634–638}}.</ref> It was here that he indulged in the amateur theatricals described in Forster's ''Life of Charles Dickens''.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=648; 686–687; 772–773}}</ref> During this period, he worked closely with the novelist and playwright [[Wilkie Collins]]. In 1856, his income from writing allowed him to buy [[Gads Hill Place]] in [[Higham, Kent]]. As a child, Dickens had walked past the house and dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare's]] ''[[Henry IV, Part 1]]'' and this literary connection pleased him.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=32:723:750}}.</ref>
 
During this time Dickens was also the publisher, editor and a major contributor to the journals ''Household Words'' (1850–1859) and ''[[All the Year Round]]'' (1858–1870).<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=589–95; 848–852}}.</ref> In 1855, when Dickens's good friend and Liberal MP [[Austen Henry Layard]] formed an Administrative Reform Association to demand significant reforms of Parliament, Dickens joined and volunteered his resources in support of Layard's cause.<ref name="Slater 2009 389–390">{{harvnb|Slater|2009|pp=389–390}}</ref> With the exception of [[Lord John Russell]], who was the only leading politician in whom Dickens had any faith and to whom he later dedicated ''A Tale of Two Cities'', Dickens believed that the political aristocracy and their incompetence were the death of England.<ref name="Cotsell">{{cite journal |last1=Cotsell |first1=Michael |title=Politics and Peeling Frescoes: Layard of Nineveh and "Little Dorrit" |journal=Dickens Studies Annual |date=1986 |volume=15 |pages=181–200}}</ref><ref name="Slater 2009 389–390"/> When he and Layard were accused of fomenting class conflict, Dickens replied that the classes were already in opposition and the fault was with the aristocratic class. Dickens used his pulpit in ''Household Words'' to champion the Reform Association.<ref name="Cotsell"/> He also commented on foreign affairs, declaring his support for [[Giuseppe Garibaldi]] and [[Giuseppe Mazzini]], helping raise funds for their campaigns and stating that "a united Italy would be of vast importance to the peace of the world, and would be a rock in [[Louis Napoleon]]'s way," and that "I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schlicke |first1=Paul |title=The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens: Anniversary Edition |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=10}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Dickens |first1=Charles |title=The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume 2 |date=1880 |publisher=Chapman and Hall |page=140}}</ref><ref name="Ledger">{{cite book |last1=Ledger |first1=Sally |title=Charles Dickens in Context |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=43–44}}</ref>
 
Following the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857|Indian Mutiny of 1857]], Dickens joined in the widespread criticism of the [[East India Company]] for its role in the event, but reserved his fury for the rebels themselves, wishing that he was the commander-in-chief in India so that he would be able to, "do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested."<ref>{{Citation|last=Robins|first=Nick|title=A Skulking Power|date=2012|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183pcr6.16|work=The Corporation That Changed the World|pages=171–198|series=How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational|publisher=Pluto Press|jstor=j.ctt183pcr6.16|isbn=978-0-7453-3195-9|access-date=2021-01-30}}</ref>
 
[[File:Ellen Ternan.jpeg|thumb|right|upright|[[Ellen Ternan]], 1858]]
 
In 1857, Dickens hired professional actresses for the play ''[[The Frozen Deep]]'', written by him and his [[Mentorship|protégé]], [[Wilkie Collins]]. Dickens fell in love with one of the actresses, [[Ellen Ternan]], and this passion was to last the rest of his life.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=788–799}}.</ref> Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18 when he made the decision, which went strongly against Victorian convention, to separate from his wife, Catherine, in 1858; divorce was still unthinkable for someone as famous as he was. When Catherine left, never to see her husband again, she took with her one child, leaving the other children to be raised by her sister Georgina who chose to stay at Gads Hill.<ref name="Smith10ff">{{harvnb|Smith|2001|pp=10–11}}.</ref>
 
During this period, whilst pondering a project to give public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approached through a charitable appeal by [[Great Ormond Street Hospital]] to help it survive its first major financial crisis. His "Drooping Buds" essay in ''[[Household Words]]'' earlier on 3 April 1852 was considered by the hospital's founders to have been the catalyst for the hospital's success.<ref>{{harvnb|Furneaux|2011|pp=190–191}}.</ref> Dickens, whose philanthropy was well-known, was asked by his friend, the hospital's founder [[Charles West (physician)|Charles West]], to preside over the appeal, and he threw himself into the task, heart and soul.<ref>{{harvnb|Page|1999|p=261}}.</ref> Dickens's public readings secured sufficient funds for an endowment to put the hospital on a sound financial footing; one reading on 9 February 1858 alone raised £3,000.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|2004|pp=80–81}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=801, 804}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Page|1999|pp=260–263}} for excerpts from the speech.</ref>
 
[[File:Dickens by Watkins 1858.png|thumb|left|upright|Dickens at his desk, 1858]]
After separating from Catherine,<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=809–814}}.</ref> Dickens undertook a series of hugely popular and remunerative reading tours which, together with his journalism, were to absorb most of his creative energies for the next decade, in which he was to write only two more novels.<ref>{{harvnb|Sutherland|1990|p=185}}.</ref> His first reading tour, lasting from April 1858 to February 1859, consisted of 129 appearances in 49 towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland.<ref>{{harvnb|Hobsbaum|1998|p=270}}.</ref> Dickens's continued fascination with the theatrical world was written into the theatre scenes in ''Nicholas Nickleby'', but more importantly he found an outlet in public readings. In 1866, he undertook a series of public readings in England and Scotland, with more the following year in England and Ireland.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schlicke |first1=Paul |title=The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens: Anniversary Edition |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=302}}</ref>
 
[[File:A Tale of Two Cities. The restaurant where Darnay is taken to "restore himself" after his liberation.jpeg|thumb|right|Dickens was a regular patron at [[Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese]] pub in London. He included the venue in ''A Tale of Two Cities''.]]
Other works soon followed, including ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'' (1859) and ''[[Great Expectations]]'' (1861), which were resounding successes. Set in London and Paris, ''A Tale of Two Cities'' is his best-known work of historical fiction and includes the famous opening sentence which begins with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." It is regularly cited as one of the best-selling novels of all time.<ref>{{cite news |title=Charles Dickens novel inscribed to George Eliot up for sale |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/21/charles-dickens-george-eliot-a-tale-of-two-cities |access-date=7 September 2019 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=A Tale of Two Cities, King's Head, review |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/10340407/A-Tale-of-Two-Cities-Kings-Head-review.html |access-date=7 September 2019 |newspaper=The Telegraph}}</ref> Themes in ''Great Expectations'' include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.<ref>Charles Dickens (1993), ''Great Expectations'', p. 1, introduction. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics</ref>
 
In early September 1860, in a field behind Gads Hill, Dickens made a bonfire of most of his correspondence; only those letters on business matters were spared. Since Ellen Ternan also destroyed all of his letters to her,<ref>{{harvnb|Tomalin|2011|pp=332}}.</ref> the extent of the affair between the two remains speculative.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=881–883}}.</ref> In the 1930s, Thomas Wright recounted that Ternan had unburdened herself to a Canon Benham and gave currency to rumours they had been lovers.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=914–917}}.</ref> That the two had a son who died in infancy was alleged by Dickens's daughter, Kate Perugini, whom Gladys Storey had interviewed before her death in 1929. Storey published her account in ''Dickens and Daughter'',<ref>{{harvnb|Nisbet|1952|p=37}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Tomalin|1992|pp=142–143}}.</ref> but no contemporary evidence exists. On his death, Dickens settled an [[Life annuity|annuity]] on Ternan which made her financially independent. [[Claire Tomalin]]'s book, ''The Invisible Woman'', argues that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life. The book was subsequently turned into a play, ''Little Nell'', by [[Simon Gray]], and [[The Invisible Woman (2013 film)|a 2013 film]]. In the same period, Dickens furthered his interest in the [[paranormal]], becoming one of the early members of [[The Ghost Club]].<ref>{{harvnb|Henson|2004|p=113}}.</ref>
 
In June 1862, he was offered £10,000 for a reading tour of Australia.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=wYNxyc-yhuwC&pg=PA66 Ashley Alexander Mallett, ''The Black Lords of Summer: The Story of the 1868 Aboriginal Tour of England''], pp. 65–66.</ref> He was enthusiastic, and even planned a travel book, ''The Uncommercial Traveller Upside Down'', but ultimately decided against the tour.<ref>[http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dickens-charles-3409 Australian Dictionary of Biography]. Retrieved 29 October 2013</ref> Two of his sons, [[Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens]] and [[Edward Dickens|Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens]], migrated to Australia, Edward becoming a member of the [[Parliament of New South Wales]] as [[Electoral district of Wilcannia|Member for Wilcannia]] between 1889 and 1894.<ref>[http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/sydneypublishing/2011/05/charles_dickens_and_australia_1.html University of Sydney] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604221837/http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/sydneypublishing/2011/05/charles_dickens_and_australia_1.html |date=4 June 2011 }}. Retrieved 29 October 2013</ref><ref>[http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/23/1040511009543.html ''Sydney Morning Herald'', "Dickens of a time", 24 December 2002]. Retrieved 29 October 2013</ref>
 
==Last years==
[[File:Staplehurst rail crash.jpg|thumb|Aftermath of the [[Staplehurst rail crash]] in 1865]]
 
On 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in the [[Staplehurst rail crash]] in Kent. The train's first seven carriages plunged off a [[cast iron]] bridge that was under repair. The only [[first class travel|first-class]] carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Before rescuers arrived, Dickens tended and comforted the wounded and the dying with a flask of brandy and a hat refreshed with water, and saved some lives. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for ''[[Our Mutual Friend]]'', and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=959–961}}.</ref>
 
Dickens later used the experience of the crash as material for his short [[ghost story]], "[[The Signal-Man]]", in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He also based the story on several previous [[Lists of rail accidents|rail accidents]], such as the [[Clayton Tunnel rail crash]] in Sussex of 1861. Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the [[inquest]] to avoid disclosing that he had been travelling with Ternan and her mother, which would have caused a scandal.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://omf.ucsc.edu/dickens/staplehurst-disaster.html|title=The Staplehurst Disaster|access-date=28 February 2015}}</ref> After the crash, Dickens was nervous when travelling by train and would use alternative means when available.<ref name="UOC">{{cite web | url=http://omf.ucsc.edu/dickens/staplehurst-disaster.html | title=The Staplehurst Disaster | publisher=University of California: Santa Cruz | access-date=15 November 2012}}</ref> In 1868 he wrote, "I have sudden vague rushes of terror, even when riding in a hansom cab, which are perfectly unreasonable but quite insurmountable." Dickens's son, Henry, recalled, "I have seen him sometimes in a railway carriage when there was a slight jolt. When this happened he was almost in a state of panic and gripped the seat with both hands."<ref name="UOC"/>
 
==Second visit to the United States==
[[File:Buying tickets for a Charles Dickens reading at Steinway Hall, New York, New York, 1867.jpg|thumb|left|Crowd of spectators buying tickets for a Dickens reading at [[Steinway Hall]], New York City in 1867]]
While he contemplated a second visit to the United States, the outbreak of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] in America in 1861 delayed his plans. On 9 November 1867, over two years after the war, Dickens set sail from [[Liverpool]] for his second American reading tour. Landing in [[Boston]], he devoted the rest of the month to a round of dinners with such notables as [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]] and his American publisher, [[James T. Fields]]. In early December, the readings began. He performed 76 readings, netting £19,000, from December 1867 to April 1868.<ref name="Hobsbaum1998">{{harvnb|Hobsbaum|1998|p=271}}.</ref> Dickens shuttled between Boston and New York, where he gave 22 readings at [[Steinway Hall]]. Although he had started to suffer from what he called the "true American [[catarrh]]", he kept to a schedule that would have challenged a much younger man, even managing to squeeze in some sleighing in [[Central Park]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Forster|first1=John|title=The Life of Charles Dickens: 1852 - 1870, Volume 3|date=1874|publisher=Chapman and Hall|page=363}}</ref>
 
During his travels, he saw a change in the people and the circumstances of America. His final appearance was at a banquet the American Press held in his honour at [[Delmonico's Restaurant|Delmonico's]] on 18 April, when he promised never to denounce America again. By the end of the tour Dickens could hardly manage solid food, subsisting on champagne and eggs beaten in sherry. On 23 April he boarded the [[Cunard]] liner {{SS|Russia|1867|2}} to return to Britain,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wills|first1=Elspeth|title=The Fleet 1840 - 2010|date=2010|publisher=The Open Agency|location=London|isbn=9-780954-245184|page=23}}</ref> barely escaping a [[tax lien|federal tax lien]] against the proceeds of his lecture tour.<ref>{{harvnb|Jackson|1995|p=333}}.</ref>
 
==Farewell readings==
[[File:Dickensposter nottingham1869.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Poster promoting a reading by Dickens in [[Nottingham]] dated 4 February 1869, two months before he suffered a mild stroke]]
 
Between 1868 and 1869, Dickens gave a series of "farewell readings" in England, Scotland and Ireland, beginning on 6 October. He managed, of a contracted 100 readings, to deliver 75 in the provinces, with a further 12 in London.<ref name="Hobsbaum1998"/> As he pressed on he was affected by giddiness and fits of paralysis. He suffered a stroke on 18 April 1869 in Chester.<ref name=Tomalin2011p377>{{harvnb|Tomalin|2011|p=377}}</ref> He collapsed on 22 April 1869, at [[Preston, Lancashire|Preston]] in Lancashire and, on doctor's advice, the tour was cancelled.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=1043–1044}}.</ref> After further provincial readings were cancelled, he began work on his final novel, ''[[The Mystery of Edwin Drood]]''. It was fashionable in the 1860s to 'do the slums' and, in company, Dickens visited [[opium den]]s in [[Shadwell]], where he witnessed an elderly addict known as "[[Lascar|Laskar]] Sal", who formed the model for the "Opium Sal" subsequently featured in ''Edwin Drood''.<ref>{{harvnb|Foxcroft|2007|p=53}}.</ref>
 
After Dickens had regained sufficient strength, he arranged, with medical approval, for a final series of readings to partially make up to his sponsors what they had lost due to his illness. There were 12 performances, running between 11 January and 15 March 1870, the last at 8:00&nbsp;pm at [[St. James's Hall]] in London. Although in grave health by this time, he read ''A Christmas Carol'' and ''The Trial from Pickwick''. On 2 May, he made his last public appearance at a [[Royal Academy]] Banquet in the presence of the [[Edward VII of the United Kingdom|Prince]] and [[Alexandra of Denmark|Princess of Wales]], paying a special tribute on the death of his friend, the illustrator Daniel Maclise.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=1069–1070}}.</ref>
 
==Death==
[[File:Samuel Luke Fildes - The Empty Chair (The Graphic, 1870).jpg|thumb|[[Luke Fildes|Samuel Luke Fildes]] ''– The Empty Chair''. Fildes was illustrating ''Edwin Drood'' at the time of Charles Dickens's death. The engraving shows Dickens's empty chair in his study at [[Gads Hill Place]]. It appeared in the Christmas 1870 edition of ''[[The Graphic]]'' and thousands of prints of it were sold.<ref>{{cite web|title=Luke Fildes|url=http://www.thefamousartists.com/luke-fildes|publisher=TheFamousArtists.com}}</ref>]]
[[File:Charles Dickens Death Certificate.jpg|thumb|A 1905 transcribed copy of the death certificate of Charles Dickens.]]
 
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on ''Edwin Drood''. He never regained consciousness and, the next day, he died at Gads Hill Place. Biographer Claire Tomalin has suggested Dickens was actually in Peckham when he suffered the stroke and his mistress Ellen Ternan and her maids had him taken back to Gads Hill so that the public would not know the truth about their relationship.<ref name=Tomalin2011p395>{{harvnb|Tomalin|2011|pp=395–396, 484}}</ref> Contrary to his wish to be buried at [[Rochester Cathedral]] "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner",<ref>{{harvnb|Forster|2006|p=628}}.</ref> he was laid to rest in the [[Poets' Corner]] of [[Westminster Abbey]]. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads:
 
{{quote|To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9&nbsp;June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world.<ref>{{harvnb|Hughes|1891|p=226}}.</ref>}} His last words were "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=1077–1078}}.</ref>{{refn|A contemporary obituary in ''[[The Times]]'', alleged that Dickens's last words were: "Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of Art." Reprinted from ''[[The Times]]'', London, August 1870 in {{harvnb|Bidwell|1870|p=223}}.|group="nb"}} On Sunday, 19 June 1870, five days after Dickens was buried in the Abbey, Dean [[Arthur Penrhyn Stanley]] delivered a memorial elegy, lauding "the genial and loving humorist whom we now mourn", for showing by his own example "that even in dealing with the darkest scenes and the most degraded characters, genius could still be clean, and mirth could be innocent". Pointing to the fresh flowers that adorned the novelist's grave, Stanley assured those present that "the spot would thenceforth be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue."<ref>{{harvnb|Stanley|1870|pp=144–147:146}}.</ref>
 
In his will, drafted more than a year before his death, Dickens left the care of his £80,000 estate (£{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|80000|1870|r=-2}}}} in {{Inflation-year|UK}}){{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} to his long-time colleague John Forster and his "best and truest friend" Georgina Hogarth who, along with Dickens's two sons, also received a tax-free sum of £8,000 (equivalent to £{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|8000|1870|r=-3}}}} in {{Inflation-year|UK}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} Although Dickens and his wife had been separated for several years at the time of his death, he provided her with an annual income of £600 (£{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|600|1870|r=-2}}}} in {{Inflation-year|UK}}){{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} and made her similar allowances in his will. He also bequeathed £19 19s (£{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|19.95|1870|r=-2}}}} in {{Inflation-year|UK}}){{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} to each servant in his employment at the time of his death.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka//CD-Forster-13.html|title=John Forster, "The Life of Charles Dickens" (13)|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131225202712/http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka//CD-Forster-13.html|archive-date=25 December 2013}}</ref>
 
==Literary style==
 
Dickens's approach to the novel is influenced by various things, including the [[picaresque novel]] tradition,<ref name=Levin1970p676>{{harvnb|Levin|1970|p=676}}</ref> [[melodrama]]<ref name=Levin1970p674>{{harvnb|Levin|1970|p=674}}</ref> and the [[novel of sensibility]].<ref name=Purton2012pxvii>{{harvnb|Purton|2012|p=xvii}}</ref> According to Ackroyd, other than these, perhaps the most important literary influence on him was derived from the fables of ''[[The Arabian Nights]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|pp=44–45}}.</ref> [[Satire]] and [[irony]] are central to the picaresque novel.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/art/picaresque-novel |title=Picaresque novel |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica |last=Luebering |first=J E |access-date=5 March 2019}}</ref> Comedy is also an aspect of the British picaresque novel tradition of [[Laurence Sterne]], [[Henry Fielding]] and [[Tobias Smollett]]. Fielding's ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling|Tom Jones]]'' was a major influence on the 19th-century novelist including Dickens, who read it in his youth<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=44}}</ref> and named a son [[Henry Fielding Dickens]] after him.<ref name=HFDickens1934pxviii>{{harvnb|Dickens|1934|p=xviii}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25851/25851-h/25851-h.htm#Page_2_462 |last=Forster |first=John |title=The Life of Charles Dickens |publisher=Project Gutenberg |orig-year=1875 |year=2008 |access-date=5 March 2019 |volume=III |chapter=Chapter 20 |page=462}}</ref> Influenced by [[Gothic fiction]]—a literary genre that began with ''[[The Castle of Otranto]]'' (1764) by [[Horace Walpole]]—Dickens incorporated Gothic imagery, settings and plot devices in his works.<ref>{{cite news |title=Charles Dickens and the Gothic (2.11) - The Cambridge History of the Gothic |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-the-gothic/charles-dickens-and-the-gothic/FEC5D30D7DA0B6B136356034F9EEF7A0 |access-date=18 July 2021 |agency=Cambridge University Press}}</ref> Victorian gothic moved from castles and abbeys into contemporary urban environments: in particular London, such as Dickens' ''Oliver Twist'' and ''Bleak House''. In ''Great Expectations'' [[Miss Havisham]]'s bridal gown effectively doubles as her funeral shroud.<ref>{{cite news |title=Charles Dickens, Victorian Gothic and Bleak House |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/charles-dickens-victorian-gothic-and-bleak-house |access-date=18 July 2021 |agency=British Library}}</ref>
 
No other writer had such a profound influence on Dickens as [[William Shakespeare]].
On Dickens's veneration of Shakespeare, [[Alfred Harbage]] wrote "No one is better qualified to recognise literary genius than a literary genius"— ''A Kind of Power: The Shakespeare-Dickens Analogy'' (1975).<ref name="Schlicke"/> Regarding Shakespeare as "the great master" whose [[Shakespeare's plays|plays]] "were an unspeakable source of delight", Dickens’s lifelong affinity with the playwright included seeing theatrical productions of his plays in London and putting on amateur dramatics with friends in his early years.<ref name="Schlicke">{{cite book |last1=Schlicke |first1=Paul |title=The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens: Anniversary Edition |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=537}}</ref> In 1838 Dickens travelled to [[Stratford-upon-Avon]] and visited the house in which Shakespeare was born, leaving his autograph in the visitors' book. Dickens would draw on this experience in his next work, ''Nicholas Nickleby'' (1838–39), expressing the strength of feeling experienced by visitors to Shakespeare's birthplace: the character [[Nicholas Nickleby#Around London|Mrs Wititterly]] states, "I don't know how it is, but after you've seen the place and written your name in the little book, somehow or other you seem to be inspired; it kindles up quite a fire within one."<ref>{{cite news |title=Dickens and Shakespeare |url=https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/knowledgecentre/arts/literature/dickens-shakespeare/ |access-date=1 September 2020 |agency=University of Warwick}}</ref>
 
[[File:Dickens dream.jpg|thumb|''Dickens's Dream'' by [[Robert William Buss]], portraying Dickens at his desk at [[Gads Hill Place]] surrounded by many of his characters]]
 
Dickens's writing style is marked by a profuse linguistic creativity.<ref name="Mee2010">{{harvnb|Mee|2010|p=20}}.</ref> Satire, flourishing in his gift for caricature, is his forte. An early reviewer compared him to [[William Hogarth|Hogarth]] for his keen practical sense of the ludicrous side of life, though his acclaimed mastery of varieties of class idiom may in fact mirror the conventions of contemporary popular theatre.<ref>{{harvnb|Vlock|1998|p=30}}.</ref> Dickens worked intensively on developing arresting names for his characters that would reverberate with associations for his readers and assist the development of motifs in the storyline, giving what one critic calls an "allegorical impetus" to the novels' meanings.<ref name="Mee2010"/> To cite one of numerous examples, the name Mr Murdstone in ''David Copperfield'' conjures up twin allusions to murder and stony coldness.<ref>{{harvnb|Stone|1987|pp=xx–xxi}}.</ref> His literary style is also a mixture of [[fantasy]] and [[realism (arts)|realism]]. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery – he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator" – are often popular. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy.
 
The author worked closely with his illustrators, supplying them with a summary of the work at the outset and thus ensuring that his characters and settings were exactly how he envisioned them. He briefed the illustrator on plans for each month's instalment so that work could begin before he wrote them. [[Marcus Stone]], illustrator of ''Our Mutual Friend'', recalled that the author was always "ready to describe down to the minutest details the personal characteristics, and&nbsp;... life-history of the creations of his fancy".<ref>{{harvnb|Cohen|1980|p=206}}.</ref> Dickens employs [[Cockney English]] in many of his works, denoting working-class Londoners. Cockney grammar appears in terms such as [[ain't]], and consonants in words are frequently omitted, as in 'ere (here) and wot (what).<ref>{{cite news |title=London dialect in Dickens |url=https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126779.html |access-date=19 May 2020 |publisher=British Library}}</ref> An example of this usage is in ''Oliver Twist''. The Artful Dodger uses cockney slang which is juxtaposed with Oliver's 'proper' English, when the Dodger repeats Oliver saying "seven" with "sivin".<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/charles_dickens/olivr10/chapter43.html |author=Charles Dickens |title=Oliver Twist |quote=Project Gutenberg |publisher=Nalanda Digital Library |chapter=XLIII |access-date=20 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322131244/http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/charles_dickens/olivr10/chapter43.html |archive-date=22 March 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
 
===Characters===
 
[[Image:OldCuriosityShop.JPG|right|thumb|The Old Curiosity Shop in [[Holborn]], London, which inspired ''[[The Old Curiosity Shop]]''. Many of Dickens's works do not just use London as a backdrop; they are also about the city and its character.]]
Dickens's biographer [[Claire Tomalin]] regards him as the greatest creator of character in English fiction after [[Shakespeare]].<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|2012}}.</ref>
Dickensian [[List of Dickensian characters|characters]] are amongst the most memorable in English literature, especially so because of their typically whimsical names. The likes of [[Ebenezer Scrooge]], [[Tiny Tim (A Christmas Carol)|Tiny Tim]], [[Jacob Marley]] and [[Bob Cratchit]] (''A Christmas Carol''); [[Oliver Twist (character)|Oliver Twist]], [[Artful Dodger|The Artful Dodger]], [[Fagin]] and [[Bill Sikes]] (''Oliver Twist''); [[Great Expectations|Pip]], [[Miss Havisham]] and [[Abel Magwitch]] (''Great Expectations''); [[Sydney Carton]], [[Charles Darnay]] and [[Madame Defarge]] (''A Tale of Two Cities''); [[David Copperfield (character)|David Copperfield]], [[Uriah Heep]] and [[Wilkins Micawber|Mr Micawber]] (''David Copperfield''); [[Quilp|Daniel Quilp]] and [[Nell Trent]] (''The Old Curiosity Shop''), [[Samuel Pickwick]] and [[Sam Weller (character)|Sam Weller]] (''The Pickwick Papers''); and [[Wackford Squeers]] (''Nicholas Nickleby'') are so well known as to be part and parcel of popular culture, and in some cases have passed into ordinary language: a ''scrooge'', for example, is a miser or someone who dislikes Christmas festivity.<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/Scrooge,-Ebenezer|title=Scrooge, Ebenezer - definition of Scrooge, Ebenezer in English|dictionary=Oxford English Dictionary}}</ref>
 
[[File:clarke-dodger.jpg|thumb|upright|left|The [[Artful Dodger]] from ''Oliver Twist''. His dialect is rooted in [[Cockney English]].]]
His characters were often so memorable that they took on a life of their own outside his books. "Gamp" became a slang expression for an umbrella from the character [[Sarah Gamp|Mrs Gamp]], and "Pickwickian", "Pecksniffian" and "Gradgrind" all entered dictionaries due to Dickens's original portraits of such characters who were, respectively, [[Quixotism|quixotic]], hypocritical and vapidly factual. The character that made Dickens famous, Sam Weller became known for his [[Wellerism]]s—one-liners that turned [[proverb]]s on their heads.<ref name="Paris Review"/> Many were drawn from real life: Mrs Nickleby is based on his mother, although she didn't recognise herself in the portrait,<ref>{{harvnb|Ziegler|2007|p=45}}.</ref> just as Mr Micawber is constructed from aspects of his father's 'rhetorical exuberance';<ref>{{harvnb|Hawes|1998|p=153}}.</ref> Harold Skimpole in ''Bleak House'' is based on [[James Henry Leigh Hunt]]; his wife's dwarfish chiropodist recognised herself in Miss Mowcher in ''David Copperfield''.<ref>{{harvnb|Ziegler|2007|p=46}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Hawes|1998|p=158}}.</ref> Perhaps Dickens's impressions on his meeting with [[Hans Christian Andersen]] informed the delineation of Uriah Heep (a term synonymous with [[sycophant]]).<ref>{{harvnb|Hawes|1998|p=109}}.</ref>
 
[[Virginia Woolf]] maintained that "we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens" as he produces "characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks".<ref>{{harvnb|Woolf|1986|p=286}}.</ref> [[T. S. Eliot]] wrote that Dickens "excelled in character; in the creation of characters of greater intensity than human beings".<ref>{{cite news |title=The best Charles Dickens characters |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/charles-dickens/9033356/The-best-Charles-Dickens-characters.html |access-date=7 September 2019 |work=The Telegraph}}</ref> One "character" vividly drawn throughout his novels is London itself.<ref>{{cite news |last=Jones |first=Bryony |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/07/world/europe/uk-dickensian-london/ |title=A tale of one city: Dickensian London |publisher=[[CNN]] |date=13 February 2012 |access-date=21 August 2014 |ref=none}}</ref> Dickens described London as a [[magic lantern]], inspiring the places and people in many of his novels.<ref name="DickensLondon"/> From the [[coaching inn]]s on the outskirts of the city to the lower reaches of the [[River Thames|Thames]], all aspects of the capital – [[Dickens' London|Dickens's London]] – are described over the course of his body of work.<ref name="DickensLondon">{{cite book|title=Dickens's London: Perception, Subjectivity and Phenomenal Urban Multiplicity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=poidiU20hz4C&pg=PA209 |year=2012 |first=Julian |last=Wolfreys |publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=978-0-7486-4040-9|page=209}}</ref> Walking the streets (particularly around London) formed an integral part of his writing life, stoking his creativity. Dickens was known to regularly walk at least a dozen miles (19&nbsp;km) per day, and once wrote, "If I couldn’t walk fast and far, I should just explode and perish."<ref>{{cite news |title=Steve Jobs was right about walking |url=https://financialpost.com/executive/c-suite/steve-jobs-was-right-about-walking |access-date=1 July 2021 |work=Financial Post}}</ref>
 
===Autobiographical elements===
 
[[File:David Copperfield, We are disturbed in our cookery.jpg|thumb|right|An original illustration by [[Phiz]] from the novel ''David Copperfield'', which is widely regarded as Dickens's most autobiographical work]]
 
Authors frequently draw their portraits of characters from people they have known in real life. ''David Copperfield'' is regarded by many as a veiled autobiography of Dickens. The scenes of interminable court cases and legal arguments in ''Bleak House'' reflect Dickens's experiences as a law clerk and court reporter, and in particular his direct experience of the law's procedural delay during 1844 when he sued publishers in Chancery for breach of copyright.<ref>{{harvnb|Polloczek|1999|p=133}}.</ref> Dickens's father was sent to prison for debt and this became a common theme in many of his books, with the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in ''Little Dorrit'' resulting from Dickens's own experiences of the institution.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=}}.</ref> Lucy Stroughill, a childhood sweetheart, may have affected several of Dickens's portraits of girls such as Little Em'ly in ''David Copperfield'' and Lucie Manette in ''A Tale of Two Cities.''<ref>{{harvnb|Slater|1983|pp=43, 47}}</ref>{{refn|Slater detects also Ellen Ternan in the portrayal of Lucie Manette.|group="nb"}}
 
Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he gathered his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death, when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated. Though Skimpole brutally sends up Leigh Hunt, some critics have detected in his portrait features of Dickens's own character, which he sought to exorcise by self-parody.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=653}}.</ref>
 
===Episodic writing===
[[File:Publicité pour Great Expectations dans All the Year Round.jpeg|thumb|right|225px|Advertisement for ''Great Expectations'', serialised in the weekly literary magazine ''[[All the Year Round]]'' from December 1860 to August 1861]]
A pioneer of the [[Serial (literature)|serial]] publication of narrative fiction, Dickens wrote most of his major novels in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as ''[[Master Humphrey's Clock]]'' and ''[[Household Words]]'', later reprinted in book form.<ref name="Grossman 2012 54"/><ref name="Lodge 2002 118"/> These instalments made the stories affordable and accessible, with the audience more evenly distributed across income levels than previous.<ref name="Howsam">{{cite book |last1=Howsam |first1=Leslie |title=The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=85|quote=It inspired a narrative that Dickens would explore and develop throughout his career. The instalments would typically culminate at a point in the plot that created reader anticipation and thus reader demand, generating a plot and sub-plot motif that would come to typify the novel structure.}}</ref> His instalment format inspired a narrative that he would explore and develop throughout his career, and the regular [[cliffhanger]]s made each new episode widely anticipated.<ref name="NewYorker"/><ref name="Howsam"/> When ''[[The Old Curiosity Shop]]'' was being serialised, American fans waited at the docks in [[New York harbor|New York harbour]], shouting out to the crew of an incoming British ship, "Is little Nell dead?"<ref>{{harvnb|Glancy|1999|p=34}}.</ref> Dickens's talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end.
 
Another important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style resulted from his exposure to the opinions of his readers and friends. His friend Forster had a significant hand in reviewing his drafts, an influence that went beyond matters of punctuation. He toned down melodramatic and sensationalist exaggerations, cut long passages (such as the episode of Quilp's drowning in ''The Old Curiosity Shop''), and made suggestions about plot and character. It was he who suggested that Charley Bates should be redeemed in ''Oliver Twist''. Dickens had not thought of killing Little Nell and it was Forster who advised him to entertain this possibility as necessary to his conception of the heroine.<ref>{{harvnb|Davies|1983|pp=166–169}}.</ref>
 
Dickens's serialisation of his novels was criticised by other authors. In Scottish author [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s novel ''[[The Wrecker (Stevenson novel)|The Wrecker]]'', there is a comment by Captain Nares, investigating an abandoned ship: "See! They were writing up the log," said Nares, pointing to the ink-bottle. "Caught napping, as usual. I wonder if there ever was a captain yet that lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles Dickens and his serial novels."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stevenson |first1=Robert Louis |title=The Novels and Tales of Robert Louis Stevenson: The Wrecker |date=1895 |publisher=Scribner’s |page=245}}</ref>
 
===Social commentary===
[[File:Martin Chuzzlewit illus11.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Nurse [[Sarah Gamp]] (left) from ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' became a stereotype of untrained and incompetent nurses of the early Victorian era, before the reforms of [[Florence Nightingale]].]]
Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of [[social commentary]]. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and [[social stratification]] of [[Victorian era|Victorian]] society. In a New York address, he expressed his belief that "Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen".<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=345}}.</ref> Dickens's second novel, ''Oliver Twist'' (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime: it challenged middle class polemics about criminals, making impossible any pretence to ignorance about what poverty entailed.<ref>{{harvnb|Raina|1986|p=25}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bodenheimer|2011|p=147}}.</ref>
 
At a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged within society. Through his journalism he campaigned on specific issues – such as [[sanitation]] and the [[workhouse]] – but his fiction probably demonstrated its greatest prowess in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and oppression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist, but flourished as a result. His most strident indictment of this condition is in ''Hard Times'' (1854), Dickens's only novel-length treatment of the industrial working class. In this work, he uses vitriol and satire to illustrate how this marginalised social stratum was termed "Hands" by the factory owners; that is, not really "people" but rather only appendages of the machines they operated. His writings inspired others, in particular journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. For example, the prison scenes in ''The Pickwick Papers'' are claimed to have been influential in having the [[Fleet Prison]] shut down. [[Karl Marx]] asserted that Dickens "issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together".<ref name="KucichSadoff">{{harvnb|Kucich|Sadoff|2006|p=155}}.</ref> [[George Bernard Shaw]] even remarked that ''Great Expectations'' was more seditious than Marx's ''[[Das Kapital]]''.<ref name="KucichSadoff"/> The exceptional popularity of Dickens's novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (''Bleak House'', 1853; ''Little Dorrit'', 1857; ''Our Mutual Friend'', 1865), not only underscored his ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also ensured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored. It has been argued that his technique of flooding his narratives with an 'unruly superfluity of material' that, in the gradual dénouement, yields up an unsuspected order, influenced the organisation of [[Charles Darwin]]'s ''[[On the Origin of Species]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Atkinson|1990|p=48}}, citing [[Gillian Beer]]'s ''Darwin's Plots'' (1983, p.8).</ref>
 
===Literary techniques===
 
[[File:Bleakhouse1920c.jpg|thumb|[[Bleak House, Broadstairs|Bleak House]] (pictured in the 1920s) in [[Broadstairs]], Kent, where Dickens wrote some of his novels]]
[[File:Dickens Chalet. Medway.jpg|thumb|right|Dickens chalet in [[Rochester, Kent]] where he was writing the last chapters of ''Edwin Drood'' the day before he died]]
Dickens is often described as using idealised characters and highly sentimental scenes to contrast with his [[caricature]]s and the ugly social truths he reveals. The story of Nell Trent in ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' (1841) was received as extraordinarily moving by contemporary readers but viewed as ludicrously sentimental by [[Oscar Wilde]]. "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell", he said in a famous remark, "without dissolving into tears ... of laughter."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/boev1.html|title=Deconstructing Little Nell|last=Boev|first=Hristo|website=The Victorian Web}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Ellmann|1988|p=441}}: In conversation with [[Ada Leverson]].</ref> [[G. K. Chesterton]] stated, "It is not the death of little Nell, but the life of little Nell, that I object to", arguing that the maudlin effect of his description of her life owed much to the gregarious nature of Dickens's grief, his "despotic" use of people's feelings to move them to tears in works like this.<ref>{{harvnb|Chesterton|1911|pp=54–55}}.</ref>
 
The question as to whether Dickens belongs to the tradition of the [[sentimental novel]] is debatable. Valerie Purton, in her book ''Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition'', sees him continuing aspects of this tradition, and argues that his "sentimental scenes and characters [are] as crucial to the overall power of the novels as his darker or comic figures and scenes", and that "''Dombey and Son'' is [ ... ] Dickens's greatest triumph in the sentimentalist tradition".<ref>{{cite book |last=Purton |first=Valerie |title=Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition: Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Lamb |series=Anthem nineteenth century studies |location=London |publisher=Anthem Press |year=2012 |pages=xiii, 123 |isbn=978-0857284181}}</ref> The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' online comments that, despite "patches of emotional excess", such as the reported death of Tiny Tim in ''A Christmas Carol'' (1843), "Dickens cannot really be termed a sentimental novelist".<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/421071/novel |title=novel (literature) |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=7 July 2013}}</ref>
 
In ''Oliver Twist'' Dickens provides readers with an idealised portrait of a boy so inherently and unrealistically good that his values are never subverted by either brutal orphanages or coerced involvement in a gang of young [[pickpocketing|pickpockets]]. While later novels also centre on idealised characters (Esther Summerson in ''Bleak House'' and Amy Dorrit in ''Little Dorrit''), this idealism serves only to highlight Dickens's goal of poignant social commentary. Dickens's fiction, reflecting what he believed to be true of his own life, makes frequent use of coincidence, either for comic effect or to emphasise the idea of providence.<ref>{{harvnb|Marlow|1994|pp=149–150}}.</ref> For example, Oliver Twist turns out to be the lost nephew of the upper-class family that rescues him from the dangers of the pickpocket group. Such coincidences are a staple of 18th-century picaresque novels, such as Henry Fielding's ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling|Tom Jones]],'' which Dickens enjoyed reading as a youth.<ref>{{harvnb|Ackroyd|1990|p=44}}.</ref>
 
==Reputation==
[[File:Ottawa Public Library.jpg|thumb|right|Dickens's portrait (top left), in between Shakespeare and Tennyson, on a stained glass window at the [[Ottawa Public Library]], Ottawa, Canada]]
Dickens was the most popular novelist of his time,<ref>{{harvnb|Trollope|2007|p=62}}.</ref> and remains one of the best-known and most-read of English authors. His works have never gone [[Out-of-print book|out of print]],<ref>{{harvnb|Swift|2007}}</ref> and have been adapted continually for the screen since the invention of cinema,<ref>{{harvnb|Sasaki|2011|p=67}}.</ref> with at least 200 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on Dickens's works documented.<ref>{{harvnb|Morrison|2012}}.</ref> Many of his works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime and, as early as 1913, a silent film of ''The Pickwick Papers'' was made.<ref>{{cite book|last=Flom|first=Eric L. |title=Silent Film Stars on the Stages of Seattle: A History of Performances by Hollywood Notables|date= 5 March 2009|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786439089|page=119}}</ref> Contemporaries such as publisher [[Edward Lloyd (publisher)|Edward Lloyd]] cashed in on Dickens's popularity with cheap imitations of his novels, resulting in his own popular ‘[[penny dreadful|penny dreadfuls']].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Flood |first1=Alison |title=Oliver Twiss and Martin Guzzlewit – the fan fiction that ripped off Dickens |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/25/oliver-twiss-twist-charles-dickens-rip-off-edward-lloyd |access-date=4 July 2020 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=25 June 2019}}</ref>
 
From the beginning of his career in the 1830s, Dickens's achievements in English literature were compared to those of Shakespeare.<ref name="Schlicke"/> Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest British novelist of the [[Victorian era]].<ref name=autogenerated1/> His literary reputation, however began to decline with the publication of ''Bleak House'' in 1852–53. Philip Collins calls ''Bleak House'' ‘a crucial item in the history of Dickens's reputation. Reviewers and literary figures during the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s, saw a "drear decline" in Dickens, from a writer of "bright sunny comedy ... to dark and serious social" commentary.<ref>Adam Roerts, "Dickens Reputation",''Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens'', ed. Paul Schlicke, Oxford University Press Print Publication Date: 2000 Print {{ISBN|9780198662532}} Published online: 2011 (subscription required) e {{ISBN|9780191727986}}, p. 504.</ref> ''[[The Spectator]]'' called ''Bleak House'' "a heavy book to read through at once ... dull and wearisome as a serial"; Richard Simpson, in ''[[The Rambler]]'', characterised ''Hard Times'' as "this dreary framework"; ''[[Fraser's Magazine]]'' thought ''Little Dorrit'' "decidedly the worst of his novels".<ref name="auto">Adam Roerts, "Dickens Reputation", p. 505.</ref> All the same, despite these "increasing reservations amongst reviewers and the chattering classes, 'the public never deserted its favourite'". Dickens's popular reputation remained unchanged, sales continued to rise, and ''[[Household Words]]'' and later ''[[All the Year Round]]'' were highly successful.<ref name="auto"/>
 
[[File:Charles Dickens, public reading, 1867.jpg|left|thumb|"Charles Dickens as he appears when reading." Wood engraving from ''[[Harper's Weekly]]'', 7 December 1867]]
Later in his career, Dickens's fame and the demand for his public readings were unparalleled. In 1868 ''[[The Times]]'' wrote, "Amid all the variety of 'readings', those of Mr Charles Dickens stand alone.”<ref name="Garratt"/> A Dickens biographer, Edgar Johnson, wrote in the 1950s: "It was [always] more than a reading; it was an extraordinary exhibition of acting that seized upon its auditors with a mesmeric possession."<ref name="Garratt"/> Comparing his reception at public readings to those of a contemporary pop star, ''The Guardian'' states, "People sometimes fainted at his shows. His performances even saw the rise of that modern phenomenon, the 'speculator' or [[Ticket resale|ticket tout]] (scalpers) – the ones in New York City escaped detection by borrowing respectable-looking hats from the waiters in nearby restaurants."<ref>{{cite news |first=Matt |last=Shinn| title=Stage frights |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004/jan/31/theatre.classics |date=31 January 2004 |access-date=12 September 2019 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>
 
{{quote box
| width = 27%
| align = right
| quote = "Dickens's vocal impersonations of his own characters gave this truth a theatrical form: the public reading tour. No other Victorian could match him for celebrity, earnings, and sheer vocal artistry. The Victorians craved the author's multiple voices: between 1853 and his death in 1870, Dickens performed about 470 times."
| source = —Peter Garratt in ''The Guardian'' on Dickens's fame and the demand for his public readings<ref name="Garratt">{{cite news |title=Hearing voices allowed Charles Dickens to create extraordinary fictional worlds |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/22/charles-dickens-hearing-voices-created-his-novels |access-date=7 September 2019 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>
}}
Among fellow writers, there was a range of opinions on Dickens. [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet laureate]], [[William Wordsworth]] (1770–1850), thought him a "very talkative, vulgar young person", adding he had not read a line of his work, while novelist [[George Meredith]] (1828–1909), found Dickens "intellectually lacking".<ref>[https://books.google.ca/books?id=_fiuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=Not+much+of+Dickens+will+live,+because+it+has+so+little+correspondence+to+life.+He+was+the+incarnation+of+cockneydom,+a+caricaturist+who+aped+the+moralist;+he+should+have+kept+to+short+stories.+If+his+novels+are+read+at+all+in+the+future,+people+will+wonder+what+we+saw+in+them.&source=bl&ots=RCbLV-oFmU&sig=ACfU3U29Onvdso8VoklEJmhhQFZuFwt7HQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL7euEyMDiAhWjtVkKHQRGBXYQ6AEwBHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Not%20much%20of%20Dickens%20will%20live%2C%20because%20it%20has%20so%20little%20correspondence%20to%20life.%20He%20was%20the%20incarnation%20of%20cockneydom%2C%20a%20caricaturist%20who%20aped%20the%20moralist%3B%20he%20should%20have%20kept%20to%20short%20stories.%20If%20his%20novels%20are%20read%20at%20all%20in%20the%20future%2C%20people%20will%20wonder%20what%20we%20saw%20in%20them.&f=false Neil Roberts, ''Meredith and the Novel''. Springer, 1997, p. 49].</ref> In 1888 [[Leslie Stephen]] commented in the ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'' that "if literary fame could be safely measured by popularity with the half-educated, Dickens must claim the highest position among English novelists".<ref>[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofnati15stepuoft/page/30 ''Dictionary of National Biography'' Macmillan, 1888, p. 30].</ref> [[Anthony Trollope]]'s ''Autobiography'' famously declared Thackeray, not Dickens, to be the greatest novelist of the age. However, both [[Leo Tolstoy]] and [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]] were admirers. Dostoyevsky commented: "We understand Dickens in Russia, I am convinced, almost as well as the English, perhaps even with all the nuances. It may well be that we love him no less than his compatriots do. And yet how original is Dickens, and how very English!"<ref>{{cite book|last1=Friedberg|first1=Maurice|title=Literary Translation in Russia: A Cultural History|date=1997|publisher=Penn State Press|page=12}}</ref> Tolstoy referred to ''David Copperfield'' as his favourite book, and he later adopted the novel as "a model for his own autobiographical reflections".<ref name="Inimitable Dickens">{{cite news |title=Charles Dickens: Eminently Adaptable but Quite Inimitable; Dostoyevsky to Disney, The Dickensian Legacy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/22/books/critics-notebook-charles-dickens-eminently-adaptable-but-quite-inimitable.html |access-date=3 April 2020 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> French writer [[Jules Verne]] called Dickens his favourite writer, writing his novels "stand alone, dwarfing all others by their amazing power and felicity of expression".<ref>Soubigou, Gilles "Dickens's Illustrations: France and other countries" pp. 154-167 from ''The Reception of Charles Dickens in Europe'' edited by Michael Hollington London: A&C Black 2013 p. 161.</ref> Dutch painter [[Vincent van Gogh]] was inspired by Dickens's novels in several of his paintings like ''Vincent's Chair'' and in an 1889 letter to his sister stated that reading Dickens, especially ''A Christmas Carol'', was one of the things that was keeping him from committing suicide.<ref>Soubigou, Gilles "Dickens's Illustrations: France and other countries" pp. 154-167 from ''The Reception of Charles Dickens in Europe'' edited by Michael Hollington London: A&C Black 2013 pp. 164-165.</ref> Oscar Wilde generally disparaged his depiction of character, while admiring his gift for caricature.<ref>{{harvnb|Ellmann|1988|pp=25,359}}.</ref> Henry James denied him a premier position, calling him "the greatest of superficial novelists": Dickens failed to endow his characters with psychological depth, and the novels, "loose baggy monsters",<ref>{{harvnb|Kucich|Sadoff|2006|p=162}}.</ref> betrayed a "cavalier organisation".<ref>{{harvnb|Mazzeno|2008|pp=23–4}}.</ref> [[Joseph Conrad]] described his own childhood in bleak Dickensian terms, and noted he had "an intense and unreasoning affection" for ''Bleak House'', dating back to his boyhood. The novel influenced his own gloomy portrait of London in ''[[The Secret Agent]]'' (1907).<ref name="Inimitable Dickens"/> [[Virginia Woolf]] had a love-hate relationship with his works, finding his novels "mesmerizing" while reproving him for his sentimentalism and a commonplace style.<ref>{{harvnb|Mazzeno|2008|p=67}}.</ref>
 
Around 1940–41, the attitude of the literary critics began to warm towards Dickens – led by [[George Orwell]] in ''[[Inside the Whale and Other Essays]]'' (March 1940), [[Edmund Wilson]] in ''The Wound and the Bow'' (1941) and Humphry House in ''Dickens and his World''.<ref>Philip Collins, "Dickens reputation". Britannica Academica</ref> However, even in 1948, [[F. R. Leavis]], in ''[[The Great Tradition]]'', asserted that "the adult mind doesn't as a rule find in Dickens a challenge to an unusual and sustained seriousness"; Dickens was indeed a great genius, "but the genius was that of a great entertainer",<ref>[https://www-oxfordreference-com.qe2a-proxy.mun.ca/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662532.001.0001/acref-9780198662532-e-0371?rskey=CR5r9U&result=371 Oxford Reference, subscription required]</ref> though he later changed his opinion with ''Dickens the Novelist'' (1970, with [[Q. D. Leavis|Q. D. (Queenie) Leavis]]): "Our purpose", they wrote, "is to enforce as unanswerably as possible the conviction that Dickens was one of the greatest of creative writers".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571243600-dickens-the-novelist.htm |title="Dickens", Faber & Faber.}}{{dead link |date=November 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> In 1944, Soviet film director and film theorist [[Sergei Eisenstein]] wrote an essay on Dickens's influence on cinema, such as [[cross-cutting]] – where two stories run alongside each other, as seen in novels such as ''Oliver Twist''.<ref>{{cite news |title=Dickens on screen: the highs and the lows |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/23/dickens-on-screen-highs-lows |access-date=21 April 2020 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref>
 
In the 1950s, "a substantial reassessment and re-editing of the works began, and critics found his finest artistry and greatest depth to be in the later novels: ''Bleak House'', ''Little Dorrit'', and ''Great Expectations – ''and (less unanimously) in ''Hard Times'' and ''Our Mutual Friend''".<ref>Britannica Academica, subscription required.</ref> Dickens was a favourite author of [[Roald Dahl]]; the best-selling children's author would include three of Dickens's novels among those read by the [[Matilda Wormwood|title character]] in his 1988 novel ''[[Matilda (novel)|Matilda]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rosen |first1=Michael |title=Fantastic Mr Dahl |date=2012 |publisher=Penguin UK}}</ref> An avid reader of Dickens, in 2005, [[Paul McCartney]] named ''Nicholas Nickleby'' his favourite novel. On Dickens he states, "I like the world that he takes me to. I like his words; I like the language", adding, "A lot of my stuff – it's kind of Dickensian."<ref>{{cite news |title=Dear sir or madam, will you read my book?|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3647089/Dear-sir-or-madam-will-you-read-my-book.html |access-date=15 April 2020 |work=The Telegraph}}</ref> Screenwriter [[Jonathan Nolan|Jonathan Nolan's]] screenplay for ''[[The Dark Knight Rises]]'' (2012) was inspired by ''A Tale of Two Cities'', with Nolan calling the depiction of Paris in the novel "one of the most harrowing portraits of a relatable, recognisable civilisation that completely folded to pieces".<ref>{{cite news |title=Christopher and Jonathan Nolan Explain How A Tale Of Two Cities Influenced The Dark Knight Rises|url=http://collider.com/dark-knight-rises-tale-of-two-cities/ |access-date=9 September 2019 |agency=Collider}}</ref> On 7 February 2012, the 200th anniversary of Dickens's birth, [[Philip Womack]] wrote in ''The Telegraph'': "Today there is no escaping Charles Dickens. Not that there has ever been much chance of that before. He has a deep, peculiar hold upon us".<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9066463/Why-Charles-Dickens-speaks-to-us-now.html "Why Charles Dickens speaks to us now".]. ''[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]''. Retrieved 31 May 2019</ref>
 
==Influence and legacy==
[[File:Dickens and Nell Philly.JPG|thumb|upright|[[Dickens and Little Nell (Elwell)|''Dickens and Little Nell'']] statue in [[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania]]
[[File:Charles Dickens grave 2012.jpg|thumb|upright|Dickens's grave in [[Westminster Abbey]] in 2012]]
Museums and festivals celebrating Dickens's life and works exist in many places with which Dickens was associated. These include the [[Charles Dickens Museum]] in London, the historic home where he wrote ''[[Oliver Twist]]'', ''[[The Pickwick Papers]]'' and ''[[Nicholas Nickleby]]''; and the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth, the house in which he was born. The original manuscripts of many of his novels, as well as printers' proofs, first editions, and illustrations from the collection of Dickens's friend John Forster are held at the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]].<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|2004|p=104}}.</ref> Dickens's will stipulated that no memorial be erected in his honour; nonetheless, a life-size bronze statue of Dickens entitled ''[[Dickens and Little Nell (Elwell)|Dickens and Little Nell]]'', cast in 1891 by [[Francis Edwin Elwell]], stands in [[Clark Park]] in the [[Spruce Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|Spruce Hill]] neighbourhood of [[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania. Another life-size statue of Dickens is located at [[Centennial Park, New South Wales|Centennial Park]], Sydney, Australia.<ref>[http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/down-under-with-dickens-20120203-1qx21.html "Down Under with Dickens"]. Sydney Morning Herald". Retrieved 18 February 2014</ref> In 1960 a [[Relief|bass relief]] sculpture of Dickens, notably featuring characters from his books, was commissioned from sculptor Estcourt J Clack to adorn the office building built on the site of his former home at 1 Devonshire Terrace, London.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Who's who in Dickens|last=Hawes, Donald.|date=1998|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-13604-0|location=London|oclc=36663056}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/charles-dickens-relief/|title=Charles Dickens relief|website=London Remembers|access-date=8 January 2020}}</ref> In 2014, a life-size statue was unveiled near his birthplace in Portsmouth on the 202nd anniversary of his birth; this was supported by the author's great-great grandsons, Ian and [[Gerald Charles Dickens (actor)|Gerald Dickens]].<ref>{{cite news | first = Maev | last = Kennedy | title = Portsmouth erects Britain's first full-size statue of Charles Dickens | date = 6 February 2014 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/06/portsmouth-charles-dickens-statue-uk-martin-jennings | work = The Guardian | access-date = 26 February 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-26090562|title=Charles Dickens statue unveiled in Portsmouth|work=[[BBC]]|access-date=14 February 2014}}</ref>
 
''A Christmas Carol'' is most probably his best-known story, with frequent new adaptations. It is also the most-filmed of Dickens's stories, with many versions dating from the early years of cinema.<ref name="Callow2009p39">{{harvnb|Callow|2009|p=39}}</ref> According to the historian [[Ronald Hutton]], the current state of the observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by ''A Christmas Carol''. Dickens catalysed the emerging Christmas as a family-centred festival of generosity, in contrast to the dwindling community-based and church-centred observations, as new middle-class expectations arose.<ref>{{harvnb|Hutton|2001|p=188}}.</ref> Its archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) entered into Western cultural consciousness. "[[Christmas and holiday season#History of the phrase|Merry Christmas]]", a prominent phrase from the tale, was popularised following the appearance of the story.<ref>{{harvnb|Cochrane|1996|p=126}}.</ref> The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser,<!-- already stated above --> and his dismissive exclamation [[Humbug|"Bah! Humbug!'"]] likewise gained currency as an idiom.<ref>{{harvnb|Robinson|2005|p=316}}.</ref> Novelist [[William Makepeace Thackeray]] called the book "a national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads it a personal kindness".<ref name="Callow2009p39"/>
 
Dickens was commemorated on the [[Banknotes of the pound sterling|Series E £10 note]] issued by the [[Bank of England note issues|Bank of England]] that circulated between 1992 and 2003. His portrait appeared on the reverse of the note accompanied by a scene from ''The Pickwick Papers''. [[The Charles Dickens School]] is a high school in Broadstairs, Kent. A theme park, [[Dickens World]], standing in part on the site of the former [[Chatham Dockyard|naval dockyard]] where Dickens's father once worked in the Navy Pay Office, opened in [[Chatham, Kent|Chatham]] in 2007. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens in 2012, the [[Museum of London]] held the UK's first major exhibition on the author in 40 years.<ref>{{harvnb|Werner|2011}}.</ref> In 2002, Dickens was number 41 in the [[BBC]]'s poll of the [[100 Greatest Britons]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/greatbritons/list.shtml/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021204214727/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/greatbritons/list.shtml/|archive-date=4 December 2002|title=BBC&nbsp;– Great Britons&nbsp;– Top 100|work=[[Internet Archive]]|access-date=20 April 2013}}</ref> American literary critic [[Harold Bloom]] placed Dickens among the [[The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages|greatest Western writers of all time]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Bloom |first=Harold |author-link=Harold Bloom |year=1994 |title=The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages |page=[https://archive.org/details/westerncanonbook00bloorich/page/226 226] |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt Brace |isbn=0-15-195747-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/westerncanonbook00bloorich/page/226 }}</ref> In the 2003 UK survey [[The Big Read]] carried out by the BBC, five of Dickens's books were named in the [[The Big Read#Top 200 novels in the United Kingdom|Top 100]].<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml "The Big Read: Top 100 Books"]. [[BBC]]. Retrieved 2 April 2011</ref>
 
Actors who have portrayed Dickens on screen include [[Anthony Hopkins]], [[Derek Jacobi]], [[Simon Callow]] and [[Ralph Fiennes]], the latter playing the author in ''[[The Invisible Woman (2013 film)|The Invisible Woman]]'' (2013) which depicts Dickens’s secret love affair with [[Ellen Ternan]] which lasted for thirteen years until his death in 1870.<ref>{{cite news |title=First pictures released of Ralph Fiennes as Charles Dickens |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/9274910/First-pictures-released-of-Ralph-Fiennes-as-Charles-Dickens.html |access-date=28 April 2021 |newspaper=The Telegraph}}</ref>
 
Dickens and his publications have appeared on a number of [[postage stamps]] in countries including: the United Kingdom (1970, 1993, 2011 and 2012), the Soviet Union (1962), Antigua, Barbuda, Botswana, Cameroon, Dubai, Fujairah, St Christopher, Nevis and Anguilla, St Helena, St Lucia and Turks and Caicos Islands (1970), St Vincent (1987), Nevis (2007), [[List of postage stamps of Alderney|Alderney]], Gibraltar, Jersey and Pitcairn Islands (2012), Austria (2013), and Mozambique (2014).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/sydneypublishing/2011/08/on_dickens_and_postage_stamps_1.html |first=Agata |last=Mrva-Montoya |title=On Dickens and postage stamps |publisher=University of Sydney |date=August 2011 |access-date=25 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190226045748/http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/sydneypublishing/2011/08/on_dickens_and_postage_stamps_1.html |archive-date=26 February 2019 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
 
In November 2018 it was reported that a previously lost portrait of a 31-year-old Dickens, by [[Margaret Gillies]], had been found in [[Pietermaritzburg]], South Africa. Gillies was an early supporter of [[women's suffrage]] and had painted the portrait in late 1843 when Dickens, aged 31, wrote ''A Christmas Carol''. It was exhibited, to acclaim, at the [[Royal Academy of Arts]] in 1844.<ref name="Brown">{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=Mark |title=Lost portrait of Charles Dickens turns up at auction in South Africa |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/21/lost-portrait-charles-dickens-turns-up-auction-south-africa-margaret-gillies |access-date=22 November 2018 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=21 November 2018}}</ref>
 
==Works==
{{Main|Charles Dickens bibliography}}
 
Dickens published well over a dozen major novels and novellas, a large number of short stories, including a number of Christmas-themed stories, a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.
 
* ''[[The Pickwick Papers]]'' (''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club''; monthly serial, April 1836 to November 1837)<ref>{{harvnb|Johnson|1969}} for the serial publication dates.</ref>
* ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' (''The Adventures of Oliver Twist''; monthly serial in ''[[Bentley's Miscellany]]'', February 1837 to April 1839)
* ''[[Nicholas Nickleby]]'' (''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby''; monthly serial, April 1838 to October 1839)
* ''[[The Old Curiosity Shop]]'' (weekly serial in ''[[Master Humphrey's Clock]]'', April 1840 to November 1841)
* ''[[Barnaby Rudge]]'' (''Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty''; weekly serial in ''[[Master Humphrey's Clock]]'', February to November 1841)
* ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' (''A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost-story of Christmas''; 1843)
* ''[[Martin Chuzzlewit]]'' (''The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit''; monthly serial, January 1843 to July 1844)
* ''[[The Chimes]]'' (''The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In''; 1844)
* ''[[The Cricket on the Hearth]]'' (''The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home''; 1845)
* ''[[The Battle of Life]]'' (''The Battle of Life: A Love Story''; 1846)
* ''[[Dombey and Son]]'' (''Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation''; monthly serial, October 1846 to April 1848)
* ''[[The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain|The Haunted Man]]'' (''The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain: A Fancy for Christmas-time''; 1848)
* ''[[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]''; monthly serial, May 1849 to November 1850)
* ''[[Bleak House]]'' (monthly serial, March 1852 to September 1853)
* ''[[Hard Times (novel)|Hard Times]]'' (''Hard Times: For These Times''; weekly serial in ''[[Household Words]]'', 1 April 1854, to 12 August 1854)
* ''[[Little Dorrit]]'' (monthly serial, December 1855 to June 1857)
* ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'' (weekly serial in ''[[All the Year Round]]'', 30 April 1859, to 26 November 1859)
* ''[[Great Expectations]]'' (weekly serial in ''[[All the Year Round]]'', 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861)
* ''[[Our Mutual Friend]]'' (monthly serial, May 1864 to November 1865)
* ''[[The Signal-Man]]'' (1866), first published as part of the ''[[Mugby Junction]]'' collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of ''[[All the Year Round]]''.
* ''[[The Mystery of Edwin Drood|Edwin Drood]]'' (''The Mystery of Edwin Drood''; monthly serial, April 1870 to September 1870), left unfinished due to Dickens's death
 
==See also==
* [[Racism in the work of Charles Dickens]]
 
==References==
=== Footnotes ===
{{reflist|group="nb"}}
 
=== Notes ===
{{reflist|20em}}
 
=== Bibliography ===
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens
|last = Ackroyd
|first = Peter
|author-link = Peter Ackroyd
|publisher = Sinclair-Stevenson
|location = London
|year = 1990
|isbn = 978-1-85619-000-8
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uKYmAQAAMAAJ
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Ethnographic Imagination: Textual Constructions of Reality
|last = Atkinson
|first = Paul
|publisher = Routledge
|location = London
|year = 1990
|isbn = 978-0-415-01761-9
|url = https://archive.org/details/ethnographicimag0000atki
|url-access = registration
|page = [https://archive.org/details/ethnographicimag0000atki/page/48 48]
}}
* {{cite journal |title = The Eclectic Magazine: Foreign Literature
|series = New Series (Charles Dickens Obituary)
|journal = Eclectic Magazine: Foreign Literature, Science and Art
|editor-last = Bidwell
|editor-first = Walter Hilliard
|editor-link=Walter Hilliard Bidwell
|date= July–December 1870
|volume =12
|pages = 222–224
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8F-PGJKgFvwC&pg=PA223
}}
* {{cite book |chapter = Charles Dickens
|title = The age of romanticism. The Victorian era. The twentieth century and beyond
|series =The Broadview Anthology of British Literature
|last = Black
|first = Joseph Laurence
|editor-last = Black
|editor-first = Joseph Laurence
|publisher = Broadview Press
|year = 2007
|volume =2
|pages = 735–743
|isbn = 978-1-55111-869-7
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=pteWGN_oCV4C&pg=PA735
}}
* {{cite book |chapter = London in the Victorian Novel
|title = The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of London
|last = Bodenheimer
|first = Rosemarie
|editor-last = Manley
|editor-first = Lawrence
|publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]]
|year = 2011
|pages = 142–159
|isbn = 978-0-521-72231-5
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jOjpxQAhk7AC&pg=PA147
}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens, family, authorship: psychoanalytic perspectives on kinship and creativity
|last = Cain
|first = Lynn
|publisher = [[Ashgate Publishing]]
|year = 2008
|isbn = 978-0-7546-6180-1
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=HwgI8nb4sCQC&pg=PA1
}}
* {{cite book |title=Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World
|last=Callow
|first=Simon
|publisher=Vintage
|year=2012
|isbn=978-0-345-80323-8
}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens's Christmas: A Victorian Celebration
|last = Callow
|first = Simon
|publisher = Frances Lincoln Ltd
|year = 2009
|isbn = 978-0-7112-3031-6
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=fFtX209ghqUC&pg=PA39
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens: A Critical Study
|last = Chesterton
|first = G K
|author-link = G. K. Chesterton
|publisher = Kessinger Publishing
|year = 2005
|orig-year = 1906
|isbn = 978-1-4179-1996-3
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4m2UoEO7If0C
}}
* {{cite book |title = Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens
|last = Chesterton
|first = G K
|author-link = G. K. Chesterton
|publisher = J M DentForgotten Books
|year = 1911
|isbn = 978-1-4400-9125-4
|url = https://archive.org/details/appreciations00chesuoft
|page = [https://archive.org/details/appreciations00chesuoft/page/54 54]
}}
* {{cite book |title = Wordplay: origins, meanings, and usage of the English language
|last = Cochrane
|first = Robertson
|publisher = [[University of Toronto Press]]
|year = 1996
|isbn = 978-0-8020-7752-3
|url = https://archive.org/details/wordplayoriginsm0000coch
|url-access = registration
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators
|last = Cohen
|first = Jane R.
|publisher = Ohio State University Press
|year = 1980
|isbn = 978-0-8142-0284-5
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2UhBswddDsEC&pg=PA206
}}
* {{cite book |title = God and Charles Dickens
|last = Colledge
|first = Gary L
|publisher = Baker Books
|year = 2009
|isbn = 978-1-4412-3778-1
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=2GlYRaShK6oC&pg=PA87
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens A to Z
|last = Davis
|first = Paul
|publisher = Facts on File, Inc.
|year = 1998
|isbn = 978-0-8160-2905-1
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens and The House of Fallen Women
|last = Hartley
|first = Jenny
|publisher = Methuen
|location = London
|year = 2009
|isbn = 978-0-413-77643-3
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6OkOAQAAMAAJ
}}
* {{cite news | title = Champion of the little people
|last = Morrison
|first = Richard
|work= [[The Australian]]
|date = 3 February 2012
|url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/champion-of-the-little-people/story-fnb64oi6-1226261249458
|access-date=22 April 2012
}}
* {{cite book |title = John Forster, a Literary Life
|last = Davies
|first = James A
|publisher = Rowman & Littlefield
|year = 1983
|isbn = 978-0-389-20391-9
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=T-FLlXaZ2-4C&pg=PA169
}}
* {{cite book |last=Dickens |first=Henry Fielding |title=The Recollections of Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, KC |publisher=William Heinemann Ltd |year=1934 }}
* {{cite book |title = Oscar Wilde
|last = Ellmann
|first = Richard
|author-link = Richard Ellmann
|publisher = Penguin Books
|location = London
|year = 1988
|orig-year = 1987
|isbn = 978-0-14-009661-3
}}
* {{cite book |chapter =The middle novels: ''Chuzzlewit'', ''Dombey'' and ''Copperfield''
|title = The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens
|last = Flint
|first = Kate
|editor1-last = Jordan
|editor1-first = John O
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 2001
|isbn = 978-0-521-66964-1
}}
* {{cite book |title = Life of Charles Dickens
|last = Forster
|first = John
|author-link = John Forster (biographer)
|publisher = Diderot Publishing
|location = London
|year = 2006
|orig-year = 1872–1874
|isbn = 978-90-77932-03-2
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=P6q4kaimO0AC&pg=PA27
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Making of Addiction: The 'Use and Abuse' of Opium in Nineteenth-Century Britain
|last = Foxcroft
|first = Louise
|publisher = Ashgate Publishing
|year = 2007
|isbn = 978-0-7546-5633-3
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=mKgsr7whohoC&pg=PA53
}}
* {{cite book |chapter = Childhood
|title = Dickens in Context
|last = Furneaux
|first = Holly
|editor1-last = Ledger
|editor1-first = Sally
|editor2-last = Furneaux
|editor2-first = Holly
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 2011
|pages = 186–193
|isbn = 978-0-521-88700-7
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=j5c9GqZ_7BMC&pg=PA186
}}
* {{cite book |title = Student Companion to Charles Dickens
|last = Glancy
|first = Ruth
|publisher = Greenwood Publishing Company
|location = Westport, Connecticut
|year = 1999
|isbn = 978-0-313-30611-2
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Ct3ZwTkTK8cC&pg=PA34
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens's Networks: Public Transport and the Novel
|last = Grossman
|first = Jonathan H
|publisher = [[Oxford University Press]]
|location = Oxford
|year = 2012
|isbn = 978-0-19-964419-3
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6qrqjMVit_wC&pg=PA54
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Social History of Art: Naturalism, impressionism, the film age
|series = The Social History of Art
|last = Hauser
|first = Arnold
|author-link = Arnold Hauser (art historian)
|publisher = Routledge
|location = London
|year = 1999
|orig-year=1951
|volume = 4
|isbn = 978-0-415-19948-3
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DbBDUSyWJakC&pg=PA116
}}
* {{cite book |title = Who's Who in Dickens
|last = Hawes
|first = Donald
|publisher = Psychology Press
|year = 1998
|isbn = 978-0-415-13604-4
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Af6ChENaR9cC&pg=PA158
}}
* {{cite book |chapter = 'In the Natural Course of Physical Things': Ghosts and Science in Charles Dickens's ''All the Year Round''
|title = Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media
|last = Henson
|first =Louise
|editor1-last = Henson
|editor1-first = Louise
|editor2-last = Cantor
|editor2-first = Geoffrey
|editor3-last = Dawson
|editor3-first = Gowan
|editor4-last = Noakes
|editor4-first = Richard
|editor5-last = Shuttleworth
|editor5-first = Sally
|editor6-last = Topham
|editor6-first = Jonathan R
|publisher = Ashgate Publishing
|year = 2004
|pages =113–124
|isbn = 978-0-7546-3574-1
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=w6eitkUw2GEC&pg=PA113
}}
* {{cite book |title = A reader's guide to Charles Dickens
|last = Hobsbaum
|first = Philip
|author-link = Philip Hobsbaum
|publisher = Syracuse University Press
|year = 1998
|orig-year =1972
|isbn = 978-0-8156-0475-4
|url = https://archive.org/details/readersguidetoch00hobs
|url-access = registration
|page = [https://archive.org/details/readersguidetoch00hobs/page/270 270]
}}
* {{cite book |title = A week's tramp in Dickens-Land: together with personal reminiscences of the 'Inimitable Boz'
|last = Hughes
|first = William Richard
|publisher = Chapman & Hall
|location = Oxford
|year = 1891
|url = https://archive.org/details/weekstrampindick00hughuoft
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain
|last = Hutton
|first = Ronald
|author-link = Ronald Hutton
|publisher = Oxford University Press
|year = 2001
|isbn = 978-0-19-285448-3
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Tb0CmbFokF4C&pg=PT188
}}
* {{cite book
|title = The Encyclopedia of New York City
|last = Jackson
|first = Kenneth T
|publisher = [[Yale University Press|New York Historical Society]]
|year = 1995
|isbn = 978-0-300-05536-8
|url = https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780300055368
}}
* {{cite book | title = Charles Dickens: An Introduction to His Novels
|series =Random House Studies in Language and Literature
|last = Johnson
|first = E D H
|publisher= [[Random House]]
|year = 1969
|asin = B0011BLL8W
|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/edh/chronology.html
|access-date=22 April 2012
}}
* {{cite book |title = Walking Dickensian London
|series = Globetrotter walking guides
|last = Jones
|first = Richard
|publisher = New Holland Publishers
|location = London
|year = 2004
|isbn = 978-1-84330-483-8
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YrgJ_aPwahAC
}}
* {{cite news | title = Ebenezer Scrooge named most popular Dickens character
|last = Jones
|first = Sam
|work= [[The Guardian]]
|date = 6 February 2012
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/06/ebenezer-scrooge-most-popular-dickens-character
|access-date=22 April 2012
}}
* {{cite book |chapter = Charles Dickens
|title = The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature, Volume
|last1 = Kucich
|first1 = John
|last2 = Sadoff
|first2 = Dianne F
|editor-last = Kastan
|editor-first = David Scott
|publisher = Oxford University Press
|year = 2006
|volume = 1
|pages = 154–164
|isbn = 978-0-19-516921-8
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DlMUSz-hiuEC&pg=RA1-PA154
}}
* {{cite journal |first=Harry |last=Levin |title=Charles Dickens (1812–1870) |journal=The American Scholar |volume=39 |number=4 |date=Autumn 1970 }}
* {{cite book |title = Consciousness and the Novel
|last = Lodge
|first = David
|author-link = David Lodge (author)
|publisher = [[Harvard University Press]]
|location = Harvard, Massachusetts
|year = 2002
|isbn = 978-0-674-00949-3
|url = https://archive.org/details/consciousnessnov00lodg
|url-access = registration
|page = [https://archive.org/details/consciousnessnov00lodg/page/118 118]
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens: The Uses of Time
|last = Marlow
|first = James E.
|publisher = Susquehanna University Press
|year = 1994
|isbn = 978-0-945636-48-9
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=p7wvLUBMt1wC&pg=PA150
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Dickens industry: critical perspectives 1836–2005
|series= Studies in European and American literature and culture. Literary criticism in perspective
|last = Mazzeno
|first = Laurence W
|publisher = Camden House
|year = 2008
|isbn = 978-1-57113-317-5
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4k3ZL8Pf0SQC&pg=PA76
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Cambridge Introduction to Charles Dickens
|series = Cambridge Introductions to Literature
|last = Mee
|first = Jon
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 2010
|isbn = 978-0-521-67634-2
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VxPryDIAQXAC&pg=PA20
}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens and Empire:Discourses of Class, Race and Colonialism in the Works of Charles Dickens
|last = Moore
|first =Grace
|publisher = [[Ashgate Publishing]]
|year = 2004
|isbn = 978-0-7546-3412-6
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ZUxw0x84cGwC&pg=PA53
}}
* {{cite book |title = The other Dickens: a life of Catherine Hogarth
|last = Nayder
|first =Lillian
|publisher = [[Cornell University Press]]
|year = 2011
|isbn = 978-0-8014-4787-7
|url = https://archive.org/details/otherdickenslife00nayd
|url-access = registration
}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens & Ellen Ternan
|last = Nisbet
|first = Ada
|publisher = University of California Press
|year = 1952
|url = https://archive.org/details/dickensellentern0000nisb
|url-access = registration
|page = [https://archive.org/details/dickensellentern0000nisb/page/37 37]
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens:Family History
|last = Page
|first = Norman
|author-link = Norman Page
|publisher = [[Routledge]]
|year = 1999
|isbn = 978-0-415-22233-4
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xf2QqVI19b8C&pg=PA261
}}
* {{cite book |chapter =From ''Sketches'' to ''Nickleby''
|title = The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens
|last = Patten
|first = Robert L
|editor1-last = Jordan
|editor1-first = John O
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 2001
|isbn = 978-0-521-66964-1
}}
* {{cite book |chapter = Aporias of Retribution and questions of responsibility: the legacy of incarceration in Dickens's ''Bleak House''
|title =Literature and Legal Discourse: Equity and Ethics from Sterne to Conrad
|last = Polloczek
|first = Dieter
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 1999
|pages =124–201
|isbn = 978-0-521-65251-3
|chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=d4HI0Man5qUC&pg=PA124
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens 1812–1870
|last = Pope-Hennessy
|first = Una
|author-link=Una Pope-Hennessy
|publisher = [[Chatto and Windus]]
|year = 1945
}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth
|last = Raina
|first = Badri
|publisher = [[University of Wisconsin|University of Wisconsin Press]]
|year = 1986
|isbn = 978-0-299-10610-2
|url = https://archive.org/details/dickensdialectic00rain
|url-access = registration
|page = [https://archive.org/details/dickensdialectic00rain/page/25 25]
}}
* {{cite book |title = Disordered personalities
|last = Robinson
|first = David J.
|publisher = Rapid Psychler Press
|year = 2005
|edition = 3
|isbn = 978-1-894328-09-8
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7s9rAAAAMAAJ
}}
* {{cite book |chapter =Modern screen adaptations
|title = Dickens in Context
|last = Sasaki
|first = Toru
|editor1-last = Ledger
|editor1-first = Sally
|editor2-last = Furneaux
|editor2-first = Holly
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 2011
|pages = 67–73
|isbn = 978-0-521-88700-7
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=j5c9GqZ_7BMC&pg=PA67
}}
* {{cite book
|title = Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens
|editor1-last = Schlicke
|editor1-first = Paul
|publisher = Oxford University Press
|year = 1999
|isbn = 978-0-19-866213-6
|url-access = registration
|url = https://archive.org/details/oxfordreaderscom0000unse_a7o8
}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens and Women
|last = Slater
|first = Michael
|publisher = [[Stanford University Press]]
|year = 1983
|isbn = 978-0-8047-1180-7
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GyuH6-eZZaQC&pg=PA47
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing
|last = Slater
|first = Michael
|publisher = Yale University Press |location=New Haven / London
|year = 2009
|isbn = 978-0-300-11207-8
|url=https://archive.org/details/charlesdickens0000slat
|url-access = registration
}}
* {{cite book
|title = Charles Dickens
|last = Smiley
|first = Jane
|publisher = Penguin
|location = New York
|year = 2002
|isbn = 978-0-670-03077-4
|url = https://archive.org/details/charlesdickens00smil_0
}}
* {{cite book |chapter =The Life and Times of Charles Dickens
|title = The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens
|last = Smith
|first = Grahame
|editor1-last = Jordan
|editor1-first = John O
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 2001
|isbn = 978-0-521-66964-1
}}
* {{cite book |chapter =Dean Stanley on Charles Dickens
|title = Speeches, letters, and sayings of Charles Dickens
|last = Stanley
|first = Arthur Penrhyn
|author-link = Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
|publisher = Harper
|year = 1870
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=90ApAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA146
}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens's working notes for his novels
|last = Stone
|first = Harry
|publisher = [[University of Chicago Press]]
|location = Chicago
|year = 1987
|isbn = 978-0-226-14590-7
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=85bNed2YLcIC&pg=PA268
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction
|last = Sutherland
|first = John
|author-link = John Sutherland (author)
|publisher = [[Stanford University Press]]
|location = Stanford, California
|year = 1990
|isbn = 978-0-8047-1842-4
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=QzJ3yNVVqtUC&pg=PA185
}}
* {{cite news |title = What the Dickens?
|last = Swift
|first = Simon
|work = [[The Guardian]]
|date = 18 April 2007
|url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/18/classics.travelnews
|access-date =21 April 2012
}}
* {{cite book |title=Charles Dickens: A Life
|last=Tomalin
|first=Claire
|publisher=Viking
|year=2011
|isbn=978-0-670-91767-9
}}
* {{cite book |title = The invisible woman: the story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
|last = Tomalin
|first = Claire
|author-link = Claire Tomalin
|publisher = Vintage Books
|year = 1992
|isbn = 978-0-679-73819-0
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=yJDWAAAAMAAJ
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens
|series =Bloom's Classic Critical Views
|last = Trollope
|first = Anthony
|author-link = Anthony Trollope
|editor-last = Bloom
|editor-first = Harold
|publisher = [[Infobase Publishing]]
|year = 2007
|isbn = 978-0-7910-9558-4
|url =https://books.google.com/books?id=gW0hlzvh_RMC&pg=PA62
|editor-link = Harold Bloom
}}
* {{cite book |title = Reminiscences
|last = Van De Linde
|first = Gérard
|publisher = Ayer Publishing
|year = 1917
|isbn = 978-0-405-10917-1
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=B9MGcnbvkD0C&pg=PA75
}}
* {{cite book |title = Dickens, Novel Reading, and the Victorian Popular Theatre
|series =Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
|last = Vlock
|first = Deborah
|publisher = Oxford University Press
|year = 1998
|volume =19
|isbn = 978-0-521-64084-8
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=StwqgB7C9cYC&pg=PA30
}}
* {{cite news | title = Exhibition in focus: Dickens and London, the Museum of London
|last = Werner
|first = Alex
|work= [[The Daily Telegraph]]
|date = 9 December 2011
|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/exhibition-in-focus/8946072/Exhibition-in-focus-Dickens-and-London-the-Museum-of-London.html
|access-date=22 April 2012
}}
* {{cite book |title = The World of Charles Dickens
|last = Wilson
|first = Angus
|author-link = Angus Wilson
|publisher = [[Penguin Books]]
|year = 1972
|isbn = 978-0-670-02026-3
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=FaoqMLuK1HkC
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1925–1928
|last = Woolf
|first = Virginia
|author-link = Virginia Woolf
|editor-last = McNeillie
|editor-first =Andrew
|publisher = [[Hogarth Press]]
|edition = 2
|year = 1986
|isbn = 978-0-7012-0669-7
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UEIqAQAAIAAJ
}}
* {{cite book |title = The Writing Workshop Note Book: Notes on Creating and Workshopping
|last = Ziegler
|first = Alan
|publisher = Counterpoint Press
|year = 2007
|isbn = 978-1-933368-70-2
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JLUGpnm3wVAC&pg=PA46
}}
{{refend}}
 
==Further reading==
* {{cite DNB|wstitle=Dickens, Charles}}
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book |title = Other Dickens: Pickwick to Chuzzlewit
|last = Bowen
|first = John
|publisher = [[Oxford University Press]]
|year = 2003
|edition = 2
|isbn = 978-0-19-926140-6
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=dAXP68lqcr0C&pg=PA37
}}
*[[Nicola Bradbury|Bradbury, Nicola]], ''Charles Dickens' Great Expectations'' (St. Martin's Press, 1990) {{ISBN|978-0312056582}}
* Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert, "[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0674050037 Becoming Dickens 'The Invention of a Novelist]'", London: [[Harvard University Press]], 2011
* {{cite book |title =Studies in Etymology and Etiology: With Emphasis on Germanic, Jewish, Romance and Slavic Languages
|last = Gold
|first = David L
|editor1-last = González
|editor1-first = Félix Rodríquez
|editor2-last = Buades
|editor2-first = Antonio Lillo
|publisher = Universidad de Alicante
|year = 2009
|isbn = 978-84-7908-517-9
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=l015C5vm1XkC&pg=PA783
}}
* {{cite news|title=What, the Dickens World?|last=Hart|first=Christopher|work=[[The Sunday Times]]|location=UK|date=20 May 2007|url=http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/holiday_type/family/article1803247.ece|access-date=21 April 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705055120/http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/holiday_type/family/article1803247.ece|archive-date=5 July 2008}}
* {{cite book |chapter = The Outcast as Villain and Victim: Jews in Dickens ''Oliver Twist'' and ''Our Mutual Friend''
|title = Jewish Presences in English Literature
|last = Heller
|first = Deborah
|editor1-last = Cohen
|editor1-first = Derek
|editor2-last = Heller
|editor2-first = Deborah
|publisher = McGill-Queen's Press
|year = 1990
|pages = 40–60
|isbn = 978-0-7735-0781-4
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Z98ixsptZNMC&pg=PA40
}}
* {{cite book
| last = Jarvie | first = Paul A | year = 2005
| title = Ready to Trample on All Human Law: Finance Capitalism in the Fiction of Charles Dickens
| series = Studies in Major Literary Authors | location = New York | publisher = Routledge
| isbn = 978-0-415-97524-7 }}
* Johnson, Edgar, ''Charles Dickens: his tragedy and triumph'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952. In two volumes.
* {{cite book |chapter = Race
|title = Dickens in Context
|last = Joshi
|first = Prithi
|editor1-last = Ledger
|editor1-first = Sally
|editor2-last = Furneaux
|editor2-first = Holly
|publisher = Cambridge University Press
|year = 2011
|pages = 292–300
|isbn = 978-0-521-88700-7
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=j5c9GqZ_7BMC&pg=PA292
}}
* {{cite book
| last = Kaplan
| first = Fred
| year = 1988
| title = Dickens: A Biography
| author-link1 = Fred Kaplan (biographer)
| publisher = William Morrow & Company
| isbn = 978-0-688-04341-4
| url = https://archive.org/details/dickensbiography00kapl
}}
* {{cite book |title = The merchant of modernism: the economic Jew in Anglo-American Literature, 1864–1939
|last = Levine
|first = Gary Martin
|publisher = [[Routledge]]
|location = London
|year = 2003
|isbn = 978-0-415-94109-9
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5NflN2bI9KkC&pg=PA23
}}
* {{cite book |title = Life of Charles Dickens. by R. Shelton Mackenzie. With Personal Recollections and Anecdotes; – Letters by 'Boz', Never Before Published; – And&nbsp;... Prose and Verse. With Portrait and Autograph
|last = Mackenzie
|first = Robery Shelton
|publisher = T B Peterson & Brothers
|location = Philadelphia
|year = 1870
|isbn = 978-1-4255-5680-8
|url = https://archive.org/details/lifeofcharlesdic02mack
|access-date =10 June 2012
}}
* Manning, Mick & Granström, Brita, ''Charles Dickens: Scenes From An Extraordinary Life'', Frances Lincoln Children's Books, 2011.
* {{cite book |title = Literary Strategies: Jewish Texts and Contexts
|series= Studies in Contemporary Jewry
|last = Mendelsohn
|first = Ezra
|publisher = Oxford University Press
|year = 1996
|volume = 12
|isbn = 978-0-19-511203-0
|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4k3ZL8Pf0SQC&pg=PA76
}}
* {{cite book
| last = Meckier | first = Jerome | year = 2002
| title = Dickens's Great Expectations: Misnar's Pavilion Versus Cinderella
| location = Lexington, KY | publisher = University Press of Kentucky
| isbn = 978-0-813-12228-1 | ref = <!-- n/a --> }}
* {{cite journal |title = Reappraising Dickens's 'Noble Savage'
|last = Moore
|first = Grace
|journal = The Dickensian
|volume = 98
|year = 2002
|pages = 236–243
|issue = 458
}}
* {{cite book |title = Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Victorian Authorship
|last = Nayder
|first =Lillian
|publisher = [[Cornell University Press]]
|year = 2002
|isbn = 978-0-8014-3925-4
|url = https://archive.org/details/unequalpartnersc00nayd
|url-access = registration
|page = [https://archive.org/details/unequalpartnersc00nayd/page/96 96]
}}
* {{cite book |chapter = Introduction
|title = The Pickwick Papers
|last = Dickens
|first = Charles
|editor-last = Patten
|editor-first = Robert L.
|publisher = [[Penguin Books]]
|year = 1978
|isbn = 978-0-415-22233-4
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xf2QqVI19b8C&pg=PA261
}}
* {{cite book |title = Charles Dickens on the screen: the film, television, and video adaptations
|last = Pointer
|first = Michael
|publisher = Scarecrow Press
|year = 1996
|isbn = 978-0-8108-2960-2
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=031aAAAAMAAJ
}}
* {{cite book |last=Pope-Hennessy |first=Una |author-link=Una Pope-Hennessy |title=Charles Dickens |publisher=Hennessy Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-4067-5783-5}}
* {{cite ODNB |id=7599 |title=Dickens, Charles John Huffam |orig-year=2004 |year=2011 |last=Slater |first=Michael |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last=Waller |first=John O. |title=Charles Dickens and the American Civil War |journal=Studies in Philology |volume=57 |issue=3 |date=July 1960 |pages=535–548 |jstor=4173318}}
* {{cite book |last=Waller |first=Philip J |title=Writers, Readers, and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain, 1870–1918 |url=https://archive.org/details/writersreadersre0000wall |url-access=registration |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2006 |page=[https://archive.org/details/writersreadersre0000wall/page/194 194] |isbn=978-0-19-820677-4}}
{{refend}}
 
==External links==
{{sisterlinks|d=Q5686|s=Author:Charles Dickens|n=no|c=Category:Charles Dickens|wikt=Dickensian|v=no|b=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|species=no}}
{{sisterlinks|d=Q5686|s=Author:Charles Dickens|n=no|c=Category:Charles Dickens|wikt=Dickensian|v=no|b=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|species=no}}
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=88666393}}
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=88666393}}
===Works===
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=37}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=37}}
* {{FadedPage|id=Dickens, Charles|name=Charles Dickens|author=yes}}
* [http://www.mobilebooks.org/?author=CD Charles Dickens mobile ebooks] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927200144/http://www.mobilebooks.org/?author=CD |date=2007-09-27 }}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Charles Dickens}}
* {{Librivox author |id=91}}
* [https://onemorelibrary.com/index.php/en/books/major-collections/charles-dickens-collection-361 Charles Dickens collection] at [https://onemorelibrary.com/index.php/en One More Library]
* [http://www.djo.org.uk/ Journalism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140328230219/http://www.djo.org.uk/ |date=28 March 2014 }} at [http://www.djo.org.uk/ Dickens Journals Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140328230219/http://www.djo.org.uk/ |date=28 March 2014 }}, an online edition of ''[[Household Words]]'' and ''[[All the Year Round]]''
* {{Library resources by|onlinebooks=yes}}
* [http://www.bl.uk/people/charles-dickens Charles Dickens] at the British Library
* [http://www.bl.uk/people/charles-dickens Charles Dickens] at the British Library
===Organisations and portals===
* {{UK National Archives ID|F45314}}
* {{UK National Archives ID|F45314}}
* {{npg name|01294|Charles Dickens}}
* [https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/?terms=charles%20dickens&field=title Charles Dickens on the Archives Hub]
*Archival material at [https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8625 Leeds University Library]
* [http://www.dickensfellowship.org/ The Dickens Fellowship], an international society dedicated to the study of Dickens and his Writings
* [http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb206-brothertoncollectionms19cdickens Correspondence of Charles Dickens, with related papers, ca. 1834–1955]
* [https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4078700 Finding aid to Charles Dickens papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.]
===Museums===
* [http://www.dickensmuseum.com/ Dickens Museum] Situated in a former [[Charles Dickens Museum, London|Dickens House]], 48 [[Doughty Street]], London, WC1
* [http://www.charlesdickensbirthplace.co.uk/ Dickens Birthplace Museum] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709094440/http://www.charlesdickensbirthplace.co.uk/ |date=9 July 2011 }} Old Commercial Road, Portsmouth
* [http://www.vam.ac.uk/dickens Victoria and Albert Museum] The V&A's collections relating to Dickens
===Other===
* {{In Our Time|Dickens|p00547hx|Dickens}}
* [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/batchelder.00181 Charles Dickens's Traveling Kit] From the [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/024.html John Davis Batchelder Collection] at the [[Library of Congress]]
* [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/batchelder.55200.1 Charles Dickens's Walking Stick] From the [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/024.html John Davis Batchelder Collection] at the [[Library of Congress]]
* Charles Dickens Collection: First editions of Charles Dickens's works included in the Leonard Kebler gift (dispersed in the Division's collection). From the [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/ Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress]
* Plaques [http://openplaques.org/people/413 Historical plaques about Charles Dickens, on Open Plaques website]
* {{IMDb name|0002042}}
* {{IMDb name|0002042}}
* [https://exchange.umma.umich.edu/resources/10661 Portrait of Charles Dickens by Ferdinand Lee Boyle] at the [[University of Michigan Museum of Art]]
*[https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/estatehistory/reformation-1834/destruction-by-fire/ Charles Dickens & the 1834 Parliament Fire – UK Parliament Living Heritage]


{{S-start}}
{{Charles Dickens|state=collapsed}}
{{s-media}}
{{s-bef|before=''New position''}}
{{s-ttl|title=Editor of the ''[[The Daily News (UK)|Daily News]]''|years=1846}}
{{s-aft|after=[[John Forster (biographer)|John Forster]]}}
{{S-end}}
 
{{Charles Dickens|state=expanded}}
{{Navboxes
|title = Works by Charles Dickens
|list =
{{The Pickwick Papers}}
{{Oliver Twist}}
{{Nicholas Nickleby}}
{{The Old Curiosity Shop}}
{{A Christmas Carol}}
{{Dombey and Son}}
{{David Copperfield}}
{{Bleak House}}
{{Hard Times}}
{{Little Dorrit}}
{{A Tale of Two Cities}}
{{Great Expectations}}
{{Our Mutual Friend}}
{{The Mystery of Edwin Drood}}
}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickens, Charles}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickens, Charles}}
[[Category:Charles Dickens| ]]
[[Category:Deaths from stroke]]
[[Category:English novelists]]
[[Category:Unitarians]]
[[Category:People buried in Westminster Abbey]]
[[Category:People from Portsmouth]]
[[Category:Writers from Hampshire]]
[[Category:1812 births]]
[[Category:1812 births]]
[[Category:1870 deaths]]
[[Category:1870 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century British newspaper founders]]
[[Category:19th-century British non-fiction writers]]
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[[Category:19th-century English novelists]]
[[Category:19th-century essayists]]
[[Category:19th-century journalists]]
[[Category:British Anglicans]]
[[Category:British historical novelists]]
[[Category:British male essayists]]
[[Category:British male journalists]]
[[Category:British male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:British male novelists]]
[[Category:British male short story writers]]
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[[Category:British short story writers]]
[[Category:British social commentators]]
[[Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey]]
[[Category:Christian writers]]
[[Category:Cultural critics]]
[[Category:English Anglicans]]
[[Category:English historical novelists]]
[[Category:English male journalists]]
[[Category:English male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:English male novelists]]
[[Category:English male short story writers]]
[[Category:English prisoners and detainees]]
[[Category:English short story writers]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts]]
[[Category:Ghost story writers]]
[[Category:People from Camden Town]]
[[Category:People from Chatham, Kent]]
[[Category:People from Somers Town, London]]
[[Category:Social critics]]
[[Category:Victorian novelists]]
[[Category:Writers about activism and social change]]
[[Category:Writers from London]]
[[Category:Writers from Portsmouth]]
[[Category:People from Higham, Kent]]
[[Category:19th-century pseudonymous writers]]

Latest revision as of 17:02, 26 September 2022

Charles Dickens
BornCharles John Huffam Dickens
(1812-02-07)7 February 1812
Portsmouth, England
Died9 June 1870(1870-06-09) (aged 58)
Kent, England
Resting placePoets' Corner, Westminster Abbey
OccupationNovelist
Notable worksSketches by Boz, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations
Signature

Charles Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870)[1] was one of the great English writers of the 19th century.

Early life[edit | edit source]

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England.[1] His parents were John Dickens (1785-1851),[2] a naval pay clerk, and Elizabeth Barrow (1789–1863).[2]

When Dickens was born, he had dyslexia and so he could not read or write properly, unlike other kids. When Charles was 12 years old, his family moved to Camden, London. He worked in a blacking factory there while his father was in prison for debt. Dickens's hard times in the factory served as a foundation of ideas for many of his novels. Many of them, like Oliver Twist, later became famous. When his great-grandmother died and transmitted money, Charles' father paid off his debts and was released from prison. Charles did not like working and wished to stop after his father had been released. However, his mother said that the family needed the money and so Charles was forced to continue working. Charles then finished his schooling and got a job as an office boy for an attorney. After finding that job dull, he taught himself shorthand and became a journalist that reported on the government. Dickens was a Unitarian.[3]

He was once involved in a train crash near Stapleford, Kent.

Writer[edit | edit source]

His first book was Sketches by Boz in 1836, a collection of the short pieces that he had been writing for the Monthly Magazine and the Evening Chronicle.[4] This was followed by The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club in 1837.[1] Both books became popular as soon as they were printed.[1]

Charles Dickens died of a stroke on June 9, 1870. He was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Books[edit | edit source]

Charles Dickens wrote many books, including:

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lansbury, Coral. Dickens, Charles (1812-1870). Australian National University. Retrieved 2010-03-16. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Dickens Family Tree website
  3. ↑ "Charles Dickens". 25.uua.org. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  4. ↑ Cousin, John W. (1910). "Charles Dickens (1812-1870)". A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. University of Adelaide. Archived from the original on 2009-08-26. Retrieved 2010-03-16.

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