The world lost a literary stalwart and a social critic on June 9, 1870, when Charles Dickens passed away after suffering a stroke at his Kent residence. Newspapers considered the loss of a “great and genial novelist” as nothing less than a “personal bereavement.” Dickens’ ‘consummate’ skill and ‘very original’ genius’ made him the one of the most quoted and celebrated writers in English after Shakespeare. The world remembers him as the creator of the Artful Dodger in ‘Oliver Twist’, Ebenezer Scrooge of ‘A Christmas Carol’, and Sam Weller of ‘The Pickwick Papers.’ His body of work is widely referred by academicians, journalists, politicians, and eminent personalities throughout the English-speaking world. Charles Dickens: The Man Who Bade an Early Goodbye to Youthful Innocence On February 7, 1812 Charles John Huffam Dickens was born to poor yet aspiring parents – John and Elizabeth Dickens. From discontinuing schooling due to financial constraints to joining a factory as a worker two days after his twelfth birthday, Dickens saw adversity from close quarters. That’s why his works smack of realism. For someone who was “so easily cast away at such a young age,” Dickens’s angst at being abandoned by his parents, became a fodder for the characters and stories he used to create. At a very tender age, he realized that there is “prodigious strength in sorrow and despair” and that became the recurring theme in his writing. Charles Dickens: Journey from Journalism to Literature By 1827, Dickens started to work as a junior clerk at the offices of Holborn Court attorneys, Ellis and Blackmore. Having learnt shorthand, Dickens left his job at a law office in November 1828 to work as a freelance reporter. By 1833, he became a political journalist and started to cover all the election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle. In December 1933, Dickens’ first piece of writing, “A Dinner at Poplar Walk,” (a short story) got published anonymously in Old Monthly Magazine. His initial rise to fame happened in 1836 with the serial publication of ‘The Pickwick Papers.’ By the time, the series came to an end, Dickens had a loyal readership with over 40,000 copies of his book being sold. Charles Dickens’s Association with Magazines In 1850s, Charles Dickens used to edit ‘Household Words’ – an English weekly magazine – that borrowed its name from a line in Shakespeare’s Henry V: “Familiar in his mouth as household words.”The magazine used to be published every Saturday from March 1850 to May 1859. In order to boost sales of the magazine, Dickens serialized his novel ‘Hard Times’ between April 1 and August 12, 1854. After Dickens abandoned ‘Household Words’ due to differences with his publisher, he founded ‘All the Year Round’, a British weekly literary magazine. It was in publication across the UK from 1859 to 1895. The magazine hosted the serialization of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and many other novels of Dickens. After Dickens’s death in 1870, it was owned and edited by his eldest son Charles Dickens, Jr. Charles Dickens: Personal Life In 1836, Charles Dickens married Catherine Thomson Hogarth, the daughter of his colleague at the Morning Chronicle. Together, Charles and Catherine Dickens had ten children. Georgina Hogarth, Catherine’s sister lived with the couple for a large part of their life as a housekeeper and took care of the couple’s children. When he was 45, Charles Dickens fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an 18-year-old actress. The relationship lasted till the end of his days although he did not divorce his wife. In a Victorian society, divorce for a person as eminent as Dickens was unthinkable. Charles Dickens: US Tours and Rise to Fame Dickens’ first trip to the US happened when he was 30. The much celebrated six-month tour turned sour when the social reformer in him started expressing opposition to slavery. His lectures, spanning from Virginia to Missouri, were widely attended. Dickens, who wanted to use his trip to find out whether American democracy was better than the class-ridden Victorian England, was not content with what he saw: “I am disappointed…. This is not the republic of my imagination.’, as he said later. Dickens was also annoyed by “Americans’ gregariousness” and crude habits, which he later expressed in American Notes, a travelogue detailing his trip to North America. Dickens set out on a second trip to the U.S. from 1867 to 1868 with a hope to set things right with the Americans. His second tour was markedly different. He realized his enduring popularity with American readers. He held more than 70 public readings across the US, which reportedly fetched him no less than $95,000. Charles Dickens: Later Years On June 9, 1865, on his way back from Paris, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash, when over seven carriages of the train derailed and fell off a bridge. Dickens was physically unhurt but was severely traumatized and could never fully recover from the accident. Between 1868 and 1869, Dickens was scheduled to travel through the UK and deliver a series of “farewell readings.” However, the tour had to be called off midway as he suffered from giddiness and paralytic fits. On June 8, 1870, five years after the rail crash, Dickens suffered a stroke even after he was midway through his work on his new mystery novel ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood.’ Dickens died at his Higham residence, near Rochester in Kent at the age of 58. As the British daily ‘The Times’ put it, Dickens died “in the vigour of age, and apparently in the fulness of health.” The author was laid to rest at the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey despite his wish for a discreet burial at Rochester Cathedral. Thousands gathered to mourn his death by his graveside. Charles Dickens Museum The Charles Dickens Museum at 40 Doughty Street, London, is the only remaining home of the author in the city. It was the author’s home between 1837 and 1839. Dickens was at his prolific best during those two years when he completed The Pickwick Papers (1836), wrote the entire Oliver Twist (1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39) and also worked on Barnaby Rudge (1840–41). The museum houses one of the best collections of the author’s artifacts around the globe. The permanent exhibitions at the museum include some of Dickens’ best loved personal possessions, rooms done up in Victorian style, and portraits and manuscripts from his life. A number of Dickens’ personal letters are also on display. Dickens Fellowship The Dickens Fellowship was founded 32 years after Dickens’s death. This international association caters to all those who evince interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens. Located at the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street, the Fellowship has 47 branches spread across the UK, US and nine other countries. Membership is open to anyone who shares the Fellowship’s interests. ‘The Dickensian’ is a journal published by the Fellowship. Founded in 1905, the journal carries articles of literary criticism from scholars around the world. It also publishes reviews of books, plays, films along with Dickens-related news. When Dickens’s former home at Doughty Street faced a threat of demolition in 1923, it was saved by three members of the Dickens Fellowship. They bought the property in 1925. The members of the association also raised funds and put together a collection for public display. Charles Dickens Festivals Charles Dickens and his works are celebrated all the year round, and often far from the shores of his native land. While the Great Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco re-creates old London town for two months (November and December), the Dickens Festival in Port Jefferson village in New York features Victorian entertainment, costumed characters and decorated streets in lines with the 19th century London. The annual Broadstairs Dickens Festival has been continuously held on third week of June ever since its humble beginning in 1937. The first edition of the festival featured a production of David Copperfield. The Riverside Dickens Festival in Southern California draws students, scholars, performers and Dickens enthusiasts who have common interest in the works of the famous author. Dickensian: Charles Dickens’s Writings Reminisced The influence of Charles Dickens never left the writers and readers of the succeeding generations. ‘Dickensian’, a literary term traced back to as early as 1856, has been widely used to mean different things. In strictest term, this adjective is reminiscent of the themes commonly found in Dickens’s writings: poverty, social injustice and the dark side of Victorian England. While ‘Dickensian’ could conjure up an image of squalid working conditions, suffering populace and grotesque individuals, it can also indicate “a certain comic sensibility” and “an attentiveness to the social conditions.” Depending on the context, the term could also mean festive or jolly, portrayal of idiosyncrasies and “comically hyperbolic characters.” Dickenesque, Dickensy, Dickensish, and Dickeny are other variants of the term popularized throughout the 19th century. Interesting Facts about Charles Dickens
- Dickens’s house in Kent had a secret door in the form of a fake bookcase.
- He always insisted on sleeping with his head pointing north.
- The Oxford English Dictionary gives him the credit for being the first to use words like crossfire,
dustbin, fairy story, slow-coach, and whoosh.
- The ivory toothpick, which was used by Charles Dickens, was sold for $9,000 at an auction in 2009.
- Dickens claimed that the idea for ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ came to him while working with theater actress named Ellen.
Famous Quotes by Charles Dickens
- The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.
- An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.
- Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!
- There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.
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