Charles Dickens

18121870

Charles John Huffam

Dickens

7 February 1812 9 June 1870

pen-name Boz
the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era
son of Elizabeth ne Barrow and John Dickens (a clerk in the
Navy Pay Office)
he had an older brother Frances (Fanny) and many younger
siblings
married the former Catherine Hogarth in 1836
10 children, but their marriage was often tense, and they
separated in 1858

Early years

voracious reader of such authors as Henry Fielding, Daniel

Defoe, and Oliver Goldsmith
attended the school of William Giles
John Dickens was imprisoned
Charles was sent off to work at Warrens Shoe Blacking Factory
attended the Wellington House Academy in London as a day
pupil from 1824-1827
as a young man, he worked as a reporter

Pen-name Boz

taken from his youngest brother Augustus

Dickens' family nickname
playfully pronounced through the nose 'Moses'
became 'Boses'
later shortened to 'Boz' pronounced through
the nose with a long vowel 'o'

Dickens works

a dozen major novels

a large number of short stories (including a number of
Christmas-themed stories)
a handful of plays
several non-fiction books
Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and
monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.

Short story collections

Sketches by Boz (1836)

The Mudfog Papers (1837) in Bentley's Miscellany magazine
Reprinted Pieces (1861)
The Uncommercial Traveller (18601869)

Sketches by Boz
the 56 sketches concern London scenes and people and are
divided into four sections: "Our Parish", "Scenes",
"Characters", and "Tales
in the first three of these sections is non-fiction
last section comprises fictional stories

Magazines
Household Words (1850-1859)

All the Year Round (1859-1895)

Household Words

an English weekly magazine

took its name from the line from Shakespeare
"Familiar in his mouth as household words"
Henry V
the paper championed the cause of the poor and
working classes
addressed itself almost exclusively to the middle
class

All the Year Round

weekly literary magazine

hosted the serialization of many prominent
novels, including Dickens' own A Tale of
Two Cities
after Dickens's death in 1870, it was owned
and edited by his eldest son Chalres
Dickens, Jr.

Selected non-fiction, poetry,

and plays

The Village Coquettes (Plays, 1836)

The Fine Old English Gentleman (poetry, 1841)
Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi (1838)
American Notes: For General Circulation (1842)
Pictures from Italy (1846)
The Life of Our Lord: As written for his children
(1849)
A Child's History of England (1853)
The Frozen Deep (play, 1857)
Speeches, Letters and Sayings (1870)

American Notes: For General Circulation

travelogue
detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842
his American
American
Notes:
ForanGeneral
journey
was also
inspirationCirculation
for his novel Martin
Chuzzlewit
Pictures from Italy
he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning
a status report on their progress
Pictures from Italy
a travelogue
reveals the concerns of its author as he presents, according to Kate
Flint, the country "like a chaotic magic-lantern show, fascinated both
by the spectacle it offers, and by himself as spectator"

THE END