GK Chesterton, Charles Dickens (1812-1836) Charles Dickens, the son of John Dickens and Elizabeth Dickens, was born

at 13 M ile End Terrace (now 393 Old Commercial Road), Landport, just outside the old to wn of Portsmouth, on 7th February 1812. John Dickens was the son of William Dickens and Elizabeth Ball Dickens. His pare nts were servants in the household of John Crewe, a large landowner in Cheshire with a house in Mayfair. William Dickens, recently promoted to the post of butle r, died just before his son was born. His mother continued to work as a servant at Crewe Hall. John Crewe was the member of the House of Commons for Cheshire. His wife, France s Crewe was a leading supporter of the Whig Party and regular visitors to Crewe Hall included leading politicians such as, Charles James Fox, Augustus FitzRoy a nd Edmund Burke. They also hosted artists and writers such as Joshua Reynolds, T homas Gainsborough, Charles Burney, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Sarah Burney and Hester Thrale. During this period Frances became the mistress of Sheridan, the c ountry's leading playwright. He had dedicated his most famous play, The School f or Scandal, to her in 1777. John Dickens was treated very well by the Crewe family. He was allowed to use th e family library and in April 1805 was appointed to the Navy Pay Office in Londo n. The Treasurer of the Navy at this time was George Canning, a close friend of the Crewe family. The job came to Dickens through Canning's patronage, on which all such appointments depended. Claire Tomalin, the author of Dickens: A Life (2 011) has pointed out: "John Dickens may have been the son of the elderly butler, but it is also possible that he had a different father - perhaps John Crewe, ex ercising his droit de seigneur, cheering himself up for his wife's infidelities, or another of the gentlemen who were regular guests at the Crewe residences. Or he may have believed that he was. His silence about his first twenty years, his habit of spending and borrowing and enjoying good things as though he were some how entitled to do so, all suggest something of the kind, and harks back to the sort of behaviour he would have observed with dazzled eyes at Crewe Hall and in Mayfair." Charles Dickens's mother was the daughter of Charles Barrow, who worked as Chief Conductor of Monies at Somerset House in London. According to her friends she w as a slim, energetic young woman who loved dancing. She had received a good educ ation and appreciated music and books. Elizabeth had several brothers. John Barr ow was a published novelist and poet, whereas Edward Barrow was a journalist who married an artist. A third brother, Thomas Barrow, worked in the Navy Pay Offic e, where he met fellow worker, John Dickens. Elizabeth married Dickens at St Mar y-le-Strand in June, 1809. The following year her father, Charles Barrow, was fo rced to leave the country, when it was discovered that he had been defrauding th e government. A daughter, Fanny Dickens, was born was born in August 1810. Charles Dickens later argued that his mother was an amazing woman: "She possesse d an extraordinary sense of the ludicrous, and her power of imitation was someth ing quite astonishing. On entering a room she almost unconsciously took an inven tory of its contents and if anything happened to strike her as out of place or r idiculous, she would afterwards describe it in the quaintest possible manner." R . Shelton MacKenzie, the author of Life of Charles Dickens (1870) commented: "El izabeth Dickens... was tall and thin, with a wasp's waist, of which she was very vain... She was a good wife, very fond of her husband and devoted to her childr en... She has been described to me as having much resembled Mrs. Nickleby... in the charming inaccuracy of her memory and the curious insecutiveness of her conv ersation." John Dickens continued to make progress at the Navy Pay Office. In 1809 he was p

romoted and given a salary of 110 a year. He almost certainly got this post becau se Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the Treasurer of the Navy, had been a supporter of his career. It has been speculated that Sheridan, the country's leading playwri ght, could have been Dickens's father. Dickens was transferred to London and the family found lodgings in Cleveland Str eet. Dickens was now earning 200 a year. However, he always had trouble managing money. He liked to dress well, enjoyed entertaining friends and bought expensive books. Dickens was soon in debt and had to ask for loans from family and friend s. In April 1816, a fourth child, Letitia, was born. Seven months later John Dicken s was sent by the Navy Pay Office to work at Chatham Dockyard. Dickens rented a house at 11 Ordnance Terrace. Charles Dickens remembers his father taking him ab oard the old Navy yacht Chatham and sailing up the Medway to Sheerness, where he had to distribute wages to the workers. It has been claimed that "this landscap e and the sludge-coloured tidal rivers haunted him and became part of the fabric of his late novels". The salary of John Dickens continued to grow and by 1818 he was earning over 350 a year. He still could not manage and in 1819 he borrowed 200 from his brother-in -law, Thomas Barrow. When he did not pay the money back, Thomas told him that he would not have him in his house again. The family finances were not helped by t he birth of two more children, Harriet (1819) and Frederick (1819). John Dickens did earn a small amount of money from journalism. This included an article in T he Times about a big fire that had taken place in Chatham. While living in Chatham Charles and his sister Fanny Dickens attended a school f or girls and boys in Rome Lane. In 1821 he went to a school run by the twenty-th ree William Giles, the son of a Baptist and himself a Dissenter. His friend, Joh n Forster, has commented: "He (Charles Dickens) was a very little and a very sic kly boy. He was subject to attacks of violent spasm which disabled him for any a ctive exertion. He was never a good little cricket-player; he was never a firstrate hand at marbles, or peg-top, or prisoner's base; but he had great pleasure in watching the other boys, officers' sons for the most part, at these games, re ading while they played; and he had always the belief that this early sickness h ad brought to himself one inestimable advantage, in the circumstance of his weak health having strongly inclined him to reading." Dickens was given access to his father's collection of books: "My father had lef t a small collection of books in a little room upstairs to which I had access (f or it adjoined my own), and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From t hat blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, To m Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas and Robinson Crusoe came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time - they, and the Arabian Nights, and the Tales of the Genii - and did me no harm; for, whatever harm was in some of them, was not there for me." In 1822 John Dickens returned to work at Somerset House in London and the family moved to Camden Town. Here he met and became friendly with a fellow worker, Cha rles Dilke. The following year, Fanny Dickens was awarded a place at the Royal A cademy of Music in Hanover Square. She was to study the piano with Ignaz Moschel es, a former pupil of Ludwig van Beethoven. The fees were thirty-eight guineas a year, an expense that they family could not really afford. Claire Tomalin has argued: "Dickens maintained that he never felt any jealousy o f what was done for her, he could not help but be aware of the contrast between his position and hers, and of their parents' readiness to pay handsome fees for her education, and nothing for his. It is such a reversal of the usual family si

tuation, where only the education of the boys is taken seriously, that the Dicke ns parents at least deserve some credit for making sure Fanny had a professional training, although none for their neglect of her brother." Dickens's friend, Jo hn Forster, commented: "What a stab to his heart it was, thinking of his own dis regarded condition, to see her go away to begin her education, amid the tearful good wishes of everyone in the house." Elizabeth Dickens thought that she could educate the rest of the children by sta rting her own school. She took a lease on a large house in Gower Street North. C harles helped his mother distribute circulars advertising the school. He later r ecalled: "I left, at a great many other doors, a great many circulars calling at tention to the merits of the establishment. Yet nobody ever came to school, nor do I recollect that anybody ever proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive anybody. But I know that we got on very badly with the butc her and baker; that very often we had not too much for dinner." In February 1824, John Dickens was arrested for debt and sent to the Marshalsea Prison in Southwark. It has been estimated that over 30,000 people a year were a rrested for debt during this period. The insolvent debtor was classed as a quasi -criminal and kept in prison until he could pay or could claim release under the Insolvent Debtors' Act. Charles was used by his father as a messenger to carry his requests for help to family and friends. He already owed these people money and no one was willing to pay the money that would free him from captivity. He later told John Forster: " My father was waiting for me in the lodge, and we went up to his room (on the to p story but one), and cried very much. And he told me, I remember, to take warni ng by the Marshalsea, and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but t hat a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched. I see the fire we sa t before now; with two bricks inside the rusted grate, one on each side, to prev ent its burning too many coals." Although only eleven years old, Charles was now considered the "man of the famil y" and was given the task of taking the books that he loved so much to a pawnbro ker in the Hampstead Road. This was followed by items of furniture, until after a few weeks the house was almost empty. Peter Ackroyd has argued in Dickens (199 0): "It was not so many years before that Dickens's maternal grandfather had abs conded as an embezzler, and there were theories in this period concerning some i nherited propensity towards crime as well as towards madness. It might have seem ed to the young Dickens that this was indeed his true inheritance, which is perh aps why some critics have believed that Dickens's great contribution to the desc ription of childhood lies in his depiction of infantile guilt." A family friend, James Lamert, suggested to Elizabeth Dickens, that Charles shou ld work in his uncle's blacking factory, that was based at a warehouse at 30 Hun gerford Stairs. Warren's Blacking Factory, manufactured boot and shoe blacking. Lamert offered Charles the job of covering and labelling the pots of blacking. H e would be paid six shillings a week and Lamert promised that he personally woul d give him lessons during his lunch hour to keep up his education. Charles was d isappointed by his parents' reaction to the offer: "My father and mother were qu ite satisfied. They could hardly have been more so, if I had been twenty years o f age, distinguished at a grammar-school, and going to Cambridge." On Monday, 9th February, 1824, just two days after his twelfth birthday, he walk ed the three miles from Camden Town to the Warren's Blacking Factory. Charles Di ckens later recalled: "The blacking warehouse was the last house on the left-han d side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumbledown old hous e, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainsco tted rooms and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming d

own 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 befor e me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looki ng 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 p iece 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 a s 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 wer e kept at similar duty downstairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ra gged 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." Charles Dickens took lodgings in Little College Street in Camden Town. Mrs Royan ce took in the children cheaply and treated them accordingly. He had to share a room with two other boys. On Sundays he collected Fanny Dickens from the Royal A cademy of Music and they went together to the Marshalsea Prison to spend the day with their parents. He told his father how much he hated being separated from t he family all week, with nothing to return to each evening. As a result he was m oved to another lodging house in Lant Street that was close to the prison and he was able to spend time with his parents every evening after work. At this time Dickens believed that his father would remain incarcerated until his death. Charles Dickens later told John Forster about this period in his life: "I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my reso urces and the difficulties of my life. I know that if a shilling or so were give n me by any one, I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked, from mor ning to night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I tried, bu t ineffectually, not to anticipate my money, and to make it last the week throug h; by putting it away in a drawer I had in the counting-house, wrapped into six little parcels, each parcel containing the same amount, and labelled with a diff erent day. I know that I have lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsa tisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have bee n, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond... I suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell . No man's imagination can overstep the reality." On 29th June 1824, Fanny Dickens performed at a public concert at which Princess Augusta, the sister of King George IV, presented the prizes. Charles Dickens la ter recalled: "I could not bear to think of myself - beyond the reach of all suc h honourable emulation and success. The tears ran down my face. I felt as if my heart were rent. I prayed, when I went to bed that night, to be lifted out of th e humiliation and neglect in which I was. I had never suffered so much before." Dickens added unconvincingly, "There was no envy in this." In April 1825, John Dickens's mother died. He inherited the sum of 450, and he wa s able to pay off his debts. This allowed him to petition for release from priso n, and at the end of May he was discharged from Marshalsea Prison. The Naval Pay Office agreed to take Dickens back and although he was only 39 years old, he re quested to be retired early with an invalid's pension because of "a chronic infe ction of the urinary organs". He was eventually granted a pension of 145.16s.8d. a year. Despite the improvement in his financial circumstances, John Dickens expected hi s son to continue working at Warren's Blacking Factory. The business had moved t o Chandos Street in Covent Garden where he worked by a window looking out on the street and where his humiliating drudgery was exposed to public view. One day, John Dickens walked past the window with Charles Dilke. The two men stopped to w

atch the boys at work. Dickens told Dilke that one of the boys was his son. Clai re Tomalin explains: "Dilke, a sensitive and kindly man, went in and gave him ha lf a crown, and received in return a very low bow. This scene, described by Dilk e, not Dickens, does more to suggest the humiliation he felt in being put in suc h a position than anything else: pitied and tipped, while his father stood simpe ring by." Charles Dickens health was still poor: "Bob Fagin was very good to me on the occ asion of a bad attack of my old disorder. I suffered such excruciating pain that time, that they made a temporary bed of straw in my old recess in the countinghouse, and I rolled about on the floor, and Bob filled empty blacking-bottles wi th hot water, and applied relays of them to my side, half the day. I got better, and quite easy towards evening; but Bob (who was much bigger and older than I) did not like the idea of my going home alone, and took me under his protection. I was too proud to let him know about the prison; and after making several effor ts to get rid of him, to all of which Bob Fagin in his goodness was deaf, shook hands with him on the steps of a house near Southwark Bridge on the Surrey side, making believe that I lived there." Dickens later wrote: "No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship of common men and boys." Peter Ackroyd has argued in Di ckens (1990): "Here one senses some imitation of his father's own projection of a genteel persona (it is clear enough how John Dickens's fear, stemming from the fact that he was so perilously hovering between classes, was transmitted to the son). It also tells us much about his instinctive reaction to the labouring poo r, although it is one that would have been widely shared in his lifetime; the wo rking classes were in a very real sense a race apart, a substratum of society wh ich bred in those above them a fear of disease, a horror of uncleanliness and of course the dread of some kind of social revolution." John Dickens and George Lamert were often in dispute: "My father and the relativ e so often mentioned quarrelled; quarrelled by letter, for I took the letter fro m my father to him which caused the explosion, but quarrelled very fiercely. It was about me. It may have had some backward reference, in part, for anything I k now, to my employment at the window. All I am certain of is that, soon after I h ad given him the letter, my cousin (he was a sort of cousin, by marriage) told m e he was very much insulted about me; and that it was impossible to keep me, aft er that. I cried very much, partly because it was so sudden, and partly because in his anger he was violent about my father, though gentle to me. Thomas, the ol d soldier, comforted me, and said he was sure it was for the best. With a relief so strange that it was like oppression, I went home." However, Elizabeth Dickens wanted Charles to continue at the blacking factory. " My mother set herself to accommodate the quarrel, and did so next day. She broug ht home a request for me to return next morning, and a high character of me, whi ch I am very sure I deserved. My father said I should go back no more, and shoul d go to school. I do not write resentfully or angrily: for I know how all these things have worked together to make me what I am: but I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back. From that hour until this at which I write, no word of that part of m y childhood which I have now gladly brought to a close, has passed my lips to an y human being. I have no idea how long it lasted; whether for a year, or much mo re, or less. From that hour, until this, my father and my mother have been stric ken dumb upon it. I have never heard the least allusion to it, however far off a nd remote, from either of them." Long after his death, Mamie Dickens wrote about her father's life during this pe riod: "His mother and the rest of the family, with the exception of his sister F anny... lived in a poor part of London, too far away from the blacking warehouse for him to go and have his dinner with them; so he had to carry his food with h

im, or buy it at some cheap eating house, as he wandered about the streets, duri ng the dinner hour. When Charles had enough money he would buy some coffee and a slice of bread and butter. When the poor little pocket was empty, he wandered a bout the streets again, gazing into shop windows." Andrew Sanders, the author of Authors in Context: Charles Dickens (2003), has po inted out: "Dickens, like his parents, was to remain almost completely silent ab out this dark but formative period in his life. Only in the 1840s was he private ly prepared to record the painful details and to show them to his wife and to hi s friend, John Forster. It was Forster who published most of his self-pitying au tobiographical fragment after the novelist's death. For the most part, Dickens's boyhood misery was translated into fiction. The memory of his months in the bla cking-factory became part of a habit of secrecy. It may also be integral to Dick ens's awareness of the significance of leading a double life, a doubleness so fr equently practised by his later characters." On the insistence of his father, John Dickens was sent to Wellington House Acade my on Granby Terrace adjoining Mornington Crescent. Dickens passionately dislike d the man who owned the school: "The respected proprietor of which was by far th e most ignorant man I have ever had the pleasure to know, who was one of the wor st-tempered men perhaps that ever lived, whose business it was to make as much o ut of us and to put as little into us as possible." Owen P. Thomas was a fellow student at the school: "My recollection of Dickens w hilst at school, is that of a healthy looking boy, small but well-built, with a more than usual flow of spirits, inducing to harmless fun, seldom or ever I thin k to mischief, to which so many lads at that age are prone.... He usually held h is head more erect than lads ordinarily do, and there was a general smartness ab out him. His week-day dress of jacket and trousers, I can clearly remember, was what is called pepper-and-salt; and instead of the frill that most boys of his a ge wore then, he had a turn-down collar, so that he looked less youthful in cons equence. He invented what we termed a lingo, produced by the addition of a few l etters of the same sound to every word; and it was our ambition, walking and tal king thus along the street, to be considered foreigners." Another boy pointed ou t: "He appeared always like a gentleman's son, rather aristocratic than otherwis e." At Wellington House Academy Dickens was taught traditional subjects such as Lati n. Dickens did not distinguish himself as a scholar at the school. However, he d id enjoy helping to produce the school newspaper. He also wrote and performed in plays. One boy at the school observed that "he was very fond of theatricals... and used to act little plays in the kitchen." He also spent a lot of time readin g a sixteen-page weekly, The Terrific Register. He later recorded that the murde r stories "frightened my very wits out of my head". Dickens left the school in February 1827, when he was fifteen years of age. Once again John Dickens was deeply in debt. Fanny's fees at the Royal Academy of Mus ic were so badly in arrears that she had to leave; but she showed such promise a nd determination that she was able to make an arrangement which allowed her to r eturn and pay for her studies by taking on part-time teaching. Elizabeth Dickens was able to arrange for her son to work as an office boy at th e Ellis & Blackmore law firm in Gray's Inn. A fellow clerk, George Lear, describ ed Dickens during this period: "His appearance was altogether prepossessing. He was a rather short but stout-built boy, and carried himself very upright - and t he idea he gave me was that he must have been drilled by a military instructor.. . His complexion was a healthy pink - almost glowing - rather a round face, fine forehead, beautiful expressive eyes full of animation, a firmly-set mouth, a go od-sized rather straight nose... His hair was a beautiful brown, and worn long, as was then the fashion."

Dickens was popular with the other clerks. Lear claimed that "Dickens could imit ate, in a manner that I have never heard equalled, the low population of the str eets of London in all their varieties, whether mere loafers or sellers of fruit, vegetables, or anything else.... He could also excel in mimicking the popular s ingers of the day, whether comic or patriotic; as to his acting he could give us Shakespeare by the ten minutes, and imitate all the leading actors of that time ." According to Dickens: "I went to some theatre every night, with a very few ex ceptions, for at least three years: really studying the bills first, and going t o see where there was the best acting... I practised immensely (even such things as walking in and out, and sitting down in a chair)." In November 1828 Dickens went to work for another solicitor, Charles Molloy, in Chancery Lane, where he knew one of the clerks, Thomas Mitton. Dickens disliked legal work and he purchased a copy of Gurney's Brachgraphy and taught himself sh orthand. Later he joined his father working for his brother-in-law, John Barrow, who had started up a newspaper, the Mirror of Parliament. Barrow's intention wa s to rival Hansard by offering a complete record of what went on at the House of Commons. Miniature portrait of Charles Dickens (aged 18) by Mrs Janet BarrowMiniature por trait of Charles Dickens (aged 18) by Mrs Janet Barrow On reaching eighteen in 1830 he applied to the British Museum for a ticket to th e Reading Room. He used to spend his mornings reading history books and the afte rnoons and evenings reporting on the events in parliament. This included recordi ng the debates on issues such as parliamentary reform, the abolition of the slav e trade and legislation to protect factory workers. Dickens considered most poli ticians to be "pompous" who seemed to spend most of the time speaking "sentences with no meaning in them". However, Dickens was impressed with some of the MPs w ho genuinely appeared to be interested in making Britain a better place to live. Dickens met Maria Beadnell in May 1830. He was eighteen and she was two years ol der. According to Peter Ackroyd: "She was quite short... dark-haired, dark-eyed with the kind of slightly plump beauty which can so easily dissolve in later lif e; and from all the available evidence, she was something of a flirt if not quit e a coquette." Dickens fell in love straight away but Maria's parents disapprove d of the relationship. Her father was a senior clerk at the bank at Mansion Hous e and considered himself well above the Dickens family financially. In 1832 the Beadnell's took action to end their daughter's flirtation by sending her to Pari s. Dickens wrote a letter, telling her, "I never have loved and I never can love any human creature breathing but yourself." Dickens did see Maria when she returned to London but it was clear that she did not return his feelings for her. Dickens wrote to her accepting defeat: "Our mee tings of late have been little more than so many displays of heartless indiffere nce on the other hand while on the other they have never failed to prove a ferti le soil of wretchedness in a pursuit which has long since been worse than hopele ss." He also returned her letters and a present she had given him in happier tim es. Dickens told John Forster that his love for Maria "excluded every other idea from my mind for four years... I have positively stood amazed at myself ever si nce! The maddest romances that ever got into any boy's head and stayed there". H owever, he added that Maria had inspired him "with a determination to overcome a ll the difficulties, which fairly lifted me up into" becoming a writer. In 1832 Dickens began contributing articles to the radical newspaper, the True S un. Unlike most radical newspapers such as the Poor Man's Guardian and The Gaunt let, it did pay the 4d. stamp duty. Despite having to charge the heavy tax impos ed on newspapers, the newspaper sold 30,000 copies a day. In his articles, Dicke ns used his considerable knowledge of what went on in the House of Commons to he lp promote the cause of parliamentary reform. Charles Dickens was pleased when P

arliament eventually agreed to pass the 1832 Reform Act, however, like most radi cals, he thought it did not go far enough. The new reformed House of Commons pas sed a series of new measures including a reduction in newspaper tax from 4d. to 1d. As a result, the circulation of the newspaper increased to over 60,000. In 1833 Dickens decided to write some stories. He had noticed that there was a v ery small circulation magazine, The Monthly, which had an office in Johnson's Co urt, off Fleet Street. He later admitted that he posted the story, A Dinner at P oplar Walk, "stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter box in a dark office up a dark court" after they had closed. He wro te to his friend, Henry Kolle, "I am so dreadfully nervous, that my hand shakes to such an extent as to prevent my writing a word legibly." Dickens was not paid for his story and it appeared anonymously. He bought a copy from a shop run by William Hall in the Strand and walked with it to Westminster Hall "and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there". Dickens followed this up with several more stories. By August 1834, they were appearing under the name "Boz". In the summer of 1834 Dickens reported on the new Poor Law that was going throug h the House of Commons. The act stated that: (a) no able-bodied person was to re ceive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse; ( b) conditions in workhouses were to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to receive help; (c) workhouses were to be built in every parish or, if parishes were too small, in unions of parishes; (d) ratepayers in each parish o r union had to elect a Board of Guardians to supervise the workhouse, to collect the Poor Rate and to send reports to the Central Poor Law Commission; (e) the t hree man Central Poor Law Commission would be appointed by the government and wo uld be responsible for supervising the Amendment Act throughout the country. Dickens was especially impressed by the speeches of William Cobbett who warned t he legislators that "they were about to dissolve the bonds of society" and to pa ss the law would be "a violation of the contract upon which all the real propert y of the kingdom was held". Cobbett particularly objected to the separation of f amilies, and to workhouse inmates being forced to wear badges or distinctive clo thing. Thomas Attwood argued that workhouses would become "prisons from the purp ose of terrifying applicants from seeking relief". Daniel O'Connell, said that a s an Irishman, he would not say much, but he objected to the bill on the grounds that it "did away with personal feelings and connections." In August 1834 Dickens was offered a permanent job by the Morning Chronicle on a salary of five guineas a week. John Black, the editor of the newspaper, was a s upporter of social reform, and wanted Dickens to become a key member of the team taking on the more conservative, The Times. Dickens was one of twelve parliamen tary reporters employed by Black. He later wrote about reporting on speeches mad e by politicians outside of London: "I have often transcribed for the printer fr om my shorthand reports, important public speeches in which the strictest accura cy was required... writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark lanter n, in a post chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, all through the dead of night." Dickens had obtained a reputation for speed and accuracy in recording debates. I n was a well-paid but exhausting job. Reporters were consigned to the back bench of the Strangers' Gallery, where it was hard to hear what was taking place on t he floor of the chamber. A fellow reporter claimed: "It was dark: always so insu fficiently lit that on the back benches no one could read a paper so ill-ventila ted that few constitutions could long bear the unwholesome atmosphere." Charles Mackay, a colleague at the Morning Chronicle, wrote that Dickens "had the reputa tion of being the most rapid, the most accurate, and the most trustworthy report

er then engaged on the London press". Dickens wrote to John Forster about his experiences working on the newspaper: "T here never was anybody connected with newspapers, who, in the same space of time , had so much express and post-chaise experience as I. And what gentlemen they w ere to serve, in such things, at the old Morning Chronicle! Great or small, it d id not matter. I have had to charge for half-a-dozen break-downs in half-a-dozen times as many miles. I have had to charge for the damage of a great-coat from t he drippings of a blazing wax-candle, in writing through the smallest hours of t he night in a swift-flying carriage and pair. I have had to charge for all sorts of breakages fifty times in a journey without question, such being the ordinary results of the pace which we went at. I have charged for broken hats, broken lu ggage, broken chaises, broken harness - everything but a broken head, which is t he only thing they would have grumbled to pay for." John Black, the editor of Morning Chronicle, agreed to publish Dickens' short st ories. Over the next few months five of Dickens' stories appeared in the newspap er. Dickens called Black "my first hearty out-and-out appreciator". A friend of Black claimed that "I have often heard Black speak of him (Dickens), and predict his future fame." Another recalled that Black had "the highest opinion of his o riginal genius." With his increased income Dickens now decided to rent three rooms in Furnival's Inn for a yearly sum of 35. It was a good address but friends described it as glo omy. Dickens, who shared it with his younger brother, Frederick, agreed that it was not the best of homes but: "we have much more cause for cheerfulness than de spondency after all; and as I for one am determined to see everything in as brig ht a light as possible." In 1834 Dickens was approached by George Hogarth, a fellow journalist at the Mor ning Chronicle who had recently been appointed as editor of the sister newspaper , The Evening Chronicle. He commissioned Dickens to write a series of articles, Sketches of London, under the pseudonym "Boz". As a result Dickens' salary was i ncreased to seven guineas a week. Hogarth invited Dickens to visit him at his home in Kensington. The author of Di ckens: A Life (2011) has pointed out: "Hogarth... had a large and still growing family, and when he (Dickens) made his first visit to their house on the Fulham Road, surrounded by gardens and orchards, he met their eldest daughter, nineteen -year-old Catherine. Her unaffectedness appealed to him at once, and her being d ifferent from the young woman he had known, not only in being Scottish but in co ming from an educated family background with literary connections. The Hogarths, like the Beadnells, were a cut above the Dickens family, but they welcomed Dick ens warmly as an equal, and George Hogarth's enthusiasm for his work was flatter ing." Catherine Hogarth was also impressed by Dickens. In February 1835 she attended a party at Dickens's home. Catherine wrote to her cousin that: "It was in honour of his birthday. It was a bachelor s party at his own chambers. His mother and sis ters presided. One of them a very pretty girl who sings beautifully. It was a de lightful party I enjoyed it very much - Mr Dickens improves very much on acquain tance he is very gentlemanly and pleasant." One of the daughters, Georgina Hogarth, later recalled that Dickens enjoyed "som e delightful musical evenings" where her father performed upon the violoncello. On one occasion, Dickens "dressed as a sailor jumped in at the window, danced a hornpipe, whistling the tune jumped out again, and a few minutes later Charles D ickens walked gravely in at the door, as if nothing had happened, shook hands al l round, and then, at the sight of their puzzled faces, burst into a roar of lau ghter."

Andrew Sanders, the author of Authors in Context: Charles Dickens (2003), has ar gued: "Dickens's affection for her (Catherine), and his feeling of real mutual w armth, is evident enough in the letters that survive their courtship but the sur viving correspondence suggests little of the adolescent passion that he seems to have felt for Maria Beadnell." Dickens offer to marry Catherine Hogarth was immediately accepted. Claire Tomali n has commented: "He (Dickens) saw in her the affection, compliance and physical pleasure, and he believed he was in love with her. That was enough for him to a sk her to be his wife.... She was not clever or accomplished like his sister Fan ny and could never be his intellectual equal, which may have been part of her ch arm: foolish little women are more often presented as sexually desirable in his writing than clever, competent ones.... His decision to marry her was quickly ma de, and he never afterwards gave any account of what had led him to it, perhaps because he came to regard it as the worst mistake in his life." In the summer of 1835 he took rooms close to the Hogarth house, to be near Cathe rine. In June he wrote to Catherine urging her to come round and make a late bre akfast for him: "It's a childish wish my dear love; but I am anxious to hear and see you the moment I wake - will you indulge me by making breakfast for me... i t will be excellent practice for you." On another occasion he wrote that he is " warmly and deeply attached" to her, but he would give her up if she showed him a ny "coldness". During this period Dickens visited Newgate Prison. He was especially concerned a bout the plight of young women in prison: "The girl belonged to a class - unhapp ily but too extensive - the very existence of which should make men's hearts ble ed. Barely past her childhood, it required but a glance to discover that she was one of those children, born and bred in neglect and vice, who have never known what childhood is: who have never been taught to love and court a parent's smile , or to dread a parent's frown. The thousand nameless endearments of childhood, its gaiety and its innocence, are alike unknown to them. They have entered at on ce upon the stern realities and miseries of life, and to their better nature it is almost hopeless to appeal in after-times, by any of the references which will awaken, if it be only for a moment, some good feeling in ordinary bosoms, howev er corrupt they may have become. Talk to them of parental solicitude, the happy days of childhood, and the merry games of infancy! Tell them of hunger and the s treets, beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the station-house, and the pawnbroker 's, and they will understand you." This article later appeared in Sketches by Bo z. One of Dickens' new friends, William Harrison Ainsworth, introduced him to John Macrone. Although he was only a small publisher, he recently achieved considerab le success by publishing Ainsworth's novel, Rookwood. Ainsworth introduced Macro ne to Dickens, who suggested reprinting his stories and sketches that had appear ed in the Morning Chronicle and The Evening Chronicle. Macrone offered Dickens 10 0 for the copyright of these stories. Dickens accepted the proposal as it would provide an extra income just before his marriage. Macrone promised to persuade George Cruikshank to provide the illustrations for the book. Peter Ackroyd has argued that Cruikshank was not an easy man to work w ith: "It was something of a coup for Macrone to enlist the services of this illu strator, George Cruikshank, in the cause of a young author of only modest fame. To have his name on the title page was, if not a guarantee of success, at least a provident hedge against failure... He was already very well known as a caricat urist and illustrator of books - he was in some ways a difficult man, with power ful perceptions but equally powerful opinions. He could be truculent and asserti ve, even though this self-assertive manner often gave way, in his famous drinkin g bouts, to one of drunken clowning and gaiety."

Dickens later recalled: "These Sketches were written and published, one by one, when I was a very young man. They were collected and republished while I was sti ll a very young man; and sent into the world with all their imperfections... The y comprise my first attempts at authorship... I am conscious of their often bein g extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing obvious marks of haste and ine xperience." In his introduction, to Sketches by Boz Dickens praised the drawings of George C ruikshank: "Entertaining no inconsiderable feeling of trepidation, at the idea o f making so perilous a voyage in so frail a machine, alone and unaccompanied, th e author was naturally desirous to secure the assistance and companionship of so me well-known individual, who had frequently contributed to the success, though his well-known reputation rendered it impossible for him ever to have shared the hazard, of similar undertakings." It was published on 8th February 1836, the day after his twenty-fourth birthday. The book was very well received by the critics. George Hogarth, in the Morning Chronicle, described Dickens as "a close and acute observer of character and man ners". However, Dickens was hurt by the numerous references to Cruikshank's tale nted drawings. The reviewer in The Sunday Herald admitted that after reading the book he was unsure "whether we most admire the racy humour and irresistible wit of the sketches, or of the illustrations in George Cruikshank's very best style ". Cruikshank's biographer, Robert L. Patten, has pointed out: "As over the next ye ar they worked together on two series of Sketches by Boz... the relationship war med from wary professionalism to bibulous bonhomie, interrupted by an occasional outburst of temper, of which each collaborator had his share. These volumes wer e a great success, both on account of Dickens's rising popularity and because Cr uikshank's plates introduced deft and spirited graphic commentaries on the text and the town." Dickens wrote to John Macrone saying he found Cruikshank difficul t to work with and stated that "I have long believed Cruikshank to be mad." John Easthope, the owner of the Morning Chronicle, who had made a fortune on the stock exchange, was a difficult employer, and became known as "Blast-hope". In February 1836, Charles Dickens led a short, successful strike against Easthope o ver the terms of employment of his journalists. He also came into conflict with John Black, the editor of the newspaper. According to Andrew Sanders, Dickens of ten clashed with Black over politics: "Dickens later claimed that he and Black h ad quarrelled many times about the effect of that cornerstone of Utilitarian leg islation, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. But it was not simply the Poor Law that offended Dickens's sense of humanity, it was the whole tenor of philosophy , and by extension an economic system, which militated against the proper, and o ften spontaneous, practice of humane charity." Robert Seymour was an illustrator who specialised in sporting scenes. In 1835 Ch apman and Hall published a successful collection of his illustrations, Squib Ann ual of Poetry, Politics, and Personalities. The following year, Seymour suggeste d to William Hall, that he should publish in shilling monthly parts a record of the exploits of a group of Cockney sportsman. Hall approached Charles Whitehead to provide the words. He had just been appointed as editor of the Library of Fic tion and was to busy to take up the offer. Whitehead suggested he should offer t he job to Charles Dickens. Hall offered Dickens 14 for each monthly episode and added that the fee might ris e if the series did well. John R. Harvey, the author of Victorian Novelists and their Illustrators (1970), has argued: "Dickens, however, had no intention of wr iting up anyone else's pictures. When the Seymour plan was put to him, he insist ed that he should write his own story and Seymour should illustrate that." Dicke

ns already had an idea for a comic character, Samuel Pickwick, a rich, retired b usinessman with a taste for good food and a tendency to drink too much. He was b ased on Moses Pickwick, a coach proprietor from Bath, a man whose coaches he use d while working as a journalist. The first number appeared in March 1836. It cam e in green wrappers, with 32 pages of print material and 4 engravings, and price d at one shilling. The publishers sold only 400 copies of the first part of the project. * * * * * * Charles Charles Charles Charles Charles Charles Dickens Dickens Dickens Dickens Dickens Dickens (Part 1: (Part 2: (Part 3: (Part 4: (Part 5: Timeline 1812-1836) 1836-1840) 1840-1850) 1850-1860) 1860-1870)

John Simkin, September 1997 - June 2013 Primary Sources (1) John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens (1874) He (Charles Dickens) was a very little and a very sickly boy. He was subject to attacks of violent spasm which disabled him for any active exertion. He was never a good little cricket-player; he was never a first-rate hand at marbles, o r peg-top, or prisoner's base; but he had great pleasure in watching the other b oys, officers' sons for the most part, at these games, reading while they played ; and he had always the belief that this early sickness had brought to himself o ne inestimable advantage, in the circumstance of his weak health having strongly inclined him to reading. (2) Mary Dickens, Charles Dickens by His Eldest Daughter (1894) His mother and the rest of the family, with the exception of his sister Fann y ... lived in a poor part of London, too far away from the blacking warehouse f or him to go and have his dinner with them; so he had to carry his food with him , or buy it at some cheap eating house, as he wandered about the streets, during the dinner hou. When Charles had enough money he would buy some coffee and a sl ice of bread and butter. When the poor little pocket was empty, he wandered abou t the streets again, gazing into shop windows. (3) Charles Dickens, A Visit to Newgate, included in Sketches by Boz (1836) Turning to the right, then, down the passage to which we just now adverted, omitting any mention of intervening gates - for if we noticed every gate that wa s unlocked for us to pass through, and locked again as soon as we had passed, we should require a gate at every comma - we came to a door composed of thick bars of wood, through which were discernible, passing to and fro in a narrow yard, s ome twenty women: the majority of whom, however, as soon as they were aware of t he presence of strangers, retreated to their wards. One side of this yard is railed off at a considerable distance, and formed i nto a kind of iron cage, about five feet ten inches in height, roofed at the top , and defended in front by iron bars, from which the friends of the female priso ners communicate with them. In one corner of this singular-looking den, was a ye llow, haggard, decrepit old woman, in a tattered gown that had once been black, and the remains of an old straw bonnet, with faded ribbon of the same hue, in ea rnest conversation with a young girl - a prisoner, of course - of about two-andtwenty. It is impossible to imagine a more poverty-stricken object, or a creatur e so borne down in soul and body, by excess of misery and destitution, as the ol d woman. The girl was a good-looking, robust female, with a profusion of hair st reaming about in the wind - for she had no bonnet on - and a man's silk pocket-h andkerchief loosely thrown over a most ample pair of shoulders. The old woman wa

s talking in that low, stifled tone of voice which tells so forcibly of mental a nguish; and every now and then burst into an irrepressible sharp, abrupt cry of grief, the most distressing sound that cars can hear. The girl was perfectly unm oved. Hardened beyond all hope of redemption, she listened doggedly to her mothe r's entreaties, whatever they were: and, beyond inquiring after "Jem", and eager ly catching at the few halfpence her miserable parent had brought her, took no m ore apparent interest in the conversation than the most unconcerned spectators. Heaven knows there were enough of them, in the persons of the other prisoners in the yard, who were no more concerned by what was passing before their eyes, and within their hearing, than if they were blind and deaf. Why should they be? Ins ide the prison, and out, such scenes were too familiar to them, to excite even a passing thought, unless of ridicule or contempt for feelings which they had lon g since forgotten. A little farther on, a squalid-looking woman in a slovenly, thick-bordered c ap, with her arms muffled in a large red shawl, the fringed ends of which stragg led nearly to the bottom of a dirty white apron, was communicating some instruct ions to her visitor - her daughter evidently. The girl was thinly clad, and shak ing with the cold. Some ordinary word of recognition passed between her and her mother when she appeared at the grating, but neither hope, condolence, regret, n or affection was expressed on either side. The mother whispered her instructions , and the girl received them with her pinched-up, half-starved features twisted into an expression of careful cunning. It was some scheme for the woman's defenc e that she was disclosing, perhaps; and a sullen smile came over the girl's face for an instant, as if she were pleased: not so much at the probability of her m other's liberation, as at the chance of her "getting off' in spite of her prosec utors. The dialogue was soon concluded; and with the same careless indifference with which they had approached each other, the mother turned towards the inner e nd of the yard, and the girl to the gate at which she had entered. The girl belonged to a class - unhappily but too extensive - the very existe nce of which should make men's hearts bleed. Barely past her childhood, it requi red but a glance to discover that she was one of those children, born and bred i n neglect and vice, who have never known what childhood is: who have never been taught to love and court a parent's smile, or to dread a parent's frown. The tho usand nameless endearments of childhood, its gaiety and its innocence, arc alike unknown to them. They have entered at once upon the stern realities and miserie s of life, and to their better nature it is almost hopeless to appeal in after-t imes, by any of the references which will awaken, if it be only for a moment, so me good feeling in ordinary bosoms, however corrupt they may have become. Talk t o them of parental solicitude, the happy days of childhood, and the merry games of infancy! Tell them of hunger and the streets, beggary and stripes, the gin-sh op, the station-house, and the pawnbroker's, and they will understand you. Two or three women were standing at different parts of the grating, conversi ng with their friends, but a very large proportion of the prisoners appeared to have no friends at all, beyond such of their old companions as might happen to b e within the walls. (4) The Sunday Times, review of Sketches by Boz (21st February, 1836) The majority of these very pleasant sketches have already appeared in the co lumns of the Evening Chronicle, and the interest which they excited has, it seem s, induced the author to publish them in their present form, with appropriate gr aphic illustrations by George Cruikshank, whose genius, like the purse of Fortun atus, is inexhaustible. (5) Lucinda Hawksley , Katey: The Life and Loves of Dickens's Artist Daughter (2 006)

At the start of Victoria's reign, the young Charles Dickens was enjoying the early stages of fame. His first books, two series of Sketches by Boz (published in 1836), had led to widespread interest in this new writer whose real identity was unknown, but who wrote so humorously and observantly about London life. It was his very next book, Pickwick Papers, that was to reveal the identity of 'Boz ' and make Charles Dickens a household name. The ludicrously funny tales of Mr S amuel Pickwick and his companions were printed in twenty monthly installments. T he stories were highly addictive and immediately had literate London laughing ov er the characters' antics and extolling the phenomenon of this new author. At th e time the public was enjoying the first chapter of Pickwick, its author was jus t twenty-four years old. In the year of the young queen's coronation, Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, having been serialized in the periodical Bentley's Miscellany, was published to great acclaim and the first chapters of Nicholas Nickleby were printed in month ly installments. Both novels highlighted terrible social problems in modern Brit ain and started Victoria's subjects talking in earnest about what could be done to help the poor and the disenfranchised. Oliver Twist brought the shameful trut h about workhouses and baby farms to the masses and Nicholas Nickleby caused inv estigative journalists to converge on Yorkshire to find out if what Mr Dickens h ad written about the 'Yorkshire Schools' was true. They discovered that these ho rrifying schools, to which unwanted children were sent, were a terrible reality. Dickens had brought the plight of these children, and the appalling way in whic h they had been treated by their parents, guardians and 'educators', into the pu blic domain. The effect was tremendous. Within a few years of the publication of Nicholas Nickleby almost every one of the Yorkshire Schools had been closed dow n.