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Charles Dickens - BIOGRAPHY

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812. He was the son of


John and Elizabeth Dickens. His father, a clerk in the Naval Pay
Office, was sent to prison for debt. Young Charles was only twelve
years old when he was sent to work at Warren's Blacking Factory,
while the rest of his family joined his father in the Marshalsea
Prison. During this time, Charles lived alone in a lodging house,
ashamed and frightened. These early experiences became a source
of creative energy and a reason for his preoccupation with themes
of alienation and betrayal. These early experiences also made him
self-reliant, a trait which would later turn him into a hard-working
and dedicated writer.

Dickens returned to school after the financial difficulties were over.


When he was fifteen, he went to work as a clerk in a law firm. Later
he became a free-lance reporter, first reporting on dull law cases
and then the more exciting parliamentary debates. These
experiences helped shape his social consciousness. In 1830, he fell
in love with Maria Beadwell, the daughter of a banker. The
relationship was short-lived, since Dickens was not considered a
good match for her, by her parents standards. He then met and
married Catherine Hogarth on April 2, 1836.

Dickens first published story appeared in 1835. He also started


writing under the famous pseudonym "Boz", with the first sketches
published in 1836. His success as a writer truly began with the
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836-37), now known as
The Pickwick Papers. Its popularity allowed him to embark on a full-
time career as a novelist. He wrote Oliver Twist in 1837, followed by
Nicholas Nickleby, The Olde Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge.
Dickens also had a social conscience. He visited Canada and the
United States in 1842 and advocated international copyright laws
and the abolition of slavery. His American Notes appeared in
October of that year and, along with the novel Martin Chuzzlewit,
did not portray America flatteringly.

Dickens' enormously successful A Christmas Carol was published in


1844. From 1844 onward, the family spent a lot of time abroad,
especially in Italy, Switzerland, and France. The Chimes, The
Cricket on the Hearth, and Pictures from Italy belong to this period.
He published Domby and Son in 1846, and began the serial David
Copperfield in 1849. He published Bleak House in 1852, Hard Times
in 1854, Little Dorrit in 1855, and collaborated with W. Collins on a
play, The Frozen Deep, in 1856. He also founded and became the
editor of the weekly Household Words and opened a theatrical
company. In 1859 he began to edit All the Year Round, a weekly
magazine. A serialization of A Tale of Two Cities appeared in this
weekly in 1859. Great Expectations began to appear in 1860 and
ended in 1861.

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Dickens, being a much loved author, started the public reading of
his works in 1853; this activity continued until 1870, when he gave
his final public reading. He suffered a stroke on June 8, 1870, at
Gad's Hill, the estate he had bought. He died on June 9, 1870. He
was buried in Westminster Abbey, and his unfinished work, The
Mystery of Edward Drood, appeared in September.

Dickens, who addressed social issues and historic events with


penetrating insight, is regarded as the greatest British author of all
times. The power of his novels, which are rich, diverse, and intense,
lies in his ability to report accurately and to transform the ordinary
into something magical. His concern for modern society is evident in
all his novels. He emerges as a social reformer with a deep
compassion for the working class. His works, which are complex,
deep, and perceptive, are also marked with melodramatic intensity
and humor. Many of his themes and images are recurrent. The
image of a corrupt judicial system, especially the condition of
prisons, occupies a central spot in both Bleak House and Little
Dorrit. At times, Dickens exposes the humorous face of a sadly
comic world with which he has gradually become disillusioned. He
presents the failures of both business ethics and revolutionary zeal.
In A Tale of Two Cities, he depicts both the excitement and the
chaos of revolution.

Charles Dickens was a prolific writer of quality works that have


remained popular through the years for their intensity and social
conscience. In spite of his lack of formal education, he reveals in his
novels a mastery of the English language and a sophisticated depth
of thought that has endeared him to many generations of students
and readers.

LITERARY/HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Great Expectations was published serially in Dickens weekly
periodical, All the Year Round, from December 1860 until June
1861. This serialization was done in order to restore the dwindling
readership of the magazine and was a wonderful success. There
have been countless adaptations of the novel for the stage and
screen and it is often credited as Dickens greatest work.

Some critics and historians suggest that Dickens wrote Great


Expectations from an autobiographical perspective, drawing on his
own experience as a discontent child. As well, two literary terms are
commonly used in describing the style and development of Great
Expectations. First, the novel is picaresque. This term applies to
plots that are episodic in nature. As a serial novel, Great
Expectations is necessarily picaresque. Pips story is told in small
portions, each chapter having a self-contained event or situation
that combines with the others to form the greater plot. Second, the
novel is in the Bildungsroman genre. This means the main
characters self-development comes about as a result of trying to
find his place in society. Some common elements of the
Bildungsroman genre are the following: discontentment with society
and ones lot in life, a long and difficult maturation period in which
the discontented lashes out against the world, and a resolution in
which he is restored to the world and renewed or invigorated with
his place in the world.

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