Charles Dickens was born in Landport, Hampshire, during the new industrial age, which created misery for the class of low-paid workers and gave birth to theories of Karl Marx. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended in financial troubles. In 1814 Dickens moved to London, and then to Chatham, where he received some education. He worked in a blacking factory, Hungerford Market, London, while his family was in Marshalea debtor's prison in 1824 - later this period found its way to the novel Little Dorrit (1855-57). In 1824-27 Dickens studied at Wellington House Academy, London, and at Mr. Dawson's school in 1827. From 1827 to 1828 he was a law office clerk, and then worked as a shorthand reporter at Doctor's Commons. He wrote for True Son (1830-32), Mirror of Parliament (1832-34) and the Morning Chronicle (1834-36). He was in the 1830s a contributor to Monthly Magazine, and The Evening Chronicle and edited Bentley's Miscellany. In the 1840s Dickens founded Master Humphrey's Cloak and edited the London Daily News.

These years as a journalist left Dickens with lasting affection for journalism and suspicious attitude towards unjust laws. His sharp ear for conversation helped him reveal characters through their own words. Dickens's career as a writer of fiction started in 1833 when his short stories and essays to appeared in periodical. His SKETCHES BY BOZ and THE PICKWICK PAPERS were published in 1836; he married in the same year the daughter of his friend George Hogarth, Catherine Hogart. However, some people suspected that he was more fond of her sister, Mary, who moved into their house and died in 1837. Dickens requested that he be buried next to her when he died and wore Mary's ring all his life. Another of Catherine's sisters, Georgiana, moved in with the Dickenses, and the novelist fell in love with her. Dickens had with Catherine 10 children but they were separated in 1858. Dickens also had a long liaison with the actress Ellen Ternan, whom he had met by the late 1850s.

The Pickwick Papers were stories about a group of rather odd individuals and their travels to Ipswich, Rochester, Bath and elsewhere. Dickens's novels first appeared in monthly instalments, including OLIVER TWIST (1837-39), which depicts the London underworld and hard years of the foundling Oliver Twist, NICHOLAS NICKELBY (1838-39), a tale of young Nickleby's struggles to seek his fortune, and OLD CURIOSITY SHOP (1840-41). Among his later works are DAVID COPPERFIELD (1849-50), where Dickens used his own personal experiences of work in a factory, BLEAK HOUSE (1852-53), A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1859), set in the years of the French Revolution. GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1860-61), the story of Pip (Philip Pirrip), was among Tolstoy's and Dostoyevsky's favorite novels. The unfinished mystery novel THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD was published in 1870.

Dickens reading in 1858

From the 1840s Dickens spent much time travelling and campaigning against many of the social evils of his time. In addition he gave talks and reading, wrote pamphlets, plays, and letters. In the 1850s Dickens was founding editor of Household World and its successor All the Year Round (1859-70). In 1844-45 he lived in Italy, Switzerland and Paris. He gave lecturing tours in Britain and the United States in 1858-68. From 1860 Dickens lived at Gadshill Place, near Rochester, Kent. He died at Gadshill on June 9, 1870. Although Dickens's career as a novelist received much attention, he produced hundreds of essays and edited and rewrote hundreds of others submitted to the various periodicals he edited. Dickens distinguished himself as an essayist in 1834 under the pseudonym Boz. 'A Visit to Newgate' (1836) reflects his

own memories of visiting his own family in the Marshalea Prison. In 'A Small Star in the East' reveals the working conditions on mills and 'Mr. Barlow' (1869) draws a portrait of a unsensitive tutor.

For further reading:

Dickens by Peter Acroyd (1990);

Charles Dickens as Familiar Essayist by Gordon Spence (1977);

The World of Charles Dickens by Angus Wilson (1970);

Selected works:

SKETCHES BY BOZ, 1836

THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB, 1836-37 - film 1954, dir. by Noel Langley

THE ADVENTURES OF OLIVER TWIST, 1837-39 - Oliver Twist (film 1922, dir. by Frank Lloyd, starring Jackie Coogan, Lon Chaney; film 1933, dir. by Willam Cowen; film 1948, directed by David Lean, starring Alec Guinness, Robert Newton; musical film 1968, dir. by Carol Reed, starring Ron Moody, Oliver Reed; television film 1982, dir. by Clive Donner, starring George C. Scott, Tim Curry; animated feature 1988, dir. by George Scribner; new film adaptation forthcoming, dir. by Alan Bleasdale)

THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, 1838-39 - Nicholas Nickleby (film 1947, dir. by Alberto Cavalcanti - can't compare with the Royal Shakespeare Company's 8,5 hour stage version)

THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, 1841 (1978 musical version Mr. Quilp, retitled The Old Curiosity Shop, dir. by Michael Tuchner, starring Anthony Newley, David Hemmings - remade for cable in 1995, dir. by Kevon Connor, starring Peter Ustinov, James Fox)

BARNABY RUDGE, 1841

AMERICAN NOTES, 1842

THE CHRISTMAS CARROL, 1843 - film adaptation under the title Scrooge in 1935, dir. by Henry Edwards; film 1938, dir. by Edwin L. Marin; film 1951, dir. by Brian Desmond-Hurst - original British title Scrooge; film adaptation under the title Scrooge in 1970, dir. by Ronald Neame, starring Albert Finney, Alec Guinness, television film 1984, dir. by Clive Donner, starring George C. Scott, Nigel Davenport; modernized film adaptation under the title Scrooged, dir. by Richard Donner, starring Bill Murray, Karen Allen

THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, 1843-44

THE CHIMES, 1845

THE CRICKET ON THE HEART, 1846

PICTURES FROM ILTALY, 1846

DOMBEY AND SON, 1848

DAVID COPPERFIELD, 1849 - film 1935, dir. by George Cukor, starring Freddie Bartholomew, W.C. Fields, Frank

Lawton, Lionel Barrymore; television film 1970, dir. by Delbert Mann, starring Robin Phillips, Susan Hampshire, Michael Redgrave, Edith Evans; new film adaptation forthcoming, dir. by David Sullivan)

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 1851-53

BLEAK HOUSE, 1853

HARD TIMES, 1854

LITTLE DORRITT, 1855-57 - film 1988, dir. by Christine Eszart, starring Derek Jacobi, Alec Guinness

THE TALE OF TWO CITIES, 1859 - several film adaptations, among them silent-film version from 1917, dir. by Frank Lloyd; film 1935, dir. by Jack Conway, starring Ronald Colman, Elisabeth Allan, Basil Rathbone; film 1958, dir. by Ralph Thomas, starring Dirk Bogarde, Dorothy Tutin, Cecil Parker; television film 1980, dir. by Peter Cushing)

THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER, 1860

REPRINTED PIECES, 1861

GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 1861 - film 1946, directed by David Lean, starring John Mills, Valerie Hobson; film 1998, dir. by Alfonso Cuarón, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Ethan Hawke, Anne Bancroft - new modernized film adaptation forthcoming, dir. by Tony Marchant)

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, 1865

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, 1870 - Edwin Droodin arvoitus (film 1935, dir. by Stuart Walker, starring Claude Rains, Douglass Montgomery, Heather Angel; film 1993, dir. by Timothy Forder, starring Robert Powell, Michelle Evans)

SPEECHES, LETTERS AND SAYINGS, 1870

COLLECTED WORKS EDITIONS: The Charles Dickens Edition, 21 vols., (1867-75); Nonesuch Edition, 23 vols., (1937-38); The New Oxford Illustrated Dickens, 21 vols. (1947-58); The Clarendon Dickens (in progress, 1966-)

TO BE READ AT DUSK, 1898

MISCALLENOUS PAPERS, 1908 (2 vols.)

A DECEMBER VISION, 1986

DICKENS'S JOURNALISM, vol. I, 1993

DICKENS'S JOURNALISM, vol. 2, 1997

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