Charles Dickens

1. Charles Dicken’s works


1.1 General Notes on Charles Dicken’s works

Charles Dickens was born at Land-port, then a suburb of Portsmouth, where his father held a clerkship in the Navy Pay Office. He spent his youth at Chatham and London where he had to submit to a life of great hardship. His father being imprisoned for debt, the boy was, for a time, packer in a London blacking warehouse. Later he was placed in a solicitor's office, where he acquired the knowledge of legal affairs afterwards displayed in his novels. The boy's education was mainly achieved by extensive reading and keen observation of people and things around him. In 1831 Dickens obtained an engagement as parliamentary reporter. Before long he tried his hand at original composition, and wrote short descriptive essays on the London scenes familiar to him, collected as Sketches by Boz in 1835. The success of the Sketches decided the course of his life. The immense popularity of his next publication The Posthumous Papers of tlie Pickwick Club (1836–37) spread his fame all over Europe. The remainder of his life's story is a record of literary triumphs and of his visits to America (1842 and 1867), Italy, France and Switzerland. In 1858 Dickens began to give public readings from his works, which, due to his great histrionic talent, proved an extraordinary success.

Dickens created a series of novels, specially notable for critical and for comic talent, for critical treatment of Victorian England. All Dickens's great works – Oliver Twist (1837–38), Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), The Old Curiosity Shop (1843–44), Mar-tin Chuzzlewit (1843–44), Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son (1846–48), The Personal History of David Copperfield (1849–50), Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times for These Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1855–57), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860–61) – carry a profound moral message. At the same time Dickens is bent on Correcting public grievances, like the defects of the new outrageous Poor Law and the workhouse system, the miseries of the debtors' prisons, the clumsiness and injustice of the governmental and legal systems. Dickens-is at his best at depicting low and middle-class life and at inventing unforgettable striking characters. A great many of them have become recognized types in English fiction.
Dickens also tried his hand at the historical novel, as in Barnaby Radge (1840–41) and A Tale of Two Cities, at a vast number of short stories and also at writing for the stage. His last novels include Our Mutual Friend (1864–65) and the unfinished detective story of The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870).
Among the most popular and productive novelist as Charles Dickens, whose combined social Critism with comedy and sentiment to create a tone that the world identifies as Victorian lake chancer and Shakespeare before him. Dickens enjoyed inviting or vast array of memorable character in novels such as «Olive Twist (1837 -39), «A Tale of Two Cities» (1899) and «Great expectative (1860–61) His heart felt Critism helped to change British institution that badly needed reform, especially prisons and schools Charles Dickens was the most popular British author of the Victorian Age, the more than a hundred years after his death his work is still popular both in print and in dramatic and musical versions. The magic that millions still find in Dickens novels can be traced at least in part to the eccentric, colorful array of characters that he created, the gullible Rickwick of «The Rickwick Papers». (1836–37) the villainous Fagin of «Oliver Twist» (1837–39) the pathetic little Nell of «The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41) the misetly zeroage of «A Christmas Card» (1843) the Shiffles Micarofer of «David Copperfield» (1849–50), the bite Miss Havisham of «Great Expectations» (1860–1861).
The basis for many of these characters lies in Dickens own experience. In fact many people believe that his father was the model for Micawber and his mother inspired Mrs Nickleby in «Nicholas Rickelby» (1838–39).Dickens was born in Portsmouth in Southern England, the second of eight children. His father was a clerk who worked or the navy. The family repeatedly moved in order to escape creditors. When his father was finally sent to a debtor’s prison Charles, then twelve begun working in a warehouse pasting labels on pots of shoe blacking. After a sudden inheritance improved the family’s fortunes, Charles found work at a lawyer’s clerk and then as a reporter. His literary career begum with the success of «Secteles by Bor», a collection of vulgates about life in the city that he wrote for a London newspaper:» Bor» led to «The Pickwick Paper» his first novel.
While Dickens has entertained millions with his novels, he also intended them as mean of social reform, Human welfare could not keep place with the technological advances of his time, and Dickens did much to expose evil by products of industrializing: child labor, debtors prisons, ruinous financial speculation, inhuman legal procedures, and mismanagement of schools, orphanages, prisons, and hospitals.
Dickens many novels add up to a vast panorama of human nature and specifically of Victorian life. One except from one novel is very small simple indeed.
The following selection from «Oliver Twist «, however, can be read as a serial installment. When Charles Dickens was ten years old his taken to prison for dept.
Little Charles Dickens was the second of eight children had to go to work in a blacking factory, where he worked from early morning till late at night. When his father came out school. But at15 he left school to work as or clerk in lawyer’s office. As a reporter in Parliament made him acquainted with the government, and aroused in him or deep contempt for the English parliamentary systems contempt that lasted all his life and reflected in many of his life and reflected in many of his works becoming with «The Pickwick Club» (1836–37).In his work there is much humor. But flu humor is often turned info irony and satire. Which the author used as powerful weapon with which to criticize and expose various evils in English social and political life, the capitalist exploiting system of workhouses in «Oliver Twist» (1838), bourses, so-called education in «Nicholas Nicely «(1839)» David Copperfield» (1850) and others, capitalist cruelty and injustice in all his works. In 1836 dickens was asked by a firm of publishers to write a letter for a series of etchings. His work exceeded the stimulated task and thus «The Dartmouth Papers of the «Pickwick Club «solo publications. This work at once lifted Dickens info the foremast rank as popular writers of fictions. He followed up this triumph with a quick succession of costuming novels in which he mastery depicted the life of contemporary society. His «Oliver Twist «deals with social problems. The novel ends in a happy issue which has become a characteristic feature of the greater part of Dickens works. His next novel «The book deals with another burning question of the day that of the education of children in English private schools. Immediately after the publication of the novel Dickens was bombarded with letters protesting the statement. But the facts being ascertained, a school reform was carried out in England. Dickens next publication was «The old Curiosity Shop «.
In 1841 he visited the USA and Canada to lecture on his works on his works. On his return he wrote «American Notes «and a novel «Martin Chuzzlewit «.In these two books Dickens gives a highly realistic picture of American bourgeoisie society its hypsography, ignorance and greed. He shows the disgusting in influence of money and directs all the force of his satire against False American democracy against slavery, and the corruption of the American press.
Although Dickens never rose to the revolutionary level he was one of those writers who all his life used his pen in the fight against the evils of the capitalist system.