Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was a famous English novelist. His full name was John Huffam Dickens. He was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England. He wrote his novel by the penname 'Boz'. His father's name was John Dickens. He was a naval pay clerk and his mother's name was Elizabeth Barrow. When Charles was five years old, his family, moved to Chatham, Kent and when he was ten years old, the family moved to Camden Town in London. During his early years, he spent his time reading novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding.

His family was quite well off. He received education at a private school but all that changed when his father, was locked up for debt after spending too much money entertaining and maintaining his social position. At the age of twelve, Charles started working. He worked for 10 hours a day in Warren's boot-blacking factory located near the present Charing Cross railway station. He spent his time pasting labels on the jars of thick polish and earned six shillings a week. With this money, he paid for his accommodation and supported his family who was imprisoned in the nearby Marshalsea debtors' prison.

After few years, his family's monetary position got better, partly due to money inherited from his father's family. His mother encouraged him to work in the boot-black factory owned by a relation of hers. Charles never forgave his mother for this and resented his situation. In May 1827, Dicken began to work as a law clerk. He did not like the Law as a profession and after a short time as a court stenographer, he became a journalist, wrote about parliamentary debate and travelled Britain by stagecoach to cover election campaigns. In his early twenties, he wrote his first novel, 'The Pickwick Papers'.

On 24 April, 1836, Charles got married to Catherine Hogarth and had ten children. Bickens' writings became extremely popular and were read widely. Very soon, he became popular and bought a Gad's Hill Place in 1856. It was a large house in Rochester, Kent was very special to Dickens as he had spent his childhood there.

Dickens got separated from his wife in 1858. As during Victorian times, divorce was almost impossible particularly for someone as well-known as Charles Dickens. So, he continued to live with her for the next twenty years till her death. Although they were happy together in the early days, her job of looking after their ten children and the pressure of living with and keeping a house for a well-known novelist surely did not help. Catherine's sister Georgina moved in to help her but there were rumours that Charles was romantically linked to his sister-in-law.

On the 9th April, 1865 while returning from France, Dickens was caught up in the Staplehurst train crash in which the first six carriages of the train plunged off of a bridge that was being repaired. The only first-class carriage remained on the track and luckily Dickens was inside that coach. Dickens spent some time in the treatment of the wounded. Then he remembered the incomplete manuscript for 'Our Mutual Friend and he returned to his carriage.

Ellen, an actress, had been Dickens' friend since the breakup of his marriage and as he had met her in 1857 she was most probable and the ultimate cause for that break-up. She continued to be his companion and probably mistress, until his death.

Charles Dicken died on June 9, 1870. He was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb reads: "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering and the oppressed and by his death; one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world."

In the 1980s, the historic Eastgate House in Rochester, Kent was converted into a Charles Dickens museum and an annual Dickens Festival held in the city. The house in Portsmouth in which Dickens was born has also been made into a museum.

The major novels of Dickens were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals named 'Household Words and later collected into the full novels which we read today, Among his best-known works are 'Great Expectations', 'David Copperfield', 'Oliver Twist', 'Nicholas Nickleby' and 'A Christmas Carol'.

He was a severe critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. Throughout his works, Dickens retained sympathy for the common man.

Dickens was spellbound by the theatre as he thought it to be an escape from the world. Dickens himself had a flourishing career as a performer, reading scenes from his works. He travelled widely in Britain and America on stage tours. At least 180 movies and TV adaptations are based on Dickens' works. He is still immortal in everybody's thoughts.