Dickens, Charles (John Huffam)

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English novelist. He is enduringly popular for his memorable characters and his portrayal of the social evils of Victorian England. In 1836 he published the first number of the Pickwick Papers, followed by Oliver Twist (1837), the first of his ‘reforming’ novels; Nicholas Nickleby (1838), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840), Barnaby Rudge (1841); and David Copperfield (1850). Among his later books are A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861). All his novels were written as serials.

Dickens was born in Portsea, Hampshire, and received little formal education. A short period spent working in a blacking factory in south London, while his father was imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea prison during 1824, was followed by three years in a private school. In 1827 he became a lawyer's clerk, and then after four years a reporter for the Morning Chronicle, to which he contributed the Sketches by Boz. In 1836 he married Catherine Hogarth (1815–79).

The Pickwick Papers were originally intended merely as an accompaniment to a series of sporting illustrations, but the adventures of Pickwick outgrew their setting and established Dickens's reputation. In 1842 he visited the USA, where he was welcomed as a celebrity. On his return home, he satirized US democracy in Martin Chuzzlewit (1844). In 1843 he published the first of his Christmas books, A Christmas Carol. Dombey and Son (1848) was largely written abroad. David Copperfield, his most popular novel and his own favourite, contains many autobiographical incidents and characters; Mr Micawber is usually recognized as a sketch of his father. Dickens launched the weekly magazine Household Words in 1850, reorganizing it in 1859 as All the Year Round; many of his later stories were published serially in these periodicals. In 1858 he began giving public readings from his novels, which proved such a success that he was invited to make a second US tour 1867–68.

Among his later novels are Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1857), and Our Mutual Friend (1865). Edwin Drood, a mystery story influenced by the style of his friend, English author Wilkie Collins, was left incomplete on his death.

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