Charles John Huffam Dickens popularly known as Charles Dickens is known and loved all over the world for his Novels ,He is one of the prominent writer in the history of the English literature .Charles Dickens wiki, biography,books,novel, age, works,early life, education, childhood, family, wife ,children,quotes,facts is all we are going to discuss today.

Charles Dickens (February 7,1812 to June 9, 1870) was born at Landport in Portsea Island (Portsmouth) was a British novelist, journalist, editor, illustrator and social commentator.

    Dickens is remembered as one of the most important and influential writers of the 19th century and he is also regarded as the literary colossus of his age. Infact, World's best-known fictional characters are created by him and because of which he  is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian Age.

BORN

February 7, 1812 at 1 mile End terrace ,(Now 393 Commercial road), Landport in Portsea Island (Portsmouth).

DIED

9 June 1870,Higham, kent(England)

OCCUPATION

Writer,Editor, Journalist

NATIONALITY

British

FAMILY

John Dickens (Father), Elizabeth Barrow  (Mother).

SPOUSE

Catherine Thompson Hogarth .

CHILDREN

Charles Dickens Jr., Mary Dickens, Kate Perugini, Walter Landor Dickens,  Francis Dickens , Alfred D'orsay Tennyson Dickens , Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens, Henry Fielding Dickens, Dora Annie Dickens,  Edward Dickens.

ERA

Victorian Era.

Charles Dickens Family,Early Life And Education

Charles Dickens,the eldest son and second of the eight children,of John Dickens, and Elizabeth.John Dickens was a clerk in the Navy.And his Mother Elizabeth was a school director.

When Charles was hardly 4 years old his father was transferred to Chatham , Chatham provided  the most Congenial  'Milieu' for Charles .The hills ,the lush green grass and leaves carried Charles to an enchanted land . Which left an indelible impression upon his mind and these appeared again and again in his work in "Great Expectations" .

Charles went to Giles school with his elder sister ,Charles loved sports and games ,but he had the least aspiration to be a sportsman "I was a writer when a mere baby," writes Charles , "but an actor always ". In fact ,Charles was an actor in his novels.

When Charles was only ten years old his formal education almost came to an end.His father lost his job due to which entire family had to face appalling poverty.Eventually, John was sent to prison for debt in 1824, when Charles was just 12 years old. it was a dark period for the family.
Following his father’s imprisonment, Dickens was forced  to work at a boot-blacking factory . At the run-down, rodent-ridden factory, Dickens earned six shillings a week labeling pots of “blacking,” . It was the best he could do to help support his family.

Charles father's was released but he had no employment,when his father received family inheritance Charles was permitted to go back to school in Wellington house academy.But unfortunately at the age of 15years  his education was pulled out again to work and contribute to his family's income .His father however succeeded in getting Charles employed at the office of a solicitor on a modest weekly salary and that job became the launching point for his writing Carrier.

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  Charles Dickens Early Novels and Carrier as a Journalist,Editor

Charles Dickens was appointed as a reporter at Doctors Commons ,where he meet a Lovely girl ,Maria Baednett it was more then a calf love but the ideas of marriage did not occur to either,Charles could not be married and his beloved discouraged him to be a writer of stories.

In the early days of journalism he sent some of his autobiographical sketches to the The Monthly Magazine,these sketches were appeared as Sketches By Boz .Boz is Charles pen name and Boz was actually one of his Brothers.This sketches of Charles appeared in book form and Charles hot one hundred and fifty pounds as his royalty.

It was a glorious beginning and Fortune smiles upon Charles ,His Pickwick Papers was being published serially,which was illustrated by the famous artist ,Robert Seymour .Robert Seymour for unknowns reason committed suicide but Dickens continued his story of the irrepressible Pickwick.Its popularity was beyond imagination.pickwick was on Everybody's lips.

It was the novel Pickwick Papers which brought Charles wealth and Fame and it also encouraged him to undertake the Composition of The Adventures of Oliver Twist,to be followed by the First number of Nicholas Nickleby . Oliver's Twist, published in 1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories, and was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist.

  Charles Dickens Wife And Children

On 2nd April 1836 Dickens married  Catherine Thompson Hogarth ,daughter of George Hogarth,the conductor of the Evening Chronicles,in St.Luke church Chelsea ,London. The first of their Ten children ,Charley was born in January 1837.During this period Charles shifted to Doughty Street ,London .Dickens and his wife lived under the same roof ,but could not love each other .when Dickens was bestriding the literary world like a colossus ,the poor wife looked on with Awe .It is the tragedy Of a common woman to be the wife of a celebrity.Dickens never I'll treated his wife ,never used abusive language.He was too refined too cultured to do such things.

     Charles Dickens Visit To the United states

In 1842, Dickens and his wife made their first trip to the United States and Canada.He described his impressions in a Travelogue American notes for general Circulation,During his American visit he spent a month in New York city Raising of International copyright Laws. On his return home Dickens was a veritable hero ,in The following year Dickens 'Christmas Books " Appeared the stories were enjoyed by the young and the old alike.

Dickens also visited Italy and France ,it was in France that he started Writing Dombey and son .on coming back to England Dickens wrote David Copperfield.

Dickens Favoured the style of the 18th century picaresque novels .Charles Dickens literary Style is a mixture of Realism and Fantasy and his writing style is marked with a profuse linguistic creativity.

There are four types of character in Dickens Novel

(1) The horrible , inhuman characters like Uriah heep and Fagin.

(2) Sweet , pleasant children like Nell,Oliver twist and Paul.

(3)Humorous and eccentric characters like Mr.micawber and,

(4) A noble character like Sydney carton.

(1) Pickwick Papers
Monthly serial (April 1836 - November 1837)

(2)Oliver Twist
Monthly Serial February 1837 - April 1839

(3)Nicholas Nickleby
Monthly serial April 1838 to October 1839

(4)Old curiosity Shop
Weekly Serial April 1840-November 1841

(5)Barnaby Rudge
Weekly Serial February to November 1841

(6)A Christmas Carol
(7)Martin Chuzzlewit
(8)Dombey and Son
(9)David Copperfield
(10)Bleak House
(11)A tale of Two Cities
(12)Great Expectations

              

(1) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

(2)Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

(3)It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

(4)No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another

(5)A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

Charles Dickens died on 9th June 1870 at the age of 58 at Gad's hill place ,his country home in Kent , England. He suffered a stroke after completing a full day’s work on his novel in progress, Edwin Drood.He was buried in poets Corner at Westminster Abbey.

George Eliot , and the main creators Like Charles Dickens , William M. Thackeray , And Anthony Trollope  were Major Male Novelist .

The Male Novelist and and their contribution with reference of their works and their characteristics  of fictional art can be examined as follows :

(1) Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Charles Dickens

One of the major novelist is Charles Dickens ,he is Ranked 6th among the top Hundred literary creators of all times.Due to which his name inevitably occurs in any talk on writings concerning the English novels.

Charles Dickens first two complete novels written almost simultaneously though so different by nature the Pickwick paper and Oliver twist (1837), which at once made Dickens popular writer of his time.

Dickens's Novels and His characteristics of  fictional art

Pickwick is evidently a series of funny adventures and incidents

Oliver twist, is somewhat melodramatic in its plot and several key scenes is much better than new gate schools of novels.

Nicholas Nickleby ,the novel which immediately followed Oliver Twist deals with the abuses in private schools .

In the old curiosity shop ,Dickens thus to write a tragedy but he makes a sentimental out of the pathetic death of Little Niel and Her grandfather.

•other works of Dickens

√ Bernaby Rudge
√ Martin Chuzzlewit (1844)
√ Dombey and son
√ David Copperfield
√ Bleak house : it's is considered by many modern critics as the best of Dickens creations
√Great expectations
√Hard times
√ Oliver Twist
√ A tale of two cities: 

(2)William Make peace Thackeray (1811-1883)

An intellectual with a Cambridge background.He After ridiculating those type of people who only admire mean things meanly to give themselves a superior, in the book of Snobs(1847) and after writing the Picturesque type Barry Lyndon, He was excellelanty prepared to settle down to his Masterpiece called Vanity Fair (1848)

Some other novels of Thackeray:

√Pendennis(1850)
√Henry Esmond (1852): This was his great historical novel is a truly admirable creation .
√ New comes


Thackeray is appreciated by thoughtful elite readers , He works within a specific circle of society and so his characters fall into certain types.

(3) Anthony Trollope :

Another major novelist of the time .Anthony wrote 47 complete novels in a span of 20years and none of which is below an acceptable standard .

His best Novel is Barchester Tower (1857)

Some other works of Anthony Trollope

*Doctor Thorne
* The small house at Allington (1864)
"The prime minister (1876)


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MAJOR FEMALE NOVELIST OF 18TH CENTURY

                     David Copperfield-A short summary

David Copperfield

                                    

David Copperfield

SUMMARY
This Novel is Largely autobiographical and affords us a glimpse into the dirt and squalor of his early life that enabled him to understand the untold misery of the homeless child . He is the first chronicler of children who have lost their childhood .

David was born in Suffolk . A posthumous child, who is brought up in an atmosphere of tyranny and terror . His young mother Clara , with no knowledge and experience of the ways of the world , marries a heartless man. Murdstone . He and his sister miss murdstone have only one aim -- to crush both the mother and the child. To reform stubborn David, ( David was not stubborn) , murdstone sent him to the school of Creakle  , a symbol of tyranny . There David makes friends with Steerforth  and Traddles . He can not long prosecute his studies . David is sent to do menial work by his stepfather . Their by God's grace that he meets Mr.micawber , whose child-like simplicity brings David closer to the family . David's father aunt Betsy Trotwood, who once disowned David for being a male ,and not a female ,comes to his rescue in his sore need . Miss Trotwood is eccentric and her companion is Dick, a harmless lunatic. It is in such abnormal but pleasant company that David is educated and brought up .after that David is sent to Canterbury for further education . He puts up with wickfield, Miss trotwood's lawyer . Agnes ,the daughter of wickfield ,is a charming girl, and there grows mutual liking which is followed by love. David enters doctor's commons, and is articled to spenlow . Once he chances upon Steerforth whom he introduces to his old nurse and sincere well- wisher Clara peggoty , who is married to Barkis , the coachman . A man of erotic disposition , Steerforth ruins Emily , betrothed to Ham. Emily , a niece to peggoty , is left in the lurch by the unscrupulous Steerforth . The man has ruined another innocent girl,Rose brought by his mother . Guilt is followed by nemesis , and the philanderar , is shipwrecked . Ham, so very inhumanly betrayed , tries to save the betrayer and both die . David, for a while , forgets Agnes and marries Dora , the daughter of spenlow . Dora is more a Doll to be fondled than a human . Dora dies ,and David's passion for Agnes is roused.


Agnes father is has walked into the trap of his clerk , Uriah Heep , a sanctimonious hypocrite(Making a show of being morally better  than others) . Mr . Micawber is , in the meanwhile, appointed a clerk by Uriah heep. He , like God's good angel , exposes Heep's theft , forgery and evil design upon Agnes . Heep is sent to jail ; And Agnes and David are married and Mr. Micawber becomes  a magistrate in Australia .

• MAIN CHARACTERS OF THE NOVEL

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OLIVER TWIST (SHORT SUMMARY)

Oliver twist,or The parish Boy's progress,is the Second Novel of Charles Dickens,it was first published as a serial in 1837-39

Charles Dickens, Oliver twist it may also be called the Tragedy of childhood.it is comical and pathetic. No other novelist has presented the sufferings of a child with as much sympathy and tender solicitude.


This novel deals with the exploitation of a child in a workhouse. A son of a unknown parentage ,Oliver Twist is forced by circumstances to drudge in a workhouse .

He runs away from there to get under the clutches of a band of thieves and pickpockets.
The rogue who runs the show is an old Jew Fagin by name . Bill Sikes , Nancy and the Artful Dodger resort to all sorts of unfair means to enrich Fagin's coffer. It was by them Oliver learns tricks to rob people . Fortunately for him Mr.Brownlow , a man of benevolent disposition rescues him from the den. The gang , however , takes him away to lead the life of a criminal . Bill Sikes instigates him to burgle into a house , where he is fired at. He sustains serious injuries . Mrs . Maylie and her protegee Rose nurse him with loving care . It is from Nancy that Rose learns of Oliver's parentage , so long kept a guarded secret by a criminal named Monks . She also learns that she is related to Oliver . Morally Reclaimed , Nancy is determined to expose the gang and bring them to book. Bill Sikes kills Nancy . In his bid to escape Sikes is killed . The gang is exposed , and Monks reveals the secret . Monks is Oliver's stepbrother and has played a nefarious (sinful) game only with a view to depriving the innocent child. Rose is Oliver's mother's sister . Bronlow adopts Oliver as his son . Monks leaves to die in prison . The story tells us about the emergence of a boy from squalor to light . The underworld of London has photographic Fidelity.

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A TALE OF TWO CITIES(SHORT-SUMMARY)