"Have a heart that never hardens and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."
Charles John Huffam Dickens (February 7th, 1812 - June 9th, 1870), was an English writer and social critic. He is widely considered to be the greatest writer of the Victorian era[1] and is beloved for his novels that focused on social class, poverty, and society in 19th century England.
His works received massive popularity during his lifetime, and are still beloved today. Many scholars and readers consider him to be a literary genius.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on February 7th, 1812, at 1 Mile End Terrace in Landport, Portsmouth, England. He was the second child of John Dickens, a clerk of the Royal Navy, and Elizabeth Dickens (née Barrow).
Dickens's birthplace, 1 Mile Terrace in Portsmouth
John and Elizabeth Dickens first met through her brother Thomas Barrow, who worked with John at Somerset House, and they were married in 1809. Afterwards, they rented out the house at 1 Mile Terrace in Portsmouth for £35 while John was stationed at the Portsmouth dockyard. It was their first home together. Their first child, Fanny, was born in 1810, followed by their son Dickens two years later. Overall, John and Elizabeth had eight children: Dickens’s other siblings were Alfred, Letitia, Harriet, Frederick, Alfred Lambert, and Augustus. Two of their children died in childhood. In addition, John and Elizabeth were very outgoing, sociable people who enjoyed attending lavish dinner parties and events; in fact, Elizabeth once claimed she attended a ball the night she gave birth to Dickens.
At the time of Dickens’s birth, the British Empire participated in the Napoleonic wars raging across Europe. Britain would also be involved in another conflict with America, later known as the War of 1812. As such, John was often busy with his job and earning an average salary of £120. However, Dickens’s parents spent most of their income on parties and events, and John’s salary wasn’t enough to keep his family afloat.
Dickens was baptized on March 4th, 1812, at St. Mary’s Church in Portsmouth. His first name, Charles, was passed down from his maternal grandfather, his middle name, John, was from his father, and Huffam was from his father’s friend and colleague, Christopher Huffam, who was also Dickens’s godfather. About five months after his birth, Dickens and his family moved to 16 Hawke Street and 39 Wish Street, both in Portsmouth. In 1815, the family left Portsmouth forever and moved to 10 Norfolk Street in Camden, London, after John was summoned to work at Somerset House. When Dickens was five years old, John was reposted again in Chatham, so the family left London and lived at 2 Ordnance Street.
In Chatham, Dickens spent the most idyllic years of his early childhood. He and his siblings have a wide, open space outdoors for them to play, and they also become friends and playmates with their neighbours’ children. Occasionally, he may have witnessed the ships passing and the industrial activity in the Dockyard. In addition, he developed a love and passion for reading. He enjoyed reading books from famous 18th-century authors such as Tom Jones and Oliver Goldsmith and even enjoyed Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian Nights. However, he also suffered from spasms in his side that prevented him from participating in any recreational activities with the other children, and he wasn’t very good at playing cricket. He and his older sister, Fanny, enjoyed singing and performing recitals, and they even briefly attended a dame school in Rome Lane, Chatham. Afterwards, he was enrolled in a private school in Clover Lane run by William Giles, a Baptist minister. He loved his school, excelled at his studies, and looked up to his headmaster, William Giles, as his personal mentor.
One of Dickens’s fondest childhood memories was walking in the countryside with his father when he was nine years old. They discovered an old, brick 18th-century house built in 1780. Dickens was immediately smitten by it, and John advised his son that if he worked hard, he could own the house one day. As such, Dickens would frequently visit the house and imagine owning it in the future.
In 1821, the family started to struggle with financial issues, and they moved out of 2 Ordnance Street and lived at 18 St. Marys Place. A year later, John was called back to London from Somerset House, and the family settled at Bayham Street in Camden Town, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city. Dickens was allowed to stay in Chatham to complete his final term before joining his family, who were now living at 16 Bayham Street. A family relative, James Lamert, also moved in the house. In the street where the family lived, it was crowded, filthy and noisy, and many of the residents roamed the streets ragged and barefoot. The house Dickens and his family lived in was small, with very little room for the growing family. Dickens had a hard time befriending the local children, but when the smog in the sky cleared, he could see the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Fanny was talented at music and playing the piano, so she was enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music. Dickens started visiting family relatives that lived in the area, and one example was when Elizabeth took her son to visit her eldest brother, Thomas Barrow, who lived in lodgings at Gerard Street in Soho, and suffered from a broken leg following a fall. Below Barrow's lodgings lived Mrs. Manson, whose late husband was a bookseller and she was running the business. When Dickens met her, she was kind to him and offered him some books to read. One of his favourites was George Colman's Broad Grins, and he was fascinated by the description of Covent Gardens in the book that he went to the real Covent Garden to compare it. When he smelled the scent of cabbage leaves at the Covent Garden, he described it "as if it were the very breath of comic fiction." He even wrote descriptions of several people he met, such as an eccentric, talkative barber who shaved his uncle Barrow's head, and often told stories about the Napoleonic Wars and about Napoleon's mistakes. The other was a deaf woman who worked in the kitchen at Bayham Street and prepared "delicate hashes with walnut-ketchup."
Dickens was fascinated by London, and would spend most of his time exploring the districts and landmarks, that would later become a backdrop in his novels. He also met his godfather, Christopher Huffam, who worked as a ship rigger at Limehouse. Huffam offered Dickens a glimpse of life at the boatyard and invited him to sing comic songs. However, Dickens was miserable in London, as he missed his school in Chatham and desperately wanted to continue his education, as his family couldn't afford to enrol him into another school. James Lamert tried to cheer him up by building him a toy theatre. At home, his parents were constantly struggling with their finances and caring for his younger siblings. The following year, Lamert moved out of Bayham Street to work in his cousin's business, and Huffam encouraged Elizabeth to operate a school, as he had connections from the East Indies, and she would educate young students from wealthy British families in India. He hoped that if the school becomes a success, the family's finances would become stable again. In December, the family moved to 4 Gower Street North, but Elizabeth's plan to run a school failed, as no students arrived and the inquiries failed.
In February 1824, the rising debts worsened, and John was arrested and sent to the Marshalsea debtors prison in Southwark. Since none of the family's relatives came to help, Dickens struggled to support his mother and raise his siblings and sold almost everything to a pawnbroker to earn some money. James Lamert came forward and said his cousin, George Lamert, ran a blacking warehouse at Hungerford Stairs called Warren's Blacking Factory, founded by Jonathan Warren. He suggested that Dickens could work there and earn six shillings a week. Dickens's parents agreed on this offer.
The warehouse was in an old, half-ruined building above the River Thames. It was filthy, dark and infested with rats. Dickens would work 10-11 hours a day at a table, labelling jars with boot polish. His mother and siblings were evicted from their home and joined his father in the prison, as it was common for men with unpaid debts in the early 19th century to have their families live with them in jail. Additionally, those who owed money at the time would be imprisoned until they could pay off their debts.[2] Fanny was able to continue her studies at the Royal Academy and stayed there, but Dickens stayed with a family friend, Mrs. Roylance, who lived in Camden Town and often took in young children. Her house was three miles from the factory, and she may have inspired the character Mrs. Pipchin in his novel Dombey and Son. He later lodged at a house that belonged to the Vestry Clerk of St. George's Church. On Sundays, he picked up Fanny at the Royal Academy, and they visited their father at Marshalsea.
While at the Warren’s Blacking Factory, Dickens befriended an orphan named Bob Fagin, who lived with his brother-in-law and another boy named Poll Green. When he wasn't working, he would explore more areas past Blackfriars Bridge and play on the coal barges near the Thames with Bob and Poll. But he felt that his family had failed him and was on his own to fend for himself at the warehouse, which he saw as a place that destroyed his childhood innocence. His employment at the factory would traumatize him for the rest of his life and influence him in his writing career. Later in life, he would sometimes break down into tears whenever he passed by the factory.
In April, Dickens's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Dickens, died, and his uncle, William Dickens, arranged the funeral services. John couldn't attend, but his mother also bequeathed her son £450. In May, John was finally released from Marshalsea under the Insolvent Debtors Act, and he requested to retire early with a pension. He resumed his position at Somerset House, and the family briefly lived with Mrs. Roylance before moving to a rented house in Somers Town. The blacking factory moved to Chandos Street in Covent Garden. On June 29th, 1824, Dickens and his family watched as Fanny performed at a public concert and was awarded a silver medal. This made Dickens emotional and painful, thinking that he would never be able to accomplish any honours in his life. A year later, John's pension was accepted and he retired from the Navy Pay Office, with a pension grant of £145. While he managed to pay off his debts, Elizabeth insisted their son should work longer. But following a quarrel between John and James Lamert, Dickens left Warren's Blacking Factory for good and reunited with his family.
Elizabeth wanted her son to return to work, but John insisted he should return to school. There was a school near the Dickens residence called Wellington House Academy, located at Hampstead Road. It was a boys school that was supposed to be good and taught Latin, mathematics, and English. Dickens was sent there with a card asking for terms, and before long, he was enrolled in the school. William Jones, the school's headmaster, was a strict, sadistic, ill-tempered man who took pleasure in beating his students, and he would be the inspiration for the cruel Mr. Creakle in David Copperfield. Despite his headmaster's mistreatment of his students, Dickens was a lively, cheerful student who enjoyed joining the students playing pranks and thrived in his English and writing skills.
Dickens was at Wellington Academy for only two years when John experienced financial difficulties again. John had previously started working as a journalist and parliamentary reporter for the British Press. But he went deeply into debt again following the closure of the British Press in 1826. He couldn't afford to pay Fanny's fees at the Royal Academy of Music, so she was forced to leave the school, and Dickens also had to leave Wellington Academy. In March 1827, the family was evicted from their home at Johnson Street, and they lodged with Elizabeth's aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth Charlton, at Berners Street. Dickens, now 15 years old, knew he must work again, and his mother met a young solicitor named Edward Blackmore, who she begged to find a job for her son. Seeing that Dickens was a well-mannered, polite teenage boy, he got him a job as a junior clerk in May 1827 at Ellis and Blackmore in Gray's Inn, with a modest salary of 15 shillings and sixpence a week. His family later moved to new lodgings at The Polygon, where he worked six days a week. He got along well with his fellow clerks, who was a gifted comic singer and would spend most of his income attending theatre shows with his coworkers. His favourite stage actor was Charles Mathews, and he enjoyed watching his performances at the Adelphi Theatre.
Around this time, Dickens became familiar with London's streets, buildings, and landmarks. After the law firm moved upstairs, he could see a better view of Holborn. He and his colleagues would entertain themselves by dropping cherry pits from the windows on passersby. He was often bored working in the law office, but he was fascinated by life in London and would make sketches of everything he observed. In November 1828, he left Ellis and Blackmore and was transferred to the law office of another solicitor, Charles Molloy, at Chancery Lane. He befriended one of the clerks, Thomas Mitton, whose family lived near the Dickenses at The Polygon, and he later became his solicitor. Dickens became unsatisfied with working for the law, and he longed to pursue his goals and perhaps even get married, start a family, and have his own home. He had considered becoming a stage actor and was even invited to an audition at Covent Garden, but he got sick with a cold and didn't go. Instead of a stage actor career, he decided to get a job as a parliamentary reporter.
Early Writing Career/Marriage[]
After leaving Charles Mollow's firm in 1829, he taught himself shorthand. In 1830, when he was 18 years old, he applied to the British Museum for a ticket to the Reading Room. He spent his days reading history books and reporting on the events in parliament. With his distant relative, Mr. Charlton, as his sponsor, Dickens applied for a job as a freelance shorthand reporter at Doctors Commons, which was close to St. Paul's Cathedral. Around this time, he met his first love interest, Maria Beadnell. She was two years older than him and was the daughter of a London banker who worked at Mansion House. He fell deeply in love with her and would court her for a few years, even writing dozens of passionate love letters to her. However, Maria's parents disapproved of their relationship, mainly because he didn't appear to be the right suitor for her because of their social status. Mrs. Beadnell, Maria's mother, always never got to pronounce his name right.
In 1831, Dickens became a parliamentary reporter and worked alongside his maternal grandfather, John Barrow, on reports for his newspaper, Mirror of Parliament. He was so good with his reporting skills that Barrow considered him "the best reporter in the gallery" before Dickens reported for another newspaper, the True Sun, in March 1832. He was often very busy with his job and had little time to visit Maria. Their courtship ended that year when her family sent her to Paris, which left him heartbroken. Despite his first failed attempt at romance, he was a lively, energetic young man who attended theatre every night for the past three years. He even performed private theatrical acts in his family's upstairs lodgings at Bentinck Street. He also enjoyed observing the people and lifestyle around him, inspiring him to feature child poverty and poor working conditions in his stories.
In 1833, Dickens was eager to find another job when his uncle John Barrow met with John Payne Collier, who worked for the Morning Chronicle, about any job opportunities for his nephew to work as a journalist. While Dickens dined with Barrow and Collier in July, Barrow told Collier about Dickens' education and vast experience as a newspaper reporter, and while Collier was impressed and Dickens even sang of his favourite songs in ecstasy, he wasn't offered the job position immediately until a year later.
Not long afterwards, Dickens submitted his first short story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," at the Monthly Magazine in December 1833. It was submitted anonymously and he wasn't paid for it. It wasn't until he bought a copy of the Monthly Magazine in the Strand that he saw his short story published. He went to Westminster Hall with the copy to read it for half an hour because "his eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there". He was anxious about starting a new path as a writer and feared he would be rejected again after Maria and The Chronicle. But before long, he submitted another short story, and in August 1834, he signed himself the pen name "Boz" that he would use to publish his stories. He came up with "Boz" after his younger brother, Augustus, who was called "Moses" after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, but was called "Boses".
In 1834, the new Parliament focused its attention on the Poor Law. Living conditions were poor throughout England, and labourers were poor and starving. The parliamentarians agreed that the lower social class citizens need more tougher treatment if they couldn't afford to feed themselves or raise their children, and suggested that they should be sent to enlarged workhouses. At the workhouses, the citizens would be provided free food and clothing, but living in the workhouses was actually more difficult. Families were separated and lived in separate dormitories, the old, sickly and disabled were forced to work for long hours, the food was poorly made, and living conditions were harsher than living on the streets. The controversial Poor Law Act of 1834 was then adopted, and because of this, hundreds of impoverished men, women and children were forced into the workhouses, where they endured abuse, hard labour and starvation. Working as a parliamentary reporter at the time the law was established, Dickens may had attended the debates, and since he had endured harsh childhood poverty, this would have had a hard, prolong effect on him and how he viewed early 19th-century parliament and their treatment towards the poor.
Finally, Dickens was offered a permanent position at the Mirror Chronicle in August. with a salary of five to seven guineas a week. While he reported on parliamentary debates and travelled across Britain for his duties, he wrote some of his experiences in his notes that would appear in the Monthly, and was paid for his sketches, as his writings were called. But in November 1834, Dickens would face more family struggles when John was again arrested for debt and kept at a sponge house. Dickens had to beg one of his solicitors' friends, Thomas Mitton, for enough loans to pay off his father's debt, release him and reorganize new living arrangements for his family. Dickens also planned to set up his own home, and in December, began renting a three-room apartment at Furnival's Inn at Holborn, where he paid £35 annually and invited his younger brother, Frederick, to live with him.
First Tour to America[]
Christmas Stories/Travels in Europe[]
Middle Years/Later Works[]
Separation from Wife/Relationship with Mistress[]
Staplehurst Train Crash/Final Years and Death[]
Legacy[]
Trivia[]
References[]
- ↑ The Victorian Era (1837-1901) was the reign of Queen Victoria, whose reign made Britain the greatest empire in the world.
- ↑ https://files.schudio.com/little-ilford-school/files/documents/Charles_Dickens_Reading_Comprehension.pdf