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THE LIVES OF HISTORY’S MOST FAMOUS FIGURES
The struggles that made Charles Dickens
Few British authors have achieved the same level of adoration as the creator of classics such as A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations. But where did Dickens find the inspiration for his literary masterpieces?
In 1824, at just 12 years old, Charles John Huffam Dickens had no choice but to leave school and get a job. Born on 7 February 1812, his idyllic childhood had come crashing down when his father, John, who had always been reckless with the money he earned as a Royal Navy clerk, ended up in a debtors’ prison. As the eldest son, it fell to Charles to bring in much-needed coins to help his family. For six shillings, he worked 10-hour days in the rat-infested Warren’s blacking factory in London, sticking labels on bottles of shoe polish.
That traumatic and humiliating year or so left a black mark that couldn’t be washed away from Dickens’ mind. It helped make him become the voice of Victorian conscience and an author for all time.
Leaving school for good at 15, Dickens clerked in a solicitor’s office, reported on the law courts, and developed a journalistic bent for newspapers. Well-read and already with a gift for description using the most deliciously evocative language, his creative mind could not be bound by such employment, though. Dickens wrote short stories and sketches for newspapers or magazines, publishing them as Sketches by Boz, the pseudonym he used, in 1836.
Comedy and compassion
In fact, 1836 turned out to be a momentous year for Dickens, as he got married to Catherine Hogarth and printed as a serial his first novel, The Pickwick Papers. Straight away, readers loved his style. He went on to edit the monthly magazine, Bentley’s Miscellany, in which he released Oliver Twist. The serial format gave his work an episodic quality, with plenty of chances for cliffhangers, which suited Dickens’ restless creativity. He then followed with Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge.
Before long, Dickens was being hailed as the greatest writer of the age. He combined elegantly harsh satire on the treatment of the poor with a compassion for their lot, and wrote of social wrongs and evildoing, while knowing the importance of comedy (even if just with a silly name). He walked the streets of London, his muse, at night for inspiration and added details and characters from his own life. His works could be both biting realism and flights of fancy.
Dickens wrote Martin Chuzzlewit (1842–44) after an exhausting trip to the United States, where he had been mobbed everywhere he went. It would be his first novel with relatively disappointing sales, so Dickens looked for a quick hit, and some money for his ever-growing family. In a matter of weeks, he had penned A Christmas Carol, a mini-masterpiece that forever linked Dickens with Christmas, and influenced how the festive season was, and is, celebrated. Charitable giving increased in London after its first print run, which sold out immediately. Dickens actually wrote Christmas stories nearly every year thereafter, but none matched the affection felt for Scrooge’s night with the three spirits of Christmas.
Dickens seemed to succeed in any venture, including amateur acting and a return to journalism by briefly editing the Daily News in 1846. He was a devoted father to his 10 children, a joyous host, a generous fundraiser, and a lover of the finer things – although he did worry about being too much like his father in that regard. And the novels kept coming, from Dombey and Son to David Copperfield, which he described as his “favourite child”.
Yet in his words, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” An older Dickens’ novels became darker, more despondent, more typically Dickensian. Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations fitted his increasingly sombre mood. His marriage had long been unhappy, but now he no longer lived with Catherine, moving to a country house near Chatham, Gad’s Hill Place, and had begun an affair with a much younger actress, Ellen ‘Nelly’ Ternan.
“Dickens was a devoted father to his 10 children, a joyous host, and a lover of the finer things – although he did worry about being too much like his father in that regard”
A traumatic crash
Dickens came to crave the adoration of his fans more. A gifted performer, he gave as many as 500 readings of his works in Britain and the US right until a year before his death. His ebullient character waned a little more in June 1865 after being caught up in a deadly train accident.
Several carriages derailed while crossing a bridge, and while Dickens came away unharmed, he had to comfort the wounded as they cried out in pain and died. He gave his serialised novel Our Mutual Friend (an instalment of which he had to save from the train) some darker additions following the crash.
It would be his final finished novel. In the months before his death, on 9 June 1870, he failed to complete The Mystery of Edwin Drood and had to abandon another punishing reading tour. Dickens holds a special reputation now as one of those writers whose influence cannot truly be measured. Such was the genius of his entire body of work that it classifies as its own genre, while his colourful characters live on through the ages, telling the story of the archetypal Victorian novelist.