Dickens’ Biography

• Born February 7, 1812

• 1824 -- Dickens worked at Warren’s Blacking Warehouse

• 1824 -- Mr. Dickens (Charles’ father) taken to debtors’ prison; family joins him

• Imprisoned from February - May

More Bio

• 1827 - Dickens family evicted from home for not paying rent

• Charles is pulled out of private school

• Charles, now 15, becomes law clerk and free-lance writer

• 1834 - Charles takes Boz as pen name

• 1834 - Charles’ Dad re-arrested for debts

Dickens starts Publishing!

• 1836 -- Sketches by Boz

• 1837 -- The Pickwick Papers

• and on a personal note...

“Here Comes the Bride…”

• 1836 (Dickens is 24) he and Catherine Hogarth get married

• and…one year later, the first “little Dickens” is born

• and one year after that, baby number 2 is born...

but, back to business!

• 1837-- Oliver Twist is serially published

What was happening in 1837?• King William IV of England dies

• Victoria becomes queen of England

In the sciences• Wheatstone and Cooke patent electric

telegraph

• Samuel Morse exhibits his electric telegraph

And then:• 1838 -- Nicholas Nickleby

• 1840 -- The Old Curiosity Shop

• 1841 -- Barnaby Rudge

• 1842 -- American Notes

• 1843 -- A Christmas Carol

• 1844 -- Martin Chuzzlewit

• 1844 -- The Chimes

• 1845 -- The Cricket on the Hearth

• 1846 -- The Battle of Life

• 1846 -- Dombey and Son

And so it goes...• 1850 -- David Copperfield

• 1853 -- Bleak House

• 1854 -- Hard Times

• 1857 -- Little Dorrit

Is he done yet?• 1859 -- A Tale of Two Cities

• 1861 -- Great Expectations

• 1865 -- Our Mutual Friends

• 1869 -- The Mystery of Edwin Drood

What’s the Point?

• Dickens wrote 15 major novels in a career spanning 33 years.

• His peak of creativity was in mid - late career from 1848 - 1865.

And in the meantime

• He fathered 10 children.

• His wife left him (in 1856).

• He gave numerous talks across Europe and in America.

• He developed heart trouble.

His social conscience:• He fought for children’s rights and he

advocated for child labour laws.

• He opposed cruelty, deprivation, and corporal punishment of children.

• He believed in and campaigned for just treatment of criminals.

A sad endingIn 1870 Dickens, who had been ill since 1866, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried in the Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey in London.

Dickens’ epitaph:

“He was a sympathizer to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and

by his death, one of England’s greatest writers is lost to the

world.”

Dickens’ Belief:

“To be thoroughly earnest is everything, and to be anything short of it is nothing.”

“Ser profundamente honesto lo es todo, y ser menos que eso es nada.”

THE END