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Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when John Dickens, his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed Penny reading, readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for educatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Copperfield
''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. It was first published as a serial in 1849 and 1850 and as a book in 1850. ''David Copperfield'' is also an autobiographical novel: "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention", with events following Dickens's own life. Of the books he wrote, it was his favourite. Called "the triumph of the art of Dickens", it marks a turning point in his work, separating the novels of youth and those of maturity. At first glance, the work is modelled on 18th-century "personal histories" that were very popular, like Henry Fielding's ''Joseph Andrews'' or '' Tom Jones'', but ''David Copperfield'' is a more carefully structured work. It begins, like other novels by Dickens, with a bleak picture of childhood in Victorian England, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Expectations
''Great Expectations'' is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (Great Expectations), Pip (the book is a ''bildungsroman''; a coming-of-age story). It is Dickens' second novel, after ''David Copperfield'', to be fully narrated in the first person.''Bleak House'' alternates between a third-person narrator and a first-person narrator, Esther Summerson, but the former is predominant. The novel was first published as a serial (literature), serial in Dickens's weekly periodical ''All the Year Round'', from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most celebrated scenes, starting in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict Abel Magwitch. ''Great Expectations'' is full of extreme imagery – poverty, prison ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Christmas Carol
''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas Carol'' recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. Dickens wrote ''A Christmas Carol'' during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as Christmas cards and Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens Jr
Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (6 January 1837 – 20 July 1896) was the first child of the English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. A failed businessman, he became the editor of his father's magazine '' All the Year Round'', and a writer of dictionaries. He is now most remembered for his two 1879 books, ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'' and ''Dickens's Dictionary of the Thames''. Life and career Charles Dickens Jr. was born at Furnival's Inn in Holborn, London, the first child of Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine Hogarth. He was called "Charley" by family and friends. In 1847, aged ten, he entered the junior department of King's College, London. He went to Eton College, and visited Leipzig in 1853 to study German. In 1855, aged 18, he entered Barings Bank. In 1858, after his parents' separation, his father agreed he should live with his mother. As a young man, Dickens showed skills that could have led to a career in journalism but his father encouraged him t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Tale Of Two Cities
''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. In the Introduction to the ''Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction'', critic Don D'Ammassa argues that it is an adventure novel because the protagonists are in constant danger of being imprisoned or killed. As Dickens's best-known work of historical fiction, ''A Tale of Two Cities'' is said to be one of the best-selling novels of all time. In 2003, the novel was ranked 63rd on the BBC's The Big Read poll. The novel has been adapted for film, television, radio, and the stage, and has continued to influence popular culture. Synopsis Book the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catherine Dickens
Catherine Thomson "Kate" Dickens (''née'' Hogarth; 19 May 1815 – 22 November 1879) was the wife of English novelist Charles Dickens, the mother of his ten children, and a writer of domestic management. Early life Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1815, Catherine moved to England with her family in 1824. She was the eldest daughter of ten children to George Hogarth. Her father was a journalist for the ''Edinburgh Courant'', and later became a writer and music critic for the ''Morning Chronicle'', where Dickens was a young journalist, and later the editor of the ''Evening Chronicle''. Dickens immediately took a liking to the attractive 19-year-old Catherine and invited her to his 23rd birthday party. Catherine and Dickens later became engaged in 1835 and were married on 2 April 1836 in St Luke's Church, Chelsea, going on their honeymoon in Chalk, near Chatham in Kent. They set up a home in Bloomsbury, and went on to have ten children. During that period, Charles wrote that eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Dickens
Mary "Mamie" Dickens (6 March 1838 – 23 July 1896) was the eldest daughter of the English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. She wrote a book of reminiscences about her father, and in conjunction with her aunt, Georgina Hogarth, she edited the first collection of his letters. Childhood Mamie Dickens was born at the family home in Doughty Street in London and was named after her maternal aunt Mary Hogarth, who had died in 1837. Her godfather was John Forster, her father's friend and later biographer. Mary was nicknamed "Mild Glo'ster" by her father. In December 1839 the Dickens family moved from 48 Doughty Street to 1 Devonshire Terrace. Of her childhood here she later wrote: "I remember that my sister and I occupied a little garret room in Devonshire Terrace, at the very top of the house. He had taken the greatest pains and care to make the room as pretty and comfortable for his two little daughters as it could be made. He was often dragged up the steep stai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dickens
John Dickens (21 August 1785 – 31 March 1851) was the father of famous English novelist Charles Dickens and was the model for Mr Micawber in his son's semi-autobiographical novel ''David Copperfield''. Biography The son of William Dickens (1719–1785) and Elizabeth Ball (1745–1824), John Dickens was a clerk in the Royal Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth in Hampshire. On 13 June 1809 at St Mary le Strand, London, he married Elizabeth Barrow, with whom he had eight children. He was later transferred to London and then to Chatham, returning to live in Camden Town in London in 1822 to work in Somerset House. John Dickens found it difficult to provide for his growing family on his meagre income. Soon his debts had become so severe that all the household goods were sold in an attempt to pay his bills, including furniture and silverware. He had eight children in all and his oldest child was Frances Elizabeth Dickens whilst his second-oldest was Charles Dickens. John's debts became t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens
Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens (28 October 1845 – 2 January 1912) was an English lecturer. The sixth child and fourth son of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine, Dickens made lecture tours in Australia, Europe, and the United States on his father's life and work. Early life Nicknamed "Sampson Brass" and "Skittles" by his father, Alfred Dickens was born at 1 Devonshire Terrace, near Regent's Park, and was baptized at the church of St. Mary Marylebone in London on 21 April 1846. He was named after his godfathers, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Count Alfred D'Orsay. Because of this choice of godfathers Alfred's christening became a popular topic among literary people. Father Prout wrote: Edward Fitzgerald wrote to his friend Edward Barton that Tennyson and Count D'Orsay had stood as godparents to one of Dickens's children, and that the unfortunate child had been named 'Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson', which he believed proved that 'Dickens was a snob ... ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Fielding Dickens
Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, KC (16 January 1849 – 21 December 1933), was the eighth of ten children born to English author Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. The most successful of all of Dickens's children, he was a barrister, a KC and Common Serjeant of London, a senior legal office which he held for over 15 years. He was also the last surviving child of Dickens. Early life Baptised in St Marylebone Parish Church in London on 21 April 1849, Henry Fielding Dickens was named after Henry Fielding, one of his father's favourite authors. His father had originally thought to name him after Oliver Goldsmith, but thinking that his son would constantly be teased as " Oliver asking for more", he changed his mind. His family nicknames were 'H', 'Mr Harry', and 'Mr H'. While a boy living at Gads Hill Place, his father's country home, he, with his brother Edward, started the 'Gad's Hill Gazette', a family newspaper printed on a small printing press given to him by Mr Wills, the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pickwick Papers
''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (also known as ''The Pickwick Papers'') was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with ''Sketches by Boz'' published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour (illustrator), Robert Seymour, and to connect them into a novel. The book became a publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller (character), Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise. On its cultural impact, Nicholas Dames in ''The Atlantic'' writes, “'Literature' is not a big enough category for ''Pickwick''. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call “entertainment.” Published in 19 issues over 20 months, the success of ''The Pickwick Papers'' popularised Serial (literature), serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings. Seymour's widow claimed that the idea for the novel was or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bleak House
''Bleak House'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of ''Bleak House'' is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, ''Jarndyce and Jarndyce'', which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens claimed there were many actual precedents for his fictional case. One such was probably the ''Thellusson v Woodford'' case in which a will read in 1797 was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticised Dickens's satire as exaggerated, this novel helped support a judicial reform movement which culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s. There is some debate among scholars as to when ''Bleak House'' is set. The Englis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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