Charles Dickens (1812-1870) / Чарльз Диккенс (1812-1870)

In 1854, Karl Marx named four English writers of the nineteenth century the brilliant school of British novelists. These four authors were Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth Gaskell. Dickens was born in Portsmouth, a town on the south coast of England. He was a weak child and did not like to take part in noisy and active games. The little boy was very capable. He learned to read at an early age and read many books in his childhood. When he was about six, someone took him to the theater for the first time. He saw a play by Shakespeare and liked it so much, that he decided to write a play himself. When it was ready, he performed it together with his friends. When Charles was nine years old, the family moved to London. Charles' father was a poor clerk who could never make both ends meet. So the life of the family was very hard. There were several younger children in the family, besides Charles. The future writer could not even go to school because at that time Mr. Dickens was thrown into the Marshalsea prison for debt, and his wife with all the children except Charles went into the prison too. The family lived in the prison until Mr. Dickens could pay his debts. (Later Dickens described this prison in 'Little Dorrit'. ) Those were the most unhappy days in all Charles' life. He lived alone, among strangers, struggling with poverty. At the age of ten he had to start working. The boy worked from early morning till late at night to help his family. He began to work at a blacking factory where he stuck labels on pots of boot-blacking. When his father left the prison, young Charles, to his great joy, was sent to school where he remained three years. When he was fifteen, he had to leave school and start earning his own living again, this time as clerk in a lawyer's office in London. He spent most of his spare time reading in the British Museum, and in this way he educated himself. In a few years he became a newspaper reporter. In 1836, when he was only twenty-four years old, Dickens published his first book, a collection of sketches of London life. In the same year he began publishing his 'Pickwick Papers' which appeared in monthly installments till November 1837. (All Dickens' novels first appeared in monthly, sometimes weekly, installments.) When the first installment appeared, Dickens was an unknown writer. But when the novel was finished, he became the most popular writer of the time. 'The Pickwick Papers' is one of the funniest books in the English language, but there are serious and even sad parts in it: laughter and tears are often found side by side in Dickens' novels. After 'The Pickwick Papers', he wrote the story of a workhouse boy in 'Oliver Twist'; and in 'Nicholas Nickle by', his next book, he showed an English school where the boys were starved, beaten and terrified by their schoolmaster. Then his novels 'Dombey and Son', 'David Copper-field', 'Hard Times', 'Little Dorrit' and many others appeared one after another. In these novels Dickens truthfully describes what he learned in his hard childhood and youth of life in London with its contrasts of poverty and riches. He gives the most complete realistic picture of the English society of his time. He exposes the social wrongs of his time. He attacks oppression wherever he finds it. He raises his voice in defense of the poor; he penetrates into the dark slums of London and shows that the people living there are worthier of respect than the rich merchants and capitalists who employ them. To many people his imaginary characters seem more real than the real characters of history. 'The Old Curiosity Shop', like very many Dickens' novels, was first published in monthly installments. The readers of the first chapters of the book were so anxious about the fate of unhappy little Nell that they even wrote letters to Dickens begging him not to let her die. Many of Dickens' characters are taken from life. For instance, it is said that Mr. Micawber from 'David Copper-field' and Mrs. Nickleby from 'Nicholas Nickleby' represent Dickens' own mother and father. In 1842, Dickens made a trip to America. He spent several months there visiting different parts of the country and was greatly disappointed with what he saw in the U.S.A. In his book 'American Notes' he described with great indignation the conditions under which the Negroes lived in America, the prison system of the U.S.A., the yellow press and other aspects of American life. When Dickens was about 50 years old, he began giving readings of his books in public. At these readings he acted all the parts in turn speaking in a high voice for the women. The readings were a great success. People said that if Dickens had chosen, he might have been a fine actor. In spite of tremendous success of his books, Dickens was not completely happy. Money worries and overwork exhausted the great writer and in 1870 at the age of fifty-eight he died. The works of Charles Dickens show the unbounded faith of the writer in the good nature of man and in the beauty of life, his confidence in the final victory of truth and goodness over the dark forces of evil. The rare combination of a vivid imagination, a keen dramatic sense, and splendid language has placed Dickens among the greatest English writers. Dickens is one of the most beloved English writers in our country. We highly value his novels for their realism, their humor., their love and sympathy for ordinary people.