I was born in 1812, and died of a stroke in 1870. It was not at all painful I smelled fried bread and just knocked off. They buried me in Westminster Abbey with the "other" Gods of Albion whether or not that is where I feel I deserve to spend my partnership with Marley’s coffin nails it is not a choice of mine nor the mongery’s... for there I lay. My early childhood in the country was sublime, however I never recovered from the horror of working for Warrens Boot Black, at the age of 12, “to help make ends meet†as the family fortunes declined. As my father floundered the family money on status and not on survival. At one point, the old goat was cast into the workhouse, where my unfortunate mother joined him. Once released and able to support that family once again, they left their son blacking boots for Warren just to make their road away from the workhouse less rocky. If the dear reader detects a tone of bitterness here, you would be correct.
This experience shattered forever my sense of security and bred my exquisite sensitivity to the horrific treatment of poor children in Victorian England, and the grotesque activities of the middle classes to try to achieve progress in their stations. This inspired my such as "Oliver Twist." It was to be the first book in the English language in which a child was the central character… passed due if you ask me. In 1839, half of the funerals held in London were for children under age 10. The great tragic secret of the 19th century was that children had to die. And the upper classes did not want to know it.
At 19, I became a clerk (stenographer to you) at Parliament. In 1836, at 24, I finished "The Pickwick Papers," which, like so many of my works, appeared serially. This episodic style secured my place in the contemporary culture and fame if you mus call it that. Desperate for family and a sense of home, in the same year I met and married Catherine Hogarth who gave me 10 children.
• Charles Culliford Boz Dickens
• Mary Angela Dickens
• Kate Macready Dickens
• Walter Landor Dickens
• Francis Jeffrey Dickens
• Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens
• Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens
• (Sir) Henry Fielding Dickens
• Dora Annie Dickens
• Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens
As much as Catherine would try she could never understand the needs of a writer and I cannot begin to tell you that I was a simple man to live with. But, I did feel that I had to find a muse and Catherine today would most likely have been diagnosed with depression. My restlessness was constant; I would walk miles at a time alone and battle my own demons as I dreamed up new characters. My temper at home worsened. My daughter, Catherine, would later tell me of the "the danger lamp" burning in my eyes, when a storm was brewing in his head.
It was during this time, 1842, that I traveled to America and was forced to deal with those insipid colonial publishers with their utter disregard for my copyrights. My dramatic readings from his books were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic. Onstage, I fed off the applause; offstage, I wallowed in my own depression and loneliness, despite -- or perhaps because of -- a wife and brood of 10 children.
At 45, I found my only respite from this torment: Ellen Lawless Ternan, an 18-year-old struggling actress I met while touring in an amateur theatrical production. I firmly deny any impropriety with this young woman. Though I did take care her she was victimized by the system the used so many. There was nothing but the simplest of an artistic relationship with this girl. I shan’t say another word on the subject. In fact I was with her in and her mother in 1865. The authorities were so rude and insinuative when we were in a serious train accident. Dickens that I demanded neither of us be deposed on the issue.
But, of course after extricating Ternan, her mother, and myself from the wreck I had to return to the rail car to retrieve the latest installment of "Our Mutual Friend" for publication. I never missed a deadline.
Here is my birthplace... am museum now if you would believe.
This is about the age I was when I went to work for the law firm.
Here I am reading "Little Dombey" at St. Martin Hall.
A cartoonish likeness by André Gill. From a colored engraving in L'Éclipse (Paris), 14th June, 1868.
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