Charles Dickens

-        born into the middle class, however, his father got into debt and Charles had to leave school and start working in a factory while his father went to prison – an atrocious experience which he made use of in several of his novels

-        became a clerk and later began his writing career as a journalist, his first essays and stories were reprinted as SKETCHES BY BOZ (1836)

-        then he presented himself as a comic writer in THE PICKWICK PAPERS, which were published in monthly instalments, the strategy he used with almost all his novels

-        publishing his novels in instalments also influenced the texts themselves – each part should have been a real cliffhanger to make readers come back for more, some texts were even changed according to the public taste

-        later he became more concerned with moral and social issues, writing with compassion about bad working conditions, children living in poverty, suffering at schools and inequality

-        provided us with realistic descriptions of the society at a time of industrialisation, which brought population increase and urbanisation, greater opportunity and prosperity for some, but poverty for others

-        OLIVER TWIST (1837 – 1838)                               

-        NICHOLAS NICKLEBY (1838 – 1839)

-        depicted the characters from different classes, often children, his detailed descriptions were sometimes regarded as sentimental, some of his characters were given the names that indicate their characteristic features

-        his first Christmas book – A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1843) was immediately successful, Dickens was very fond of Christmas and wrote a lot of other Christmas books, stories and essays each year since then, his figure was closely connected with the celebration of Christmas in England

-        included a lot of autobiographical features in his famous novel DAVID COPPERFIELD (1849 – 1850)

-        in his later novels (e.g. HARD TIMES (1854), LITTLE DORRIT (1855 – 1857) , he got more critical, his satire is harsher, the symbols grimmer and happy endings scarce

-        continued to describe the society and its values and morality in GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1860 – 1861)

-        his unhappiness in his marriage led to a scandalous break-up

-        considered to be the leading author of the Victorian era, popular already during his lifetime, travelling and doing public readings as a literary celebrity, even in America