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CHARLES JOHN HUFFAM DICKENS (1812-187o)
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At the very moment when a consciousness of capacity was beginning to plump his youthful ambitions, the whole flattering See also:dream vanished and See also:left not a See also:rack behind
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Happiness and Chatham had been left behind together, and Charles was about to enter a school far sterner and also far more instructive than that in Clover Lane
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The family income had been first decreased and then mortgaged; the creditors of the " prodigal father " would not give him time; John Dickens was consigned to the See also:Marshalsea; Mrs Dickens started an " Educational See also:Establishment " as a forlorn See also:hope in Upper See also:Gower Street; and Charles, who had helped his mother with the children, blacked the boots, carried things to the pawnshop and done other See also:menial See also:work, was now sent out to See also:earn his own living as a young See also:hand in a blacking warehouse, at Old See also:Hungerford Stairs, on a salary of six shillings a See also:week
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He tied, trimmed and labelled blacking pots for over a year, dining off a saveloy and a slice of See also:pudding, consorting with two very rough boys, Bob Fagin and Pol See also:Green, and sleeping in an attic in Little See also:College Street, Camden Town, in the house of Mrs Roylance (Pipchin), while on See also:Sunday he spent the See also:day with his parents in their comfortable See also:prison, where they had the services of a " marchioness " imported from the Chatham workhouse
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Already consumed by ambition, proud, sensitive and on his dignity to an extent not uncommon among boys of See also:talent, he See also:felt his position keenly, and in later years worked himself up into a See also:passion of self-pity in connexion with the " degradation " and "humiliation" of this See also:episode
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The two years of childish hard-See also:ship which See also:ate like See also:iron into his soul were obviously of supreme importance in the growth of the novelist
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Recollections of the streets and the prison and its purlieus supplied him with a See also:store of literary material upon which he See also:drew through all the years of his best activity
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And the bitterness of such an experience was not prolonged sufficiently to become sour
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From 1824 to 1826, having been rescued by a family See also:quarrel and by a windfall in the shape of a See also:legacy to his father, from the warehouse, he spent two179
years at an See also:academy known as See also:Wellington House, at the corner of See also:Granby Street and the See also:Hampstead Road (the lighter traits of which are reproduced in See also:Salem House), and was there known as a merry and rather mischievous boy
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Fortunately he learned nothing there to See also:compromise the results of previous instruction
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His father had now emerged from the Marshalsea and was seeking employment as a See also:parliamentary reporter
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A See also: He remained in Mr See also:Blackmore's office from May 1827 to See also:November 1828, but he had lost none of his eager thirst for distinction, and spent all his spare time mastering See also:Gurney's See also:short-hand and See also:reading early and See also:late at the See also:British Museum . A more industrious apprentice in the lower grades of the literary profession has never been known, and the consciousness of opportunities used to the most splendid See also:advantage can hardly have been absent from the man who was shortly to take his place at the See also:head of it as if to the manner born . Lowten and Guppy, and Swiveller had been observed from this office lad's See also:stool; he was now greatly to widen his See also:area of study as a reporter in Doctors' See also:Commons and various See also:police courts, including See also:Bow Street, working all day at See also:law and much of the See also:night at shorthand . Some one asked John Dickens, during the first eager See also:period of curiosity as to the man behind " Pickwick," where his son Charles was educated . " Well really," said the prodigal father, " he may be said—haw—haw—to have educated himself." He was one of the most rapid and accurate reporters in London when, at nine-teen years of See also:age, in 1831, he realized his immediate ambition and "entered the See also:gallery" as parliamentary reporter to the True See also:Sun . Later he was reporter to the See also:Mirror of See also:Parliament and then to the See also:Morning See also:Chronicle . Several of his earliest letters are concerned with his exploits as a reporter, and allude to the experiences he had, travelling fifteen See also:miles an See also:hour and being upset in almost every description of known vehicle in various parts of See also:Britain between 1831 and 1836 . The family was now living in Bentwick Street, See also:Manchester Square, but John Dickens was still no infrequent inmate of the sponging-houses . With all the accessories of these places of entertainment his son had grown to be excessively See also:familiar . See also:Writing about 1832 to his school friend Tom Mitton, Dickens tells him that his father has been arrested at the suit of a See also:wine See also:firm, and begs him go over to Cursitor Street and see what can be done . On another occasion of a paternal disappearance he observes: " I own that his See also:absence does not give me any great uneasiness, knowing how See also:apt he is to get out of the way when anything goes wrong." In yet another See also:letter he asks for a See also:loan of four shillings . In the meanwhile, however, he had commenced author in a more creative sense by penning some sketches of contemporary London See also:life, such as he had attempted in his school days in See also:imitation of the sketches published in the London and other magazines of that day .
The first of these appeared in the See also:December number of the Old Monthly See also:Magazine for 1833
.
By the following See also:August, when the See also:signature " Boz " was first given, five of these sketches had appeared
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By the end of 1834 we find him settled in rooms in Furnival's Inn, and a little later his salary on the Morning Chronicle was raised, owing to the intervention of one of its chiefs, See also:George See also:Hogarth, the father of (in addition to six sons) eight charming daughters, to one of whom, See also:Catherine, Charles was engaged to be married before the year was out
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Clearly as his career now seemed designated, he was at this time or a little before it coquetting very seriously with the See also:stage: but circumstances were rapidly to determine another stage in his career
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A year before See also:Queen See also:Victoria's See also:accession appeared in two volumes Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Everyday Life and Everyday See also:People
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The See also:book came from a prentice hand, but like the little See also:tract on the Puritan abuse of the See also:Sabbath entitled " Sunday under three Heads " which appeared a few months later, it contains in germ all, or almost all, the future Dickens
.
Glance at the headings of the pages
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Here we have the See also:Beadle and all connected with him, London streets, theatres, shows, the See also:pawn-See also:shop, Doctors' Commons, See also:Christmas, Newgate, coaching, the
See also:river
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Here comes a satirical picture of parliament, fun made of cheap snobbery, a See also:rap on the knuckles of sectarianism
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And what could be more prophetic than the See also:title of the opening See also:chapter—Our See also:Parish
?
With the Parish—a large one indeed—Dickens to the end concerned himself; he began with a rapid survey of his whole See also:
He seems to have fallen in love with the daughters collectively, and, judging by subsequent events, it has been suggested that perhaps he married the wrong one
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His wife's See also:sister Mary was the See also:romance of his early married life, and another sister, Georgina, was the dearest friend of his last ten years
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A few days before the See also:marriage, just two months after the See also:appearance of the Sketches, the first See also:part of The See also:Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick See also:Club was announced
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One of the See also:chief vogues of the day was the issue of humorous, sporting or anecdotal novels in parts, with plates, and some of the best talent of the day, represented by See also:Ainsworth, Bulwer, See also:Marryat, See also:Maxwell, See also:Egan, See also:Hook and See also:Surtees, had been pressed into this See also:kind of enterprise
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The publishers of the day had not been slow to perceive Dickens's aptitude for this See also:species of " letterpress." A member of the firm of See also:Chapman & See also: No See also:modern book is so incalculable . We commence laughing heartily at Pickwick and his troupe . The laugh becomes kindlier . We are led on through a tangle of See also:adventure, never dreaming what is before us . The landscape changes: Pickwick becomes the See also:symbol of kind-heartedness, simplicity and See also:innocent levity . Suddenly in the See also:Fleet Prison a deeper See also:note is struck . The medley of human relation-See also:ships, the loneliness, the See also:mystery and sadness of human destinies are fathomed . The tragedy of human life is revealed to us amid its most farcical elements . The droll and laughable figure of the See also:hero is transfigured by the kindliness of human sympathy into a beneficent and bespectacled See also:angel in shorts and gaiters . By defying accepted rules, Dickens had transcended the limited See also:sphere hitherto allotted to his See also:art: he had produced a book to be enshrined henceforth in the inmost See also:hearts of all sorts and conditions of his countrymen, and had definitely enlarged the boundaries of English See also:humour and English fiction . As for Mr Pickwick, he is a See also:fairy like Puck or See also:Santa Claus, while his creator is " the last of the mythologists and perhaps the greatest." When The Pickwick Papers appeared in book See also:form at the See also:close of 1837 Dickens's popular reputation was made . From the appearance of Sam Weller in part v. the universal See also:hunger for the monthly parts had risen to a furore . The book was promptly translated into See also:French and See also:German . The author See also:bad received little assistance from See also:press or critics, he had no influential connexions, his class of subjects was such as to " expose him at the outset to the fatal objections of vulgarity," yet in less than six months from the appearance of the first number, as the Quarterly See also:Review almost ruefully admits, the whole reading world was talking about the Pickwickians . The names of Winkle, Wardle, Weller, Jingle, Snodgrass, Dodson & Fogg, were as familiar ashousehold words . Pickwick chintzes figured in the linendrapers' windows, and Pickwick cigars in every tobacconist's; Weller corduroys became the stock-in-See also:trade of every breeches-maker; Boz cabs might be seen rattling through the streets, and the portrait of the author of See also:Pelham and See also:Crichton was scraped down to make way for that of the new popular favourite on the omnibuses . A new and See also:original See also:genius had suddenly sprung up, there was no denying it, even though, as the Quarterly concluded, " it required no See also:gift of prophecy to foretell his See also:fate—he has risen like a See also:rocket and he will come down like the stick." It would have needed a very emphatic gift of prophecy indeed to foretell that Dickens's reputation would have gone on rising until at the See also:present day (after one See also:sharp fall, which reached an extreme about 1887) it stands higher than it has ever stood before . Dickens's See also:assumption of the literary See also:purple was as amazing as anything else about him . Accepting the See also:homage of the luminaries of the literary, See also:artistic and polite worlds as if it had been his natural due, he arranges for the See also:settlement of his family, decrees, like another See also:Edmund See also:Kean, that his son is to go to See also:Eton, carries on the most complicated negotiations with his publishers and editors, presides and orates with incomparable force at innumerable banquets, public and private, arranges elaborate villegiatures in the country, at the seaside, in See also:France or in See also:Italy, arbitrates in public on every topic, See also:political, ethical, artistic, social or literary, entertains and legislates for an increasingly large domestic circle, both juvenile and adult, rules himself and his time-table with a See also:rod of iron . In his letter-writing alone, Dickens did a life's literary work . Nowadays no one thinks of writing such letters; that is to say, letters of such length and detail, for the quality is Dickens's own . He evidently enjoyed this use of the See also:pen . See also:Page after page of See also:Forster's Life (750 pages in the Letters edited by his daughter and sister-in-law) is occupied with transcription from private See also:correspondence, and never a See also:line of this but is thoroughly worthy of See also:print and preservation . If he makes a tour in any part of the British Isles, he writes a full description of all he See also:sees, of everything that happens, and writes it with such gusto, such mirth, such strokes of See also:fine picturing, as appear in no other private letters ever given to the public . Naturally buoyant in all circumstances, a See also:holiday gave him the exhilaration of a school-boy . See how he writes from See also:Cornwall, when on a trip with two or three See also:friends, in 1843 . "Heavens! if you could have seen the necks of bottles, distracting in their immense variety of shape, peering out of the See also:carriage pockets ! If you could have witnessed the deep devotion of the See also:post-boys, the maniac See also:glee of the waiters ! If you could have followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, and into the See also:strange caverns on the gloomy seashore, and down into the depths of mines, and up to the tops of giddy heights, where the unspeakably green See also:water was roaring, I don't know how many See also:hundred feet below . . . . I never laughed in my life as I did on this See also:journey . It would have done you See also:good to hear me . I was choking and gasping and bursting the buckles off the back of my stock, all the way . And See also:Stanfield "—the painter—" got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were obliged to See also:beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could recover him." The animation of Dickens's look would attract the See also:attention of any one, anywhere . His figure was not that of an See also:Adonis, but his brightness made him the centre and See also:pivot of every society he was in . The keenness and vivacity of his See also:eye combined with his inordinate appetite for life to give the unique quality to all that he wrote . His See also:instrument is that of the See also:direct, sinewy English of See also:Smollett, combined with much of the humorous See also:grace of Goldsmith (his two favourite authors), but modernized to a certain extent under the See also:influence of See also: |