February 7th
Celebrating the 200th birthday of
                 Charles Dickens
 
Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, the son of a clerk at the Navy Pay Office. His father, John Dickens, continually living beyond his means, was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea in 1824. 12-year-old Charles was removed from school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory,
12-year-old Charles was removed from school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory earning six shillings a week to help support the family.
earning six shillings a week to help support the family. This dark experience cast a shadow over the clever, sensitive boy that became a defining experience in his life, he would later write that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age."
This childhood poverty and feelings of abandonment, although unknown to his readers until after his death, would be a heavy influence on Dickens' later views on social reform and the world he would create through his fiction.
Dickens would go on to write 15 major novels and countless short stories and articles before his death on June 9, 1870. He wished to be buried, without fanfare, in a small cemetery in Rochester, but the Nation would not allow it. He was laid to rest in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, the flowers from thousands of mourners overflowing the open grave. Among the more beautiful bouquets were many simple clusters of wildflowers, wrapped in rags.


 
The Brilliance of Dickens

Over a century and a half since his first novel was published, Charles Dickens is an icon. His novels continue to be read and taught, and subsequently endure, being regularly adapted for television, radio and film. His writing has become a familiar frame of reference for so many people around the world. The richly imagined novels that Dickens wrote combine both the realistic with the allegorical and do so to powerful effect. Dickens was a writer who knew the power of the word and the power of fiction to express the hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations of life as we live it, in our own hearts and minds and in our relationships with others. The subjects of poverty and injustice, and the perils and possibilities of the city, are central concerns in the work of Dickens. His stories remind us of both the light and the shadow that filters the spectrum of human experience.

 
Charles Dickens - English Victorian novelist
  • Born: February 7, 1812
  • Birthplace: Portsmouth, England
  • Died: June 9, 1870 in Kent, England (stroke)
  • Best Known Work: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Bleak House...


Today his works are still widely read and regularly adapted for cinema and television. Over 75 feature films have been made based on his novels.
"I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should stand by itself, of itself, and for itself."
- Charles Dickens