| Charles
Dickens, an English novelist, generally considered the
greatest of the Victorian period, was born in 1812, in
Landport, Hamshire, Dickens was born during the "new
industrial age", which created misery for the class
of low-paid workers. His father was a clerk in the navy
pay office, who while well paid, often ended up in
financial troubles. His works are characterized by
attacks on social evils, injustice, and hypocrisy. He had
also experienced in his youth oppression, when he was
forced to end school in early teens and work in a
factory. Dickens's lively good, bad and comic characters,
such as the cruel miser Scrooge, the aspiring novelist
David Copperfield, or the trusting and innocent Mr.
Pickwick, have fascinated generations of readers. Although
Dickens's career as a novelist received much attention,
he produced hundreds of essays and edited and rewrote
hundreds of others submitted to the various periodicals
he edited. Dickens distinguished himself as an essayist
in 1834, under the pseudonym Boz. 'A Visit to Newgate'
(1836) reflects his own memories of visiting his own
family in the Marshalea Prison.
From
the 1840s Dickens spent much time traveling and
campaigning against many of the social evils of his time.
In addition he gave talks and reading, wrote pamphlets,
plays, and letters. In the 1850s Dickens was founding
editor of Household World and its successor All the Year
Round (1859-70). In 1844-45 he lived in Italy,
Switzerland and Paris. He gave lecturing tours in Britain
and the United States in 1858-68. From 1860 Dickens lived
at Gadshill Place, near Rochester, Kent. He died at
Gadshill on June 9, 1870.
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