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Charles Dickens

At Writers Theatre: A Christmas Carol ('07), A Christmas Carol ('08)

Charles Dickens was born in Landport, Hampshire, during the new industrial age. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended in financial troubles. In 1814 Dickens moved to London, and then to Chatham, where he recieved some education. He worked in a London blacking factory, while his family was in Marsgalea debtor's prison. In 1824 - 27 he studied at Wellington House Academy, London and at Mr. Dawson's school. From 1827 to 1828 he was a law office clerk and then worked as a shorthand reporter at Doctor's Commons. He wrote for True Son (1830-32), Mirror of Parliament (1832-34) and the Morning Chronicle (1834-36). In the 1830's he was a contributor to Monthly Magazine and The Evening Chronicle and edited Bentley's Miscellany. In the 1840's Dickens edited the London Daily News. His career as a writer of fiction

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Charles Dickens London

What was it like to live in the London of Charles Dickens?

Charles Dickens applied his unique power of insamling to the city in which he spent most of his life. He routinely walked the city streets, 10 or 20 miles at a time, and his descriptions of nineteenth century London allow readers to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of the old city.

Fleet Street then...and now

This ability to immerse the reader into time and place sets the perfect stage for Dickens to weave his fiction.

Victorian London was the largest, most spectacular city in the world. While Britain was experiencing the Industrial Revolution, its capital was both reaping the benefits and suffering the consequences. In 1800 the population of Greater London was around a million souls. That number would swell to 6.5 million by 1900 (Weinreb, 2008, p. 657). While fashionable areas like Regent and Oxford streets were growing in the west, new docks supporting the city's place as the world

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How did Charles Dickens become such a famous writer?  What were the life circumstances which influenced him?

Dickens knew something about the hard times of life. When he was only twelve years old, he had to work long hours in a factory to help his family pay their bills. Because of so many debts, his father ended-up in a debtor’s prison for a time (and Dickens’ family experienced financial insecurity).

Thinking about his family’s hard times—and what had caused them—Dickens wrote a book called Hard Times. He first published it as a series—akin to a television series in today’s world—in his Household Words magazine. That happened on April 1, 1854.

In that story about the hard times which workers (and their children) experienced, during the Industrial Revolution, we meet people with interesting names (like Thomas Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby) who live in a made-up city called “Coketown” (located in the northern p