CHARLES DICKENS

Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, in Landport, Portsmouth, in Hampshire, the second of eight children to John Dickens and his wife, Elizabeth Barrow. When he was five, the family moved to Chatham, Kent. In 1822, when he was ten, the family relocated to 16 Bayham Street, Camden Town, in London.
Just before his father's arrest, the 12-year-old Dickens had begun working ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station. He earned six shillings a week pasting labels on jars of thick shoe polish.
In March 1836 he wrote his first novel “The Pickwick Papers” and with this work he became famous.
On 2 April 1836, he married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1816 – 1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the Evening Chronicle. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk, Kent, they set up home in Bloomsbury. They had ten children.
Dickens made two trips to North America. In 1842, he travelled with his wife to the United States and Canada and in 1844-45 he went in Italy and he visited Genoa, Rome, Naples and Florence and, after this journey he wrote “Pictures from Italy 1844-45”
When he came back in England he worked in some journal, the most famous is Daily News.
When Dickens separated from his wife in 1858, divorce was almost unthinkable, particularly for someone as famous as he was. He put an announcement on journals and accused her of incapacity in take care the children and the family.
Georgina, Catherine's sister, helped him and we think that he falled in love with her.
An indication of his marital dissatisfaction may be seen when, in 1855, he went to meet his first love, Maria Beadnell. Maria was by this time married as well, but seemed to have fallen short of Dickens's romantic memory of her.
On 9 June 1865 he was involved in railway accident of Staplehurst where six wagon of train falled from the bridge, the only wagon that remained on the bridge was Dickens'. This event is called “The miracle of the wagon”.
Charles was on this train because he was coming back from France where he had met Ellen Ternan and with her he forgot his wife.
During 1869 he collapsed, showing symptoms of mild stroke.
He suffered another stroke on 8 June 1870, after a full day's work and five years after the Staplehurst crash, on 9 June 1870, he died at his home in Gad's Hill Place. He was buried in Westminster Abbey in the Poet's corner.
The major part of his novels were published in a serial form, published in monthly installments, the most famous are “Oliver Twist”, that was published from 1837 to 1839, and “David Copperfield”, that was published from 1849 to 1850.
Many elements within the novel follow events in Dickens' own life, and it is probably the most autobiographical of all of his novels. David Copperfield is considered also an industrial novel because it talks about the misery of the Industrial Revolution, when the exploitation in the factories was very common.
The story is told almost entirely from the point of view of the first person narrator, David Copperfield himself, and was the first Dickens novel to do so.
The principal theme is the disciplining of the hero's emotional and moral life.
Characters in the novel generally belong to one of three categories: Those who have disciplined hearts, those who lack disciplined hearts, or those who develop disciplined hearts over time.
Some of the characters of this novel come from the real life of Dickens, as Maria Beadnell (his first love).
On 18 December 1843 he published “A Christmas Carol”. From this book we have taken the major part of our Christmas' traditions.
Christmas tree, presents, Santa Claus, good feelings, greeting card, dinner, family, holiday, snow, carols, charity, sweet come from this book.
In honour of the author, one crater of Mercury was called Dickens by International Astronomic Union.

Camilla Capaccioli, Sara Poggiali