In 1812, Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in England. He became the second child in the family, but after that six more children were born in the family. The parents could not support such a large family, and the father, John, fell into terrible debt. He was put in a special prison for debtors, and his wife and children were considered debt slaves. With difficult financial situation inheritance helped cope: John Dickens received a considerable fortune from deceased grandmother, and was able to pay off all debts.

From childhood, Charles Dickens was forced to work, and even after his father was released from prison, his mother forced him to continue working in the factory, combining this with his studies at Wellington Academy. After receiving his education, he took a job as a clerk, where he worked for a year, after which he resigned and chose to work as a freelance reporter. Already in 1830, the talent of the young writer began to be noted and he was invited to the local newspaper.

Charles Dickens's first love was Maria Beadnell, a girl from rich family. But the damaged reputation of John Dickens did not allow the girl’s parents to accept the debtor’s son into the family, and the couple distanced themselves from each other, and later broke up completely. In 1836, the novelist married Catherine Thomson Hogarth, who bore him ten children. But so big family became a burden for the writer, and he left her. Then his life was full of novels, but the longest and most famous of them was with eighteen-year-old Ellen Ternan, with whom Dickens began a relationship in 1857, and lasted 13 years, until the death of the writer. Based on their novel, the film “The Invisible Woman” was made in 2013.

The great writer died in 1870 from a stroke. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The novelist did not like monuments of any kind and forbade sculptures to be dedicated to him during his life and even after his death. Despite this, these monuments exist in Russia, the USA, Australia and England.

Bibliography

The first works of the English novelist were published six years after completing his work as a clerk, and his first serious work ("Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club") was published a year later. Even the Russian prose writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky noted the talent of the young writer. His bright and believable stories deserved special admiration. psychological portraits in his works, which were highly appreciated by critics, and are appreciated to this day. Young Dickens's realistic writing style attracted more and more readers, and he began to receive good fees.

In 1838, the writer published the novel “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” about the life of an orphan youth and his life difficulties. In 1840, “The Antiquities Shop” was published, in a sense a humorous work about the girl Nell. Three years later, “A Christmas Story” was published, which exposed the vices of the social world and the people living in it. Since 1850, novels have become more and more serious, and now the world sees a book about David Copperfield. " Bleak House"of 1853, as well as "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations" (1859 and 1860), like all the author's works, reflected the complexity of social relations and the injustice of the prevailing order.

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English literature

Charles Dickens

Biography

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in the town of Landport, near Portsmouth. His father was a fairly wealthy official, a very frivolous man, but cheerful and good-natured, who enjoyed with relish that coziness, that comfort that every wealthy family of old England so valued. Mr. Dickens surrounded his children, and in particular his pet Charlie, with care and affection. Little Dickens inherited from his father a rich imagination and ease of speech, apparently adding to this some seriousness in life inherited from his mother, on whose shoulders all the everyday worries of preserving the family’s well-being fell.

The boy's rich abilities delighted his parents, and the artistically inclined father literally tormented his son, forcing him to act out various scenes, tell his impressions, improvise, read poetry, etc. Dickens turned into a little actor, full of narcissism and vanity.

However, Dickens's family was suddenly completely ruined. The father was abandoned for many years to debtor's prison, the mother had to fight poverty. Pampered, fragile in health, full of imagination, a boy in love with himself found himself in difficult operating conditions at a blacking factory.

Throughout his subsequent life, Dickens considered this ruin of his family and this wax of his to be the greatest insult to himself, an undeserved and humiliating blow. He did not like to talk about it, he even hid these facts, but here, from the bottom of poverty, Dickens drew his ardent love for the offended, for the needy, his understanding of their suffering, understanding of the cruelty that they meet from above, deep knowledge of the life of poverty and such terrifying social institutions, like the then schools for poor children and shelters, like exploitation child labor in factories, like debtor's prisons, where he visited his father, etc. Dickens also brought out from his adolescence a great, dark hatred of the rich, of the ruling classes. Colossal ambition possessed young Dickens. The dream of rising back into the ranks of people who enjoyed prosperity, the dream of outgrowing his original social place, winning wealth, pleasures, freedom for himself - that’s what worried this teenager with a shock of brown hair over a deathly pale face, with huge eyes burning with a healthy fire.

Dickens found himself primarily as a reporter. Expanded political life, deep interest in the debates taking place in Parliament and in the events that accompanied these debates, increased the interest of the English public in the press, the number and circulation of newspapers, and the need for newspaper workers. As soon as Dickens completed several reporting assignments as a test, he was immediately noted and began to rise, the further he went, the more surprising his fellow reporters with irony, vividness of presentation, and richness of language. Dickens feverishly took up his newspaper work, and everything that had blossomed in him as a child and that had received a peculiar, somewhat painful twist at a later time, was now pouring out from under his pen, and he was well aware not only that by doing so he communicates his ideas to the public, but also what makes his career. Literature was now for him the ladder by which he would rise to the top of society, while at the same time doing a good deed in the name of all mankind, in the name of his country, and above all and most of all in the name of the oppressed.

Dickens's first morally descriptive essays, which he called “Sketches of Boz,” were published in 1836. Their spirit was quite consistent social status Dickens. It was to some extent a fictional declaration in the interests of the bankrupt petty bourgeoisie. However, these essays went almost unnoticed.

But Dickens had a meteoric success that same year with the appearance of the first chapters of his The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. A 24-year-old young man, inspired by the luck that smiled upon him, naturally thirsting for happiness and fun, in this young book of his tries to completely ignore dark sides life. He paints old England from its most varied sides, glorifying either its good nature or the abundance of living and sympathetic forces in it that riveted the best sons of the petty bourgeoisie to it. He portrays old England in the most good-natured, optimistic, noble old eccentric, whose name - Mr. Pickwick - was established in world literature somewhere not far from the great name of Don Quixote. If Dickens had written this book of his, not a novel, but a series of comic, adventure pictures, with a deep calculation, first of all, to win the English public, flattering it, allowing it to enjoy the charm of such purely English positive and negative types as Pickwick himself, the unforgettable Samuel Weller - sage in livery, Jingle, etc., then one would marvel at the accuracy of his instincts. But rather, youth and the days of first success took their toll here. This success was elevated to extraordinary heights new job Dickens, and we must give him justice: he immediately used the high platform on which he ascended, forcing the whole of England to laugh until the colic at the cascade of oddities of the Pickwickiad, for more serious tasks.

Two years later, Dickens appeared with Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.

Oliver Twist (1838) is the story of an orphan trapped in the slums of London. The boy meets on his way baseness and nobility, criminals and respectable people. Cruel fate gives way to his sincere desire for an honest life. The pages of the novel capture pictures of life and society in 19th century England in all their vibrant splendor and diversity. In this novel, Charles Dickens acts as a humanist, affirming the power of good in man.

Dickens's fame grew rapidly. Both liberals saw him as their ally, because he defended freedom, and conservatives, because he pointed out the cruelty of new social relationships.

After traveling to America, where the public greeted Dickens with no less enthusiasm than the British, Dickens wrote his “Martin Chuzzlewit” (The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843). In addition to the unforgettable images of Pecksniff and Mrs. Gump, this novel is remarkable for its parody of Americans. Much in the young capitalist country seemed extravagant, fantastic, disorderly to Dickens, and he did not hesitate to tell the Yankees a lot of the truth about them. Even at the end of Dickens’s stay in America, he allowed himself “tactlessness”, which greatly darkened the attitude of Americans towards him. His novel caused violent protests from the overseas public.

But Dickens knew how, as already said, to soften and balance the sharp, piercing elements of his work. It was easy for him, for he was also a gentle poet of the most fundamental features of the English petty bourgeoisie, which penetrated far beyond the boundaries of this class.

The cult of coziness, comfort, beautiful traditional ceremonies and customs, the cult of family, as if embodied in the hymn for Christmas, this holiday of the philistinism, was expressed with amazing, exciting power in his “Christmas Stories” - in 1843 “A Christmas Carol” was published (A Christmas Carol), followed by The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, The Haunted Man. Dickens did not have to prevaricate here: he himself was one of the most enthusiastic admirers of this winter holiday, during which the home fire, dear faces, ceremonial dishes and delicious drinks created some kind of idyll among the snows and winds of a merciless winter.

At the same time, Dickens became editor-in-chief of the Daily News. In this newspaper he expressed his socio-political views.

All these features of Dickens's talent are clearly reflected in one of his best novels - Dombey and Son (Dombey and Son, 1848). The huge series of figures and life positions in this work are amazing. Dickens's imagination and inventiveness seem inexhaustible and superhuman. There are very few novels in world literature that, in terms of richness of color and variety of tone, can be ranked alongside Dombey and Son, and among these novels it is necessary to place some of the later works of Dickens himself. Both petty-bourgeois characters and poor ones were created by him with great love. All these people are almost entirely eccentrics. But this eccentricity that makes you laugh makes them even closer and sweeter. True, this friendly, this affectionate laughter makes you not notice their narrowness, limitations, difficult conditions in which they have to live; but that's how Dickens is. It must be said, however, that when he turns his thunder against the oppressors, against the arrogant merchant Dombey, against scoundrels like his senior clerk Carker, he finds such thunderous words of indignation that they actually sometimes border on revolutionary pathos.

The humor is even more weakened in the following largest work Dickens - "David Copperfield" (1849-1850). This novel is largely autobiographical. His intentions are very serious. The spirit of praising the old foundations of morality and family, the spirit of protest against the new capitalist England resounds loudly here too. You can have different attitudes towards “David Copperfield”. Some take it so seriously that they consider it Dickens's greatest work.

In the 1850s. Dickens reached the zenith of his fame. He was the darling of fate - a famous writer, master of thoughts and a rich man - in a word, a person for whom fate did not skimp on gifts.

Chesterton drew a portrait of Dickens at that time quite successfully:

Dickens was of average height. His natural liveliness and unpretentious appearance were the reason that he gave those around him the impression of a short man and, in any case, a very miniature build. In his youth, he had a cap of brown hair on his head that was too extravagant, even for that era, and later he wore a dark mustache and a thick, fluffy, dark goatee of such an original shape that it made him look like a foreigner.

The former transparent pallor of his face, the sparkle and expressiveness of his eyes remained with him, “noting the actor’s still mobile mouth and his extravagant manner of dressing.” Chesterton writes about this:

He wore a velvet jacket, some incredible vests, their color reminiscent of completely implausible sunsets, white hats unprecedented at that time, a completely unusual, eye-catching whiteness. He willingly dressed up in stunning robes; they even say that he posed for a portrait in such attire.

Behind this appearance, in which there was so much posing and nervousness, lay a great tragedy. Dickens's needs were broader than his income. His disorderly, purely bohemian nature did not allow him to bring any kind of order into his affairs. He not only tormented his rich and fertile brain by over-working it creatively, but being an extraordinarily brilliant reader, he endeavored to earn enormous fees by lecturing and reading excerpts from his novels. The impression from this purely acting reading was always colossal. Apparently, Dickens was one of the greatest reading virtuosos. But on his trips he fell into the hands of some entrepreneurs and, while earning a lot, at the same time brought himself to exhaustion.

His family life it turned out hard. Disagreements with his wife, some complex and dark relationships with her entire family, fear for sick children made Dickens from his family rather a source of constant worries and torment.

But all this is less important than the melancholy thought that overwhelmed Dickens that what was essentially most serious in his works - his teachings, his calls - remained in vain, that in reality there was no hope for improving the terrible situation that was clear to him, despite humorous glasses that were supposed to soften the harsh contours of reality for both the author and his readers. He writes at this time:

Dickens often spontaneously fell into a trance, was subject to visions and from time to time experienced states of déjà vu. George Henry Lewis, editor-in-chief of the Fortnightly Review magazine (and close friend writer George Eliot). Dickens once told him that every word, before going on paper, is first clearly heard by him, and his characters are constantly nearby and communicate with him. While working on “The Antiquities Shop,” the writer could not eat or sleep peacefully: little Nell was constantly hovering under his feet, demanding attention, crying out for sympathy and being jealous when the author was distracted from her by talking to someone else. While working on the novel Martin Chuzzlewitt, Dickens was tired of Mrs. Gump with her jokes: he had to fight her off with force. “Dickens warned Mrs. Gump more than once: if she did not learn to behave decently and did not appear only when called, he would not give her another line at all!” Lewis wrote. That is why the writer loved to wander through crowded streets. “During the day you can somehow manage without people,” Dickens admitted in one of his letters, but in the evening I simply am not able to free myself from my ghosts until I get lost in the crowd from them. “Perhaps it is only the creative nature of these hallucinatory adventures that keeps us from mentioning schizophrenia as a possible diagnosis,” notes parapsychologist Nandor Fodor, author of the essay “The Unknown Dickens” (1964, New York).

Dickens's magnificent novel is also imbued with this melancholy. Hard times" This novel is the strongest literary and artistic blow to capitalism that was dealt to it in those days, and one of the strongest that was dealt to it in general. In his own way, the grandiose and terrible figure of Bounderby is written with genuine hatred. But Dickens hastens to dissociate himself from the advanced workers.

End literary activity Dickens was also marked by a number of excellent works. The novel Little Dorrit (1855-1857) gives way to the famous A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Dickens's historical novel about french revolution. Dickens recoiled from her as if from madness. This was quite in the spirit of his entire worldview, and, nevertheless, he managed to create an immortal book in his own way.

“Great Expectations” (1860), an autobiographical novel, dates back to the same time. His hero - Pip - rushes between the desire to preserve the petty bourgeois comfort, to remain faithful to his middle peasant position and the upward desire for splendor, luxury and wealth. Dickens put a lot of his own tossing, his own melancholy into this novel. According to the original plan, the novel was supposed to end in tears, while Dickens always avoided difficult endings for his works, both out of his own good nature and knowing the tastes of his audience. For the same reasons, he did not dare to end Great Expectations with their complete collapse. But the whole plan of the novel clearly leads to such an end.

Dickens rises to the heights of his creativity again in his swan song - in the large canvas “Our Mutual Friend” (1864). But this work was written as if with a desire to take a break from tense social topics. Superbly conceived, filled with the most unexpected types, sparkling with wit - from irony to touching humor - this novel should, according to the author's plan, be affectionate, sweet, funny. His tragic characters are brought out as if only for variety and largely in the background. Everything ends well. The villains themselves turn out to be either wearing a villainous mask, or so petty and ridiculous that we are ready to forgive them for their treachery, or so unhappy that they arouse acute pity instead of anger.

In this last work Dickens gathered all the strength of his humor, shielding himself with wonderful, cheerful, cute images this idyll from the melancholy that took possession of him. Apparently, however, this melancholy was to flood us again in Dickens's detective novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. This novel was begun with great skill, but where it was supposed to lead and what its intention was, we do not know, for the work remained unfinished. On June 9, 1870, fifty-eight-year-old Dickens, not old in years, but exhausted by colossal work, a rather chaotic life and a lot of all sorts of troubles, dies in Gadeshill from a stroke.

Dickens's fame continued to grow after his death. He was turned into a real god English literature. His name began to be mentioned next to the name of Shakespeare, his popularity in England in the 1880-1890s. eclipsed Byron's fame. But critics and readers tried not to notice his angry protests, his peculiar martyrdom, his tossing and turning among the contradictions of life. They did not understand and did not want to understand that humor was often for Dickens a shield from the excessively wounding blows of life. On the contrary, Dickens primarily gained fame as a cheerful writer of merry old England. Dickens is a great humorist - that's what you will hear first of all from the lips of ordinary Englishmen from the most diverse classes of this country.

Title page of the first volume of the Complete Works (1892)

Translations of Dickens's works appeared in Russian in the late 1830s. In 1838, excerpts from the “Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club” appeared in print, and later stories from the series “Sketches of Bose” were translated. All his major novels have been translated several times, and all his small works have also been translated, even those that did not belong to him, but were edited by him as an editor. Dickens was translated by V. A. Solonitsyn (“The Life and Adventures of the English Gentleman Mr. Nicholas Nickleby, with a true and reliable Description of successes and failures, ups and downs, in a word, the full career of his wife, children, relatives and the entire family of the said gentleman”, “Library for reading", 1840), O. Senkovsky ("Library for Reading"), A. Kroneberg ("Dickens' Christmas Stories", "Contemporary", 1847 No. 3 - retelling with translation of excerpts; story "The Battle of Life", ibid.) and I. I. Vvedensky (“Dombey and Son”, “The Treaty with the Ghost”, “The Grave Papers of the Pickwick Club”, “David Copperfield”); later - Z. Zhuravskaya (“The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit”, 1895; “No Exit”, 1897), V. L. Rantsov, M. A. Shishmareva (“Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club”, “Hard Times” and others) , E. G. Beketova (abbreviated translation of “David Copperfield” and others), etc.

The characterization that Chesterton gives to Dickens is close to the truth: “Dickens was a brilliant exponent,” writes this one, who is in many ways related to him. English writer, - a kind of mouthpiece of the universal inspiration that took possession of England, impulse and intoxicating enthusiasm, calling everyone to high goals. His best works are an enthusiastic hymn to freedom. All his work shines with the reflected light of the revolution.”

Charles Dickens's prose is permeated with wit, which influenced his originality national character and a way of thinking known in the world as “English humor”

Dickens Charles (1812-1870) – English writer. Born on February 7, 1812 in the city of Landport in the family of a wealthy official. The elder Dickens loved his children very much, and in Charles he saw acting talent and forced him to act out acting roles or read work of art. But soon Charles's father was arrested for debt and thrown into prison for many years, and the family had to struggle with poverty. Young Dickens had to study at a school for poor children and work in a blacking factory.

At this time, debates in English parliament, so the demand for newspaper workers has increased. Dickens completed trial assignments and began working as a reporter.

The first publication of “Essays by Bose” with an expressed protest from the bankrupt petty bourgeoisie in 1836 did not arouse interest among readers. Released in the same year initial chapters"Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club", which had great success among the English.

Two years later, Dickens published Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. He becomes a popular writer.

After a trip to America, where there were also many fans of his talent, Dickens wrote the novel “Martin Chuzzlewit” (1843) with a certain ironic description of American society. This book caused a lot of negative criticism from the overseas state.

The writer depicted a special attitude towards Christmas in 1843 in “Christmas Stories.” In the same year, Dickens became editor-in-chief of the Daily News newspaper, where he expressed his political views.

In the 1850s Dickens is England's most famous and richest writer. But his family life was not easy, as he often quarreled with his wife and worried about his sick children.

In 1860, the autobiographical novel “Great Expectations” was published, which he ended on a positive note, like most of his works. But melancholy began to overcome him. Sometimes the writer could be in a state of trance, observing visions. In 1870, Dickens began writing a detective novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, but did not have time to finish it.

Works

Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club

Charles Dickens (who first wrote under the pseudonym Boz) is a famous English writer. Together with Thackeray he is the main representative of the English and European novels in general half of the 19th century centuries.

Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Landport, near Portsmouth, and died on June 9, 1870. Around 1816 he and his parents moved to Chatham, and in the winter of 1822-23 to London. Dickens was in poor health and did not receive good school education, but already as a child he was constantly interested in reading Russian novelists and playwrights. For some time, Dickens's father spent time as a prisoner in a debtor's prison, and Charles was then engaged in wrapping packages at a trading company, for which he received 6 or 7 shillings a week. Dickens' family circumstances then improved. Charles began attending the Academy in Hamstedrod and became a secretary at the Bar, which gave him special case learn English folk life. At the same time, he studied literature at the British Museum, learned to take shorthand, got a job as a reporter in Parliament and showed such brilliant abilities in this activity that he soon became a member of the press - in the Parliamentspiegel, and later in the Morning Chronicle.

Charles Dickens. Photo 1867-68

In the Monthly Magazine, the Morning Chronicle and other similar newspapers, from December 1833 Dickens began to publish essays from the life of the lower strata of the capital's population, which he later published in a collection entitled Sketches of London. Nickname "Boz" (short name Moses, which was usually called younger brother Dickens, Augusta, after one of the children featured in Goldsmith's novel The Vicar of Wexfield) he first signed in August 1834.

The second series of “Sketches” was published in 1835. But Dickens’s actual fame began with his “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” (1836-37). Here literary technique Dickens's work is not particularly great; the figures he draws at first rather look like caricatures, and only little by little they reach a high level of comedy. But the entire work, cheerful, full of warmth and truth of life, immediately made such a complete and immediate impression on the public that critics could only state its brilliant success.

England by Charles Dickens

In 1837-39, Dickens wrote his second novel, Oliver Twist, a story about the life of the lower classes. Then came “Nicholas Nickleby” (1839), which also had greater success than "Pickwick", "Mr. Humphrey's Clock" (1840-41), a series of stories in which especially attractive are pictures of passions, interesting adventures, descriptions of often hopeless poverty in factory towns (in two stories "The Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge" ), "Martin Chuzzlewit" (1843-44) is a work full of freshness and ingenuity, which contains much of the journey Dickens made around this time to America. Now the author of all these novels already lived in a good house with a garden in Regentspark and received a very expensive payment for his works.

Then the famous Christmas stories appeared: “A Christmas Carol” (1843), “The Bells” (written in Italy, 1844), “The Cricket on the Hearth” (1845), “The Battle of Life” (written near Lake Geneva 1846), “Possessed” ( 1848), as well as the novels: “Dombey and Son” (1846), “David Copperfield” (1849 – 50), “Bleak House” (1852), “Hard Times” (1853), “Little Dorrit” (1855), “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859), “Great Expectations” (1861), “Our Mutual Friend” (1864 – 65).

Added to this were a number of magazine businesses. Dickens became the editor of the newly founded Daily News newspaper in 1845, in which he initially published his “Pictures of Italy.” But soon Dickens left the “Daily News” and in 1849 launched the weekly publication “Household Words”, which he wanted to give a fictional and pedagogical character, and which from 1860 began to be published under the name “ All the year round" and gained enormous popularity. Supplementing this weekly publication was the monthly "Household narrative of current events", a review modern history. An interesting expression of Dickens's personal views is his "American Notes" (1842), the main product of the above-mentioned trip, where he speaks not very favorably of the Americans and many of their institutions. Dickens also wrote A Young History of England (1852) and Memoirs of Grimaldi the Clown.

But overly intense work began to have a detrimental effect on his health, especially since this was accompanied by the loss of loved ones and family troubles (he separated from his wife in 1858). His public readings of his works, which he undertook in 1858 and took place in London and the provinces, then in Scotland and Ireland, and in 1868 during his second trip to North America. For these readings, Dickens was showered everywhere with enormous honors and fees, but he often felt that his powers were betraying him. The rupture of blood vessels in the brain ended his life. Dickens died in his beloved home, Gadshill Place, while working on his novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which remained unfinished. Dickens was buried in Westminster Abbey. In the 12 years following his death, more than 4 million copies of his works were sold in England. To the first full meeting his works began already in 1847.

Dickens Charles (1812-1870)

One of the most famous English-language novelists, a renowned creator of vivid comic characters and social critic. Born in Landport near Portsmouth in the family of a clerk in the naval department. Charles was the second of eight children. His mother taught him to read, and for some time he attended primary school, from nine to twelve years old he went to a regular school. In 1822 his father was transferred to London. Parents with six children huddled in Camden Town in dire need. At the age of twelve, Charles began working for six shillings a week in a blacking factory in Hungerford Stairs on the Strand. On February 20, 1824, his father was arrested for debt and imprisoned in the Marshalsea prison. Having received a small inheritance, he paid off his debts and was released on May 28 of the same year. For about two years, Charles attended a private school called Wellington House Academy.

While working as a junior clerk in one of the law firms, Charles began to study shorthand, preparing himself to become a newspaper reporter. Collaborated in several famous periodicals and began to write fictional essays about life and characteristic types London. The first of these appeared in the Munsley Magazine in December 1832. In January 1835, J. Hogarth, publisher of the Evening Chronicle, asked Dickens to write a series of essays on city life. Early spring That same year, the young writer became engaged to Catherine Hogarth. April 2, 1836 The first issue of The Pickwick Club was published. Two days earlier, Charles and Catherine had married and moved into Dickens's bachelor pad. At first, the response was lukewarm, and the sale did not promise much hope. However, the number of readers grew; By the end of the publication of The Posthumous Notes of the Pickwick Club, each issue sold 40 thousand copies.

Dickens accepted R. Bentley's offer to head the new monthly Bentley's Almanac. The first issue of the magazine was published in January 1837, a few days before the birth of Dickens's first child, Charles Jr. The first chapters of Oliver Twist appeared in the February issue. Before finishing Oliver, Dickens began writing Nicholas Nickleby, another twenty-issue series for Chapman and Hall. With the growth of wealth and literary fame, Dickens's position in society also strengthened. In 1837 he was elected a member of the Garrick Club, and in June 1838 a member of the famous Athenaeum Club.

Occasional friction with Bentley forced Dickens to resign from the Almanac in February 1839. Prints The Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge. In January 1842, the Dickens couple sailed to Boston, where a crowded and enthusiastic meeting marked the beginning of the writer's triumphant trip through New England to New York, Philadelphia, Washington and beyond - all the way to St. Louis.

In 1849, Dickens began writing David Copperfield, which was a huge success from the very beginning. In 1850, he began publishing a weekly magazine, Home Reading, at a cost of two pence. At the end of 1850, Dickens, together with Bulwer-Lytton, founded the Guild of Literature and Art to help needy writers. By this time Dickens had eight children (one died in infancy), and another last child, was about to be born. At the end of 1851, Dickens's family moved into a house in Tavistock Square, and the writer began work on Bleak House.

The writer's years of tireless work were overshadowed by a growing awareness of the failure of his marriage. While studying theater, Dickens fell in love with the young actress Ellen Ternan. Despite her husband's vows of fidelity, Catherine left his house. In May 1858, after the divorce, Charles Jr. remained with his mother and the rest of the children with their father. Having stopped publishing Home Reading, he very successfully began publishing a new weekly, All Year Round, publishing in it A Tale of Two Cities, and then Great Expectations.

His last completed novel was Our Mutual Friend. The writer's health was deteriorating. Having somewhat recovered, Dickens began writing “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” which was only half written. On June 9, 1870, Dickens died. In a private ceremony on 14 June, his body was buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.