Charles Dickens

'More than eighty years have passed since Charles Dickens died. His passionate heart has long crumbled to dust. But the world he created shines with undying life, and the hearts of men still vibrate to his indignant anger, his love, his tears, his glorious laughter, and his triumphant faith in the dignity of man'

Written in 1952, the words of one of Dickens' most eminent biographers, Edgar Johnson, still ring true in this the author's bicentenary year.

So much of our perception of the nineteenth century world has been shaped by Dickens. Through Oliver, Little Dorrit and Little Nell, we see the innocence of childhood and peer beyond the brick walls of institutions such as the Workhouse and the Marshalsea. Within the 'Office of Circumlocution' the senseless and spirit-quenching world of bureaucracy shows clear. The diverse panoply of London comes to life as the Artful Dodger takes to the streets with Oliver, and the figure of Bill Sikes casts a shadow over the night-time alleyways.

In terms of characterisation, Dickens displayed a forcefulness and sympathy that brought the nation to read his serialisations by the thousands, eagerly awaiting a further instalment published through such periodicals as The Cornhill Magazine. Who can forget the image of Miss Havisham in her decaying wedding dress, cruelly wreaking her revenge on the world, or the memorably grotesque form of Daniel Quilp looming large through the pages of The Old Curiosity Shop? The list could go on and on, through Fagin, Pecksniff, Abel Magwitch, Mr Micawber to Ebeneezor Scrooge himself.

Dickens began his writing career at the age of nineteen with the publication of his first published story in The Monthly Magazine and his work as a newspaper reporter under the pseudonym 'Boz'. By the time Dickens was writing his final unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, his readership had reached 50,000, a phenomenon that Dickens himself declared 'outstripped everyone of it's predecessors'. He died on the 9th June 1870 following a stroke, four months beyond his fifty-eighth year. His final resting place is in Westminster Abbey, fittingly at the foot of Handel and by the side of Macaulay.