Charles Dickens

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Charles Dickens
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Biography Early Life

• A British novelist of the Victorian Era
• Born in 1812 in Portsmouth, England
• Family lower-middle class
• At twelve years old father imprisoned for debt
• Forced to work in a shoe polish factory
• Education limited taught himself to write
  short-hand

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Life as a Writer

• Pickwick Papers made him a success in 1836
• He and wife had ten children (later separated)
• Threw himself into different causes improving
  education and acting in plays
• Travelled widely on reading tours
• Health failed while on a reading tour in 1869 and
  was forced home
• Dickens died the following year while writing his
  unfinished novel
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

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Published Works
Other titles include Little Dorritt Bleak
House Our Mutual Friend The Old Curiosity Shop
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Illustration on cover page of published edition
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Why hes important today

• He was the quintessential Victorian author.
• His epic stories, vivid characters and exhaustive
  depiction of contemporary life are unforgettable.
• He created thoroughly human characters (arguable
  in A Tale)
• He speaks authentically for the common heart of
  humanity
• His stories are all admirable demonstrations of
  the power and beauty of the nobler practical
  virtues, of kindness, courage, humility, and all
  the other forms of unselfishness

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Context and Historical Period

• Actions of the novel takes place over a period of
  eighteen years
• Begins in 1775 ends in 1793
• Events take place just before and during the
  French Revolution
• Set mostly in London and Paris with some chapters
  set in rural France and English port city of
  Dover

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French Revolution

• Louis XVI Marie Antoinettes excessive spending
  causes hike in taxes (price of flour rises
  Parisian's enraged!)
• Hunger turned to rage
• Complaints put to paper by Maximillian
  Robespierre (rhetor/orator, lawyer)
• Enlightenment on the rise beacon of possibility
  the age of reason
• June 20, 1789 deputies move into Tennis court
  (while other deputies of nobility and clergy
  locked up) and National Assembly created
• More rioting, raids leads to attack on the
  Bastille (to stop despotism commoners lashing
  back at nobility) Bastille literally torn to
  pieces
• Prison guard surrenders, killed and head
  displayed on a pike
• French flag created drapeau de 3 couleurs
• Declaration of the Rights of Man created (all
  men equal under the law king not above the law)

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• Free Press created (Marats brain child) feeds
  citizens ideas that stirs more anger distinct
  rhetoric
• 1789 price of bread still high, women of Paris
  storm the castle (moment where Marie Antoinette
  does not say Let them eat cake!)
• Nobility forced to move to Paris
• Tuilleries Palace new home to King and Queen
  (under the microscope now)
• Guillotine makes its first appearance a.k.a
  The Killing Machine
• Robespierre becomes the head of the French
  Revolution
• 27,000 citizens attack Kings Palace, capture the
  King and French Republic is born.
• London realizes how bloody Paris has become
  disgusted
• Marat is killed by woman who broke into his home
  and stabbed him in the chest with her stiletto!
  His newspaper silenced.

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• France is in turmoil within and without (Austria,
  Prussia, Britain invading)
• Reign of Terror new constitution suspended
  counter-revolutionists sent to National Razor
  (Guillotine) neighbours denounce neighbours,
  police spies, heightened anxiety and fear
  dominates France
• Robespierre no longer the incorruptible he now
  believes fear and terror can rule a populace
• Robespierre finally devoured during last phase of
  the Revolution (The Great Terror) Festival of
  Supreme being
• Napoleon came to power five years after
  Robespierre brought down