The Remarkable Life of Charles Dickens: Hard Times & Great Expectations

Heralded as one of the best—if not the best—novelists of the Victorian era, Charles Dickens longed for fame from an early age. And, after a difficult childhood beset by financial troubles, he set out to make his name and fortune as a writer. Here, we will take a closer look at the extraordinary life of the man behind such great novels as David Copperfield, Bleak House, and Great Expectations.

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 at what was then 1 Mile End Terrace (now 393 Commercial Road), Landport in Portsmouth, Hampshire, to Elizabeth and John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. In January 1815, the family moved to Norfolk Street, Fitzrovia, in London, and then on to Sheerness and Chatham, Kent.

In 1822, the Dickens family—barring Charles, who remained at school—left Kent and the number of steadily rising debts they had accrued there for Camden Town, London. These debts, however, caught up with John Dickens, who was incarcerated at the Marshalsea debtors’ prison in Southwark, London, in 1824.

Aged 12, Dickens left school and began working ten-hour shifts at Warren’s Blacking Warehouse, Hungerford Stairs (later relocating to Chandos Street in Covent Garden). Here, he was paid to paste labels onto pots of boot-blacking, earning six shillings a week.

Upon his mother’s death, John Dickens inherited £450, freeing him from the Marshalsea. Despite this, Charles’ mother was not initially in favor of Charles leaving behind his employment at the boot-blacking warehouse, which, it has been argued, had an adverse effect on Dickens’ later attitudes towards women.

Dickens was, however, removed from the boot-blacking warehouse and sent to the Wellington House Academy in Camden Town. He would later use this school as inspiration for Mr Creakle’s Establishment in David Copperfield (1850).

Upon leaving school, Dickens was employed as a junior clerk at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore of Holborn Court, Gray’s Inn, before becoming a freelance reporter. The knowledge he gained of the legal system informed a number of his works, perhaps most notably Bleak House, in which the (mis)management and bloated bureaucracy of the legal system are most vividly satirized.

Dickens, however, was not entirely content with a career as a reporter. Though he had no clear idea as to what he might wish to pursue as a career, he was ambitious and longed for fame. A talented mimic, he was set to audition as an actor at Covent Garden, though a cold prevented him from attending the audition in the end.

By this time, however, Dickens’ writing career was taking off. In 1832, his maternal uncle, William Barrow, offered him a job at The Mirror of Parliament, reporting on Parliamentary debates in the House of Commons, and traveled all over Britain to report on election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle. In 1833, his first story, “A Dinner at Poplar Walk,” was published in Monthly Magazine, and his journalistic sketches were collated in the 1836 collection Sketches by Boz (Boz being a family nickname and pseudonym).

Moreover, in 1835, the Morning Chronicle brought out an evening edition edited by George Hogarth, who not only invited Dickens to contribute to the publication but to his family home in Fulham. Here, Dickens met Hogarth’s three daughters: Georgina, Catherine, and Mary. Dickens and Catherine Hogarth became engaged in 1835 and were married the following year.

On the basis of the success of Sketches by Boz, Dickens was approached by the publishers Chapman and Hall to write text to accompany engraved illustrations by Robert Seymour for a monthly letterpress. Following Seymour’s death by suicide after the second installment, Dickens contracted “Phiz” to supply the engravings in his stead.

This marked the genesis of what became The Pickwick Papers, which, despite an initial lack of commercial interest, became hugely popular following the introduction of the humorous cockney bootblack character Sam Weller. Indeed, the popularity of Dickens’ Pickwick Papers was such that multiple spin-offs and merchandise were produced, launching Dickens’ writing career to new heights and establishing him as the most famous celebrity of his day.

In 1836, Dickens took up the position of editor of Bentley’s Miscellany, which he would go on to hold for three years, and began writing his second novel, Oliver Twist, published in 1838. The same year saw the publication of the first installments of Nicholas Nickleby, published serially between 1838 and 1839. Pioneering this form of serial publication for novels, The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41) and Barnaby Rudge (1840-41) followed soon after, both appearing in Dickens’ own weekly periodical, Master Humphrey’s Clock.

Dickens’ fame reached new audiences when, in 1842, he and Catherine arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, aboard the RMS Britannia so that Dickens could make his first tour of the United States and Canada. Upon returning to England, Dickens began work on A Christmas Carol, published in 1843.

He spent a brief spell living in Italy in 1844 and then in Switzerland in 1846, where he began work on Dombey and Son (1846-48). During a visit to Paris in 1846, he met such eminent French writers as Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Théophile Gautier. Dombey and Son was followed by the semi-autobiographical novel David Copperfield (1849-50), considered by many as Dickens’ masterpiece.

In November 1851, the Dickens family moved to Tavistock House. Here, he would go on to write Bleak House (1852-53), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1856). By the time the latter novel was published, Dickens’ income was such that he was able to purchase Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent, a place he had dreamed of living in as a child. As well as writing these novels, Dickens also acted as the publisher, editor, and a significant contributor to Household Words and All the Year Round. In Household Words, he published numerous writings supporting various causes from vaccination to the Reform Association.

Amid these professional successes, however, his marriage was floundering. And, in 1857, when he hired professional actresses for the stage production of The Frozen Deep, co-written with Wilkie Collins, Dickens fell in love with one of the actresses, Ellen Ternan, who was just 18 years old to his 45. Unable to divorce without causing a scandal, he publicly and falsely accused his wife of suffering from “a mental disorder” and unsuccessfully sought to have her institutionalized.

Following the end of his marriage, Dickens embarked on a series of reading tours, the first of which ran from April 1858 to February 1859 and saw him make 129 appearances across 49 towns in England, Ireland, and Scotland. The year 1859 also saw the publication of A Tale of Two Cities, followed by Great Expectations in 1861. He then undertook another two series of public readings in 1866 and 1867, as well as a second US tour between 1867 and 1868.

However, after being offered £10,000 to do a similar reading tour in Australia, he declined the offer. This was despite Dickens’ view of Australia as a land of opportunity: not only did he send his fictional creation Mr Micawber there in David Copperfield, but two of his own sons would emigrate to Australia in 1865 and 1868, respectively.

On June 9, 1865, Dickens and Ellen Ternan were involved in the Staplehurst rail crash in Kent. The train’s first seven carriages derailed while crossing a viaduct where a stretch of the track had been removed for repairs, with the only first-class carriage to stay on the track. The first-class carriage was the one in which Dickens and Ternan were traveling. After tending to some of the victims before help arrived, Dickens was profoundly affected by the crash and later channeled the experience into his short story, “The Signal-Man.”

From 1868 to 1869, Dickens embarked on a series of “farewell readings” across England, Ireland, and Scotland. Though contracted to perform 100 readings, the strain led to his suffering a stroke on April 18, 1869 in Chester. He collapsed just a few days later, on April 22 in Preston. Unable to finish the tour, he turned his attention to writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

This final work, however, would go unfinished. After a day of working on the novel, he suffered another stroke on June 8, 1870 and died the following day at Gads Hill Place, precisely five years after the Staplehurst rail crash. Yet Dickens left behind him a body of work that has ensured his lasting fame as a writer, which, after all, is what the ambitious young Dickens ultimately wanted from his life.