On November 15, 1859, Charles Dickens' serialized novel, A
Tale of Two Cities, comes to a close, as the final chapter is published in
Dickens' circular, All the Year Round. Dickens was born in 1812 and
attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was
thrown in debtors' prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in
a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the
debtors' jail became topics of several of Dickens' novels. In his late teens,
Dickens became a reporter and later started publishing humorous short stories.
In 1836, a collection of his stories, Sketches by Boz, was published.
The same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would have nine
children. The success of Dickens first work of fiction, Sketches by Boz,
later known as The Pickwick Papers was soon reproduced with Oliver
Twist (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1839). In 1841, Dickens
published two more novels, and then spent five months in the United States,
where he was welcomed as a literary hero. Dickens never lost momentum as a
writer, churning out major novels every year or two, often in serial form.
Among his most important works are David Copperfield (1850), Great
Expectations (1861), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Beginning in
1850, he published his own weekly circular of fiction, poetry, and essays
called Household Words. He folded the circular in 1859 and launched
another, All the Year Round, which included the first chapter of A
Tale of Two Cities. In 1858, Dickens separated from his wife and began a
long association with a young actress. He gave frequent readings, which became
immensely popular. He died in 1870 at the age of 58, with his last novel, The
Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished.
Michael Thomas Barry is the author of Literary Legends of
the British Isles. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following
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