Biography and best books of Charles Dickens

Biography and best books of Charles Dickens

Photography: Autorde

Considered one of the great writers of history and especially of that Victorian England that he masterfully captured in his works, Charles Dickens continues to be an influential author for generations who continue to see in the architect of Oliver Twist the perfect portrait painter of a time and a place. We immerse ourselves in the biography and best books of Charles Dickens in order to explore all its nuances.

Charles Dickens Biography: The Other London

Biography of Charles Dickens

Photograph: US National Archives

Born on February 7, 1812 in Landport, an area of ​​the English city of Portmouth, Charles Dickens was the son of John Dickens, a dock clerk, and Elizabeth Barrow, a housewife. Child whose childhood was marked by the constant financial excesses of his father, the absence of education until the age of 9 years or two moves, one to Kent and another to Camdem Town, at that time one of the poorest areas of London.

At the age of 12, his father was locked up in jail for incurring numerous debts, allowing his family to share a cell with the prisoner, although Dickens was sent to a foster home and forced to start work in a shoe polish factory. pasting labels, a job with which he paid for his accommodation and helped his family. Meanwhile, literature became his great ally, devouring picaresque novels and works like Don Quixote de la Mancha, a hobby that added to his deplorable life allowed Dickens to turn his future work into the perfect kaleidoscope of an infamous childhood mired in London poverty, a situation that he denounced on numerous occasions.

In 1827, at the age of fifteen, he began working as a court stenographer and a year later as a reporter for the Doctor's Commons and a chronicler for the True Sun. Eventually, her work as a political journalist for the Morning Chronicle allowed her to publish your own book of political publications, the first hook of an audience that would consume his books voraciously years later.

In 1836 he married Catherine Thompson Hogarth, with whom he had ten children, whom he tried to instill Christianity in in many ways, including a simple language book called The Life of Our Lord. His participation as an editor in several newspapers allowed him to publish Oliver Twist, which was published in installments for two months in 1837. Dickens's genius in serializing was due to his interest in bringing his literature to many people who, like him as a child, did not have the money to buy complete books.

In this way, Dickens began to grow as an author, acquiring properties and trying to expand his lyrics throughout the world, specifically in the United States, where his work Notes from America, opposed to the slavery that reigned on the other side of the Atlantic, led him to various criticisms. Finally, works like A Christmas Carol (1843) or David Copperfield (1850), they ended up consecrating him despite leading to a crisis marked by an editorial remuneration that was never enough. This is how Charles Dickens ended up traveling through Europe and meeting other authors before becoming one of London's most versatile personalities by organizing different conferences, founding your own newspaper or even a theater company.

The end of the 1850s brought Dickens as much bitterness as it was joy: in parallel with the creation of History of two cities, one of his great works, he divorced his wife Catherine. A situation at least controversial given the many prejudices that existed against divorce in Victorian London.

During the following years, Dickens suffered a railway accident that would mark the last stage of his life, although he continued to work indefatigably until his death, on June 9, 1870, due to a stroke.

A life marked not only by letters, but by a social activity at all levels that honor a writer who has become a symbol of an era.

Best Charles Dickens books

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist

Converted into a timeless work given the inequality still present in the world and its condition as the perfect canvas to denounce various atrocities that include innocent children, Oliver Twist it is one of the great Dickens stories. Published in various installments in 1837, it is the first novel to feature a child as the main character, Oliver being the icon of a generation, a poor and orphan child used by the city's thugs to commit various crimes. A situation known to Dickens firsthand when he came from that sordid and picaresque London that he captured with a certain sarcasm throughout his work.

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

Published in 1843, A Christmas Carol picks up the witness of a time when England succumbed to resurgence of old Christmas traditions fostered by literature or trends from the Victorian court. This is how this work became Dickens's personal asset to explore human behavior in such a charismatic time, specifically that of Mr. Scrooge, the stingy old man who must succumb to the ghosts of his different Christmases to melt a heart of ice. . Like other of his works, A Christmas Carol has been adapted for theater and film on numerous occasions.

David Copperfield

David Copperfield

Possibly the work with the most autobiographical overtones, David Copperfield he was always Dickens's "favorite son." The protagonist, raised by a wicked stepfather and a submissive mother, perfectly represents the author's life, his loves, friends, disappointments or achievements traced from his birth to his death. Without a doubt, one of the most influential works of the writer which was published in 1850 in various installments.

History of two cities

Stories of two cities

The second best-selling novel in history after Don Quixote de la Mancha it arrived in 1859 to become Dickens's magna. An analysis of the time through the prism of two cities: a peaceful and quiet London and a Paris in which the agitation and defiance of a people dissatisfied with their situation is chewed. Such was the success of the novel, that after an initial circulation of 12 thousand copies it went on to have 100 thousand a week.

Would you like to read History of two cities?

Big hopes

Big hopes

Largely conceived under the same pattern as David Copperfield, Great Expectations is a learning novel that it could well draw from different references to the author's own life. Set over twenty-eight years, the novel chronicles the transformation of Phillip Pirrip, an aspiring blacksmith who seeks to become a lord of the English nobility despite the many ghosts from the past that he will have to contend with. The novel was published in different issues between 1960 and 1961 becoming a success.

You've read Big hopes?

What are, in your opinion, the best books by Charles Dickens?


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