Selected Short Fiction

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

CHARLES DICKENS was born at Portsmouth on 7 February 1812, the second of eight children. Dickens's childhood experiences were similar to some extent to those depicted in
David Copperfield.
His father, who was a government clerk, was imprisoned for debt and Dickens was sent to work at the age of twelve. The memories of this period were to haunt him until his death. He taught himself shorthand and became a reporter of parliamentary debates for the
Morning Chronicle.
He began to publish sketches in various periodicals, which were subsequently republished as
Sketches by Boz. The Pickwick Papers
was published in 1836 — 7 and after a slow start became a publishing phenomenon and Dickens's characters the centre of a popular cult. Part of the secret of his success was the method of cheap serial publication, which Dickens used for all his novels. He began
Oliver Twist
in 1837, followed by
Nicholas Nickleby
(1838 — 9) and
The Old Curiosity Shop
(1840 — 41). After finishing
Barnaby Rudge
(1841) Dickens set off for America; he went full of enthusiasm for the young republic but, in spite of a triumphant reception, he returned disillusioned. His experiences are recorded in
American Notes
(1842).
Martin Chuzzlewit
(1843-4) did not repeat its predecessors' success but this was quickly redressed by the huge popularity of the
Christmas Books,
of which the first,
A Christmas Carol,
appeared in 1843.
Dombey and Son
(1846 — 8) and
David Copperfield
(1849 — 50) were more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early novels. In this later work Dickens's social criticism became more radical and his comedy more savage.
Bleak House,
published in 1852 — 3, was followed by
Hard Times
(1854),
Little Dorrit
(1855 — 7),
A Tale of Two Cities
(1859),
Great Expectations
(1860-61) and
Our Mutual Friend
(1864-5). His last novel,
The Mystery of Edwin Drood,
was never completed and he died on 9 June 1870. Public grief at his death was considerable and he was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

 

DEBORAH A. THOMAS is Professor of English at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania. She is the author of
Dickens and the Short Story, Thackeray and Slavery
and
Hard Times: A Fable of Fragmentation and Wholeness.

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This selection first published in the Penguin English Library 1976

Introduction and notes copyright © Deborah A. Thomas, 1976 All rights reserved

 

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CHARLES DICKENS was born at Portsmouth on 7 February 1812. He was the second of the eight children of John Dickens, a clerk in the Naval Pay Office, whose mother had been in service to Lord Crewe. Although John Dickens was hard-working, he was rarely able to live within his income, and this brought a series of crises upon his family, which lived under the shadow of menacing social insecurity.

John Dickens's work took him from place to place, so that Charles spent his early childhood in Portsmouth, London, and Chatham. He was happiest at Chatham, where he attended a school run by a young Baptist minister, who recognized his abilities and paid him special attention. In 1823 the family moved to London, faced with financial disaster, and, to help out, a relative of Mrs Dickens offered Charles work in a blacking business which he managed. Two days before his twelfth birthday the boy began work at a factory at Hungerford Stairs, labelling bottles for six shillings a week.

Shortly before this, John Dickens had been arrested for debt, and soon the whole family, except for Charles, who was found lodgings, joined him in the Marshalsea Debtors' Prison. The double blow - his menial job and the family shame - gave Charles a shock which transformed him. In later years he told only his wife and his closest friend, John Forster, of these experiences, which haunted him till his death.

After three months in prison, John Dickens was released by process of having himself declared an Insolvent Debtor, but it was not until weeks later that he withdrew Charles from work and sent him to school, where he did well. At fifteen, Charles began work in the office of a firm of Gray's Inn attorneys. Sensing a vocation elsewhere, he taught himself shorthand, and eighteen months later began to work as a freelance reporter in the court of Doctors' Commons.

In 1829 or 1830 he fell passionately in love with Maria Beadnell, the daughter of a banker. Their affair staggered fruitlessly on until the summer of 1833. Meanwhile, he began to report parliamentary debates, and won himself a high reputation for speed and accuracy. His first
Sketches by Boz
appeared in magazines soon after he was twenty-one. In 1834 he joined the reporting staff of the
Morning Chronicle.
A well-received volume of his
Sketches
appeared on his twenty-fourth birthday.

His growing reputation secured him a commission from the publishers, Chapman and Hall, to provide the text to appear in monthly instalments beside sporting plates by a popular artist, Seymour. He ‘thought of Mr Pickwick'. Two days after the first number appeared he married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a fellow-journalist, on the prospect. Although early sales were disappointing,
Pickwick Papers
(1836-7) soon became a publishing phenomenon, and Dickens's characters the centre of a popular cult. Part of the secret was the method of cheap serial publication, which Dickens used for all his subsequent novels (some, however, being serialized in weekly magazines edited by himself), and which was copied by other writers.

While
Pickwick
was still running, Dickens began
Oliver Twist
(1837).
Nicholas Nickleby
(1838-9) provided him with a third success, and sales of
The Old Curiosity Shop
(1840-41) reached 100,000. After finishing
Barnaby Rudge
(1841), Dickens set off with his wife for the United States. He went full of enthusiasm for the young republic, but returned heartily disillusioned, in spite of a triumphant reception. His experiences are recorded in
American Notes
(1842).

His first setback came when
Martin Chuzzlewit
(1843-4) did not repeat the extraordinary success of its predecessors, though he promptly inaugurated his triumphant series of
Christmas Books
with
A Christmas Carol
(1843). He now travelled abroad, first to Italy (1844-5) and then to Switzerland and Paris (1846). During a brief interlude in England he projected, not another novel, but a paper, the
Daily News.
This first appeared in January 1846, but Dickens resigned after only seventeen days as editor.