Remembering Charles Dickens; 206th birthday of the writer

“Please sir, I want some more.”

A famous line from the novel ‘Oliver Twist’ written by Charles Dickens.

(If you don’t know this novel then, go read it!)

This was one of the novels that I read during my childhood and which has touched my heart.

So on this glorious day of February 7^th, 2018 let’s take some time to know some facts about the author.

1. It is a belief in amongst Charles Dickens’ followers and literary critics that his surname, Dickens, was probably a curse invented by none other than the bard himself, William Shakespeare. During his times, instead of saying, “What the devil?” as a profanity, people exclaimed, “What the dickens?”                                                           According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first usage of that word was in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. And Shakespeare frequently invented words, just because they weren’t there.

 

2. Charles Dickens had a touchy childhood. He was forced to leave school after his father was jailed for having ‘bad debts’. Young Dickens then started working in a boot polish factory, where he worked for three years. The conditions were very poor, and Dickens started suffering from loneliness. And his childhood hardships have been chronicled extensively in David Copperfield.

 

3. Before becoming a full-time author, Dickens was a journalist. He regularly contributed articles to journals called The Mirror of Parliament and The True Sun. In 1833, Dickens was hired as a parliamentary reporter for The Morning Chronicle newspaper. He then started to publish sketches as well under the pen name Boz.

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4. His wife, Catherine Hogarth, whom he married in 1836, was the daughter of one of his editors. They had 10 children together. Dickens and his wife separated in 1858 and Dicken then had a relationship with an actress, Ellen Ternan.

 

5. Dickens gained popularity when his story, The Pickwick Papers, was published as a serial in 1836.

 

6. Apart from writing, Dickens also had a liking for all things paranormal. So much so that he had gained membership to The Ghost Club to fulfill his curiosities.

 

7. According to the New York Times, Dickens was on a train that derailed over a bridge, in the only first-class carriage that didn’t plummet into a river. He not only found the key that freed his friends, he went to the carriages below and gave water and brandy to those who needed it.                                                                                            Then, in a move that can only be called “bad ass,” the ailing 53-year-old “climbed back into the dangling carriage and retrieved from the pocket of his coat the installment of Our Mutual Friend that he had just completed and was taking to his publishers.”              The reason he was never publicly lauded for his actions? He was keeping it on the down-low because he was traveling with his mistress.

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8. In a world where women had few options to support themselves and their families, prostitution was a common crime, but one that was severely punished. After an appeal from heiress Angela Coutts, Charles Dickens helped create “Urania House” where former prostitutes could learn to read and write, as well keep house.                               Dickens searched prisons and workhouses for potential candidates and interviewed them personally. He even established the house rules. Approximately 100 women “graduated” from Urania House.

 

9. The Dickens family had several pets: From a canary called Dick to a series of dogs and also a raven called Grip. When Grip died after consuming paint, Dickens had him stuffed, and the raven now resides in the Philadelphia Free Library. Grip is also said to have been the inspiration behind the raven in Barnaby Rudge(1841). A kitten named Bob was also memorialized through taxidermy like Grip. When Bob died, Dickens made his paw into a letter opener, which is now on display in the New York Public Library.

 

10. Many also believe that Dickens suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).  MedIndia writes, according to a Dickens biography, the writer, “had a habit of rearranging furniture whenever he stayed in a hotel room and inspecting his children’s bedrooms every morning, leaving behind notes when he was not satisfied with their tidiness”.

 

11. Dickens had written half of a novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, but left it unfinished when he died of a stroke in 9^th June 1870. Edwin Drood was a young man engaged to Rosa Bud, who is also the object of his uncle John Jasper’s affections, as well as Neville Landless, a young man from Ceylon. After he and Rosa break their engagement, Drood disappears. Dickens left no clues behind as to who killed his protagonist, although many suspect his uncle. There have been multiple radio, television, and theater reworkings of this story, each with different endings.                                                                    The most recent film of this novel was aired in the United Kingdom in January 2014.