Charles Dickens (The Pickwick Papers)

Charles Dickens

Dickens belongs to the Victorian age. It was an age of rapid social change .He wrote of the lower class London life in his novels .The age of Dickens is characterized by Suffering ,c conflict, as well as by expansion and progress .The rich greve richer while the poor become poorer and came to be subjected to untold suffering and misery Small children were employed in factories and mines .Dickens speak for the suffering children as he has identified himself with them. The criminals were kept in hulks where they were brutally treated like animals. It was also an age of religious hypocrisy and snobbishness .He is a painter of the lower class, London life. The children to were treated cruelly at school.The age was marked by ugliness. Wealth and birth were considered more important than merit in the times of Dickens. The glorious Queen Victoria was on the Throne ,she was a queen who could easily inspire people with love,adoration and patriotism. Dickens was born in 1812 near Port sea. He was the son of John Dickens ,a clerk in the Navy Pay Office .The family came to the verge of near starvation and they were left with no other alternative to Pawn or sell their belonging s one after another .The poor boy had to take up employment at Warren blacking factory ,London at the age of eleven.One hours leave for dinner and half an hour for tea .Dickens began his career as a writer in 1833. He married Miss Catherine Hogarth. He was removed from this earth by death on June 8 1870.        

The pickwick papers 

Dickens career as a novelist begin with sketch by boz in 1836.It is a series of pen portraits dealing with London life in the style and manner of Leigh Hunt.

Dickens next novel was The Pickwick Papers which placed him immediately at the top of the English novelist of his day.The novel contains humour and light hearted gaiety.It was published in series from 1836 to 1837. It was originally intended to be written for a Sporting Club ,but as Dickens had little knowledge of sports the plan was abandoned .He changed  his original idea of a sports club to a General club for travel and investigation .It came to be known as the pickwick club, which retained one first fated sportsman Mr Winkle. The first seven chapter were published under the signature of the cartoonist Seymour who Drew illustrations for them. Seymour in the meantime died and Dickens had to extend the plan of his work as the free plan of his imagination dictated to him. The result was a novel which was the most and uproarieous  and hilarious The book describes the adventures of Pikwick, the leader of the club and his companions, Winkle, Snodgrass, Tupman and Sam Weller. The members of the club frequently get themselves involved in difficult situations from which they are rescued by the ingenuity and skill of Mr Pickwieck. The novel has more than 60 scenes, which are lovely and sparkling full of humour with more than 350 characters sum of whom appear only once, but they win all the same lasting place in our hearts. The book as a novel has a  serious drawbacks, the incidence are closely connected and chronology will not bear inspection, but in abundance of detail of a high quality, in vivacity of humour, in acute and accurate observation the book is of the first rank. It is doubtful if Dickens ever improved upon it.