Charles Dickens
Life and literary production
Charles Dickens was born near Portsmouth in 1812. His family
moved to London, where his father was imprisoned for debt
and Charles was withdrawn from school.
In 1824, he was sent to work in a blacking factory, a traumatic
experience which marked him and his literary production for
life. After his father's financial position improved, he went back
to school.
He became a parliamentary reporter and then a journalist.
After the success of The Pickwick Papers, he embarked on a
full-time career as a novelist, producing novels at an incredible
rate.
Between 1837 and 1857 Dickens published sixteen novels, all
in the form of serial publications. During his later years,
Dickens’s novels gradually moved towards a savage
condemnation of Victorian Society. These later works are
characterised by their ability to combine several different plots,
genres and emotional moods.
He died in London In 1870.
Oliver Twist (1837-9)
Oliver Twist appeared in instalments in 1837 and it fictionalises
the humiliations Dickens experienced during his childhood.
The protagonist, Oliver Twist, is born in a workhouse, an horrible
place where he lives the first years of his life.
Oliver managed to escape and, after working for an undertaker,
he decides to run away to London. Oliver meets a boy his own
age, who offers him a place to stay in the house of his
benefactor, Fagin, a criminal who trains orphans to become
pickpockets for his own benefit. Oliver is sent on a ‘’mission'’ but
he is horrified and runs away.
Mr Brownlow, the man whose handkerchief was stolen, takes
Oliver to look after him but he is soon captured by Bill Sikes,
and his girlfriend Nancy, and returned to Fagin.
Fagin sends Oliver to help another boy in a burglary but he is
