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DICKENS, CHARLES, an English novelist, born February 7, 1812; died June 9, 1870. He was the son of a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, a wellmeaning but unpractical man, who could not adjust his means to his necessities, and was always in difficulties. His mother, a woman of some accomplishments, endeavored to assist in the maintenance of the family, by opening a school for young ladies, but she was unsuccessful in obtaining pupils. Mr. Dickens was at length confined in the Marshalsea prison and his family took up their residence in Camden town, then a povertystricken suburb of London. When Charles was nine years old he was placed in a blacking warehouse, where he earned six shillings a week. In this neglected, uncongenial, irksome way of earning a scanty living he continued for two years. He had already made acquaintance with Tom Jones, Roderick Random, and other heroes of Fielding and Smollett; with the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, and Robinson Crusoe, whose lives and adventures he had found among a small collection of books owned by his father. He beguiled many an hour by fancying himself one or another of the characters about whom he had read. Among his companions in the warehouse he was famous as a story-teller, and he wrote a tragedy, Misnar, the Sultan of India, founded on

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fused. The editor of the Chronicle engaged him to continue them in that paper, where they attracted much attention. In 1836 they were published collectively in two volumes, illustrated by Cruikshank.

About this time Chapman & Hall proposed to Dickens a work of fiction in monthly numbers, to be illustrated by Seymour, a comic artist. In accordance with this proposal Dickens began The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. On the death of Seymour, before the publication of the second number, Hablot Knight Browne, under the pseudonym of "Phiz," took his place. The first numbers were not successful, but the appearance of Sam Weller gained many readers, and the author was soon the most popular writer of the day. Before the completion of Pickwick, Oliver Twist was begun in Bentley's Magazine. Pickwick appeared in book form in 1837, Oliver Twist in 1838, and Nicholas Nickleby in 1839. Under the general title of Master Humphrey's Clock, The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge were published in monthly numbers in 1840-41. In 1842 Dickens visited America, sailing for Boston in January, and returning to England in June. On his return he published American Notes for General Circulation (1842), and Martin Chuzzlewit (1843).

The Christmas Carol (1843) was the first of his popular holiday stories. The others are The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), The Haunted Man (1848), Dr. Marigold's Prescription (1865), Mugby Function (1866), and No Thoroughfare (1867), the last of which was

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