Line #38 Creator/CharlesDickens


1	[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/charles_dickens.png]]
2
3	->''"There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts."''
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5	Charles John Huffham Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was the foremost English novelist of the 19th century, and remains one of the most famous authors in the English language to this day.
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7	He defined VictorianLondon, but actually started writing before Queen Victoria came to the throne. In fact, a number of his works are set in the [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover Georgian period]] (''Literature/ThePickwickPapers'' 1827–28, ''Literature/LittleDorrit'' around 1826, ''Barnaby Rudge'' 1780).
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9	Many of Dickens' works were originally published as multi-part serials, complete with {{cliffhanger}}s. These would be delivered to the subscribing public in small, bound monthly installments of three or four chapters at a time (similarly to today's comics industry) over the course of two or three years. When published in book form, these installments generally mark chapter breaks in the larger novel.
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11	This set-up resulted in the novels serving as the {{soap opera}}s of their day, with the typical Dickensian scenario featuring hordes of memorable -- and often [[CatchPhrase catchphrase]]-spouting -- characters tumbling through ever-more-outrageously convoluted plots. This served to keep reader interest alive for each new installment, and the more readers, the more subscription fees; a very direct connection to the fanbase, so to speak. And if sales should drop over a given plot twist, Dickens would sometimes be forced to undo months of careful pre-planning to "fix" the storyline to the readers' satisfaction.
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13	Therefore, it's perhaps not altogether surprising that Dickens's writing style can be best described as "barely controlled chaos." This mirrored [[UsefulNotes/VictorianBritain the society he lived and wrote in]] -- by turns sentimental and satirical, melodramatic and priggish, exuberantly credulous and narrowly sceptical. And as if to match the action, the style of diction is generally [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness wordy in the extreme]] -- popular legend holds that Dickens was "paid by the word." These novels are stuffed full of literary flourishes that are not criticized today only because their author was an undisputed genius. Also, this was before [[https://www.tangentonline.com/articles-columnsmenu-284/529-on-writing-as-a-fantasist the realism movement in literature]] which scorned extensive background information and description of characters and places, let alone any form of {{Anvilicious}} [[AuthorTract moralising]]. As in a modern SoapOpera, there are usually about four or five interwoven plots on the go in any single Dickens novel, not counting many more side-issues and [[AuthorFilibuster random authorial digressions.]] The whole was often leavened substantially with social criticism, most famously in ''Literature/OliverTwist'', ''Literature/NicholasNickleby'', and ''Literature/LittleDorrit''.
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15	Tropes he rather heavily relied on to get these effects included [[LukeIAmYourFather hidden connections between established characters]] and the ContrivedCoincidence. A number of the crucial plot twists in ''Literature/DavidCopperfield'', for instance, depend on characters just happening to walk past doors or meet on the street (in the heart of London!); ''Literature/ATaleOfTwoCities'' only happens to begin with thanks to the intersection of a [[BackStory fortuitous marriage]], a highly coincidental co-passage on a boat, and an IdenticalStranger.
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17	Towards the end of his career his stories took a noticeably darker and more didactic turn, as his interest in social issues consumed him more and more, and his despair in the face of their effects mounted accordingly. It's usually best, when starting a course of Dickens, to work your way through the canon from earlier to later books. Much of this may have largely been attributed, according to his son, from a near-death experience in the [[https://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/life/staplehurst-railway-accident/ Staplehurst Railway Accident]], in which he and his mistress were passengers on a train that derailed in 1865 due to a misread schedule during maintenance on a viaduct. Though he survived (albeit where he refused to acknowledge his presence to avoid alerting the public to his infidelity), he was shaken by the experience, and was apparently nervous riding trains from that point forward. Such an experience is suspected to have led him to write the short story ''The Signal-Man'' just a year later (though it was closer to a collision that occurred at Clayton Tunnel in 1861). Another son suggested that his reputation as a wholesome if eccentric writer tumbling after news got out about treatment of his wife (whom he had 10 children with and tried to have committed because he was in love with his mistress, only being foiled by one of his own friends) had also worn him down.
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19	He died of a stroke in 1870, coincidentally five years to the date after the fateful train crash, leaving his last novel, ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood'', unfinished. His direct descendant Creator/HarryLloyd is now an actor, whose work includes an adaptation of Dickens' ''Bleak House'', a role in the first half of an adaptation of ''David Copperfield'', a turn as Viserys Targaryen on ''[[Series/GameOfThrones Game of Thrones]]'', and as the BigBad of both ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXVI''.
20	----
21	!! His works include:
22	[[index]]
23	* ''Literature/ThePickwickPapers''. Containing the best known fictional description of a British by-election before the 1832 Great Reform Act and a major pop-culture phenomenon at the time (especially Cockney comedy relief Sam Weller), it catapulted Dickens to celebrity. The Dingley Dell-Old Muddleton cricket match appeared on a British bank note for a while. (1837)
24	* ''Literature/OliverTwist'' - Considerably darker than most of its adaptations, with more beatings and less [[CrowdSong spontaneous multi-part harmony.]] (1839)
25	* ''Literature/NicholasNickleby'' - Featuring Dotheboys Hall, one of the most monstrous fictional schools (and schoolmasters) ever created. Also well-known for the hopelessly maudlin subplot featuring loyal sidekick [[TheWoobie Smike]], who gets a sendoff second only to Little Nell's. (1839)
26	* ''Literature/TheOldCuriosityShop'' - Containing the renowned Death of Little Nell (no, not [[Series/NCISLosAngeles that one]]), by reader acclaim the most tragic deathbed scene in English literature to that point...and these were ''Victorian'' readers, so you know the competition had to be stiff. Although Creator/OscarWilde said that you would need a heart of stone to read it without dissolving in tears of laughter. (1841)
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28	[[/index]]
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30	* ''Literature/BarnabyRudge'', a fictionalized account of the Gordon Riots with a notably [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} oddball]] title character. Also the heroine Dolly Varden, who inspired a minor fashion fad in the early 1870s; both a cake and a trout were named after her. (1841)
31	[[index]]
32	* ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' - "Marley was dead, to begin with..." This book is credited with playing a major role, not only in the celebration of Christmas, but also in ''creating'' the modern version of the holiday. And you will be hard-pressed to find a tale that has [[AdaptationOverdosed spawned more]] [[YetAnotherChristmasCarol adaptations]]. (1843)
33	* ''Literature/MartinChuzzlewit'' (1844)
34	* ''Literature/TheBattleOfLife'' (1846)
35	* ''Literature/DombeyAndSon'' (1848)
36	* ''Literature/DavidCopperfield'' - Dickens' 'favourite child' of his works. Semi-autobiographical tale of a young writer's rise from poverty and abuse, notable for drawing on certain dark incidents in Dickens' own past. And, on a much lighter note, introducing the Micawbers, Uriah Heep and Aunt Betsey Trotwood to the world. (1850)
37	* ''Literature/BleakHouse'' - A long running court case over a disputed will, includes an early example of the police detective. (1853)
38	* ''Literature/HardTimes'' (1854)
39	* ''Literature/LittleDorrit'' - Recently the subject of a well-received BBC miniseries, a scathing indictment of society vs. human nature that pits gentle Amy Dorrit, Child of the Marshalsea (debtor's) prison, against the challenges first of poverty, then wealth. (1857)
40	* ''Literature/ATaleOfTwoCities'' - Set during the French Revolution. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." (1859)
41	* ''Literature/GreatExpectations'' - despite a similar setup to many of his other works, [[SubvertedTrope subverts]] many of his usual plot twists. (1861)
42	* ''Literature/OurMutualFriend'' - His last complete novel. (1865)
43	* ''Literature/TheMysteryOfEdwinDrood'' - His last, uncompleted novel. (1870)
44	[[/index]]
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46	Dickens also wrote a good deal of non-fiction, such as:
47	* ''Sketches by Boz'': The work that brought Dickens to early prominence during his days as a reporter. A series of pieces detailing London. (1836)
48	* ''American Notes'': An account of his visit to the USA in 1842.
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50	!! The works of Charles Dickens provide examples of:
51	* AuthorTract: Much of Dickens' work includes some sort of strong social commentary. His most frequent targets include poverty and the plight of children.
52	** His ''American Notes'' also features his commentary on American systems, such as insane asylums (where he praised American efforts), slavery (where he condemned the practice) and spitting out tobacco on the floor.
53	** ''[[Literature/AChristmasCarol A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas]]'' goes off on the destructiveness of ignorance.
54	--->''"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."''
55	** Dickens' ''Literature/OliverTwist'' is the book responsible for abolishing workhouses as a placeholder for orphans. Who can forget the iconic "Please, sir, I want some more!" scene?
56	* ContrivedCoincidence: Was a big fan, like most Victorian novelists.
57	* EarnYourHappyEnding: Most of his stories end well, but only after the main characters suffer a lot of misery, pain and angst.
58	* LemonyNarrator: Dickens himself was one of the lemoniest(?), which appears in virtually all of his works.
59	* LovesSecrecy: Mr Nadgett from ''Literature/MartinChuzzlewit''; {{lampshaded}}:
60	--> The ruling passion of the man expressed itself even then, in the tone of regret in which he deplored the approaching publicity of what he knew.
61	* SignatureLine: ''A Tale of Two Cities'' may have the most famous set of opening and closing lines in Western literature. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."/"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done..."
62	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Depends on the story. Several could be seen as more idealistic due to characters having a HeelFaceTurn, being kind-hearted and sympathetic, and/or getting a EarnYourHappyEnding.

Context Creator / CharlesDickens