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DICKENS
DICKENS
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CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I.
BEFORE "PICKWICK" 1
CHAPTER II.
FROM SUCCESS TO SUCCESS 20
CHAPTER III.
STRANGE LANDS 49
CHAPTER IV.
"DAVID COPPERFIELD" 85
CHAPTER V.
CHANGES 108
CHAPTER VI.
LAST YEARS 146
CHAPTER VII.
THE FUTURE OF DICKENS'S FAME 192
DICKENS.
CHAPTER I.
BEFORE "PICKWICK."
[1812-1836.]
Charles Dickens, the eldest son, and the second of the eight children, of
John and Elizabeth Dickens, was born at Landport, a suburb of Portsea, on
Friday, February 7, 1812. His baptismal names were Charles John Huffham.
His father, at that time a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and employed in
the Portsmouth Dock-yard, was recalled to London when his eldest son was
only two years of age; and two years afterwards was transferred to
Chatham, where he resided with his family from 1816 to 1821. Thus Chatham,
and the more venerable city of Rochester adjoining, with their
neighbourhood of chalk hills and deep green lanes and woodland and
marshes, became, in the words of Dickens's biographer, the birthplace of
his fancy. He looked upon himself as, to all intents and purposes, a
Kentish man born and bred, and his heart was always in this particular
corner of the incomparable county. Again and again, after Mr. Alfred
Jingle's spasmodic eloquence had, in the very first number of _Pickwick_,
epitomised the antiquities and comforts of Rochester, already the scene of
one of the _Sketches_, Dickens returned to the local associations of his
early childhood. It was at Chatham that poor little David Copperfield, on
his solitary tramp to Dover, slept his Sunday night's sleep "near a
cannon, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps;" and in many a
Christmas narrative or uncommercial etching the familiar features of town
and country, of road and river, were reproduced, before in _Great
Expectations_ they suggested some of the most picturesque effects of his
later art, and before in his last unfinished romance his faithful fancy
once more haunted the well-known precincts. During the last thirteen years
of his life he was again an inhabitant of the loved neighbourhood where,
with the companions of his mirthful idleness, he had so often made
holiday; where, when hope was young, he had spent his honey-moon; and
whither, after his last restless wanderings, he was to return, to seek
such repose as he would allow himself, and to die. But, of course, the
daily life of the "very queer small boy" of that early time is only quite
incidentally to be associated with the grand gentleman's house on Gad's
Hill, where his father, little thinking that his son was to act over again
the story of Warren Hastings and Daylesford, had told him he might some
day come to live, if he were to be very persevering, and to work hard. The
family abode was in Ordnance (not St. Mary's) Place, at Chatham, amidst
surroundings classified in Mr. Pickwick's notes as "appearing to be
soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, offices, and dock-yard men." But
though the half-mean, half-picturesque aspect of the Chatham streets may
already at an early age have had its fascination for Dickens, yet his
childish fancy was fed as fully as were his powers of observation. Having
learned reading from his mother, he was sent with his elder sister, Fanny,
to a day-school kept in Gibraltar Place, New Road, by Mr. William Giles,
the eldest son and namesake of a worthy Baptist minister, whose family had
formed an intimate acquaintance with their neighbours in Ordnance Row. The
younger Giles children were pupils at the school of their elder brother
with Charles and Fanny Dickens, and thus naturally their constant
playmates. In later life Dickens preserved a grateful remembrance, at
times refreshed by pleasant communications between the families, of the
training he had received from Mr. William Giles, an intelligent as well as
generous man, who, recognising his pupil's abilities, seems to have
resolved that they should not lie fallow for want of early cultivation.
Nor does there appear to be the slightest reason for supposing that this
period of his life was anything but happy.
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I.
BEFORE "PICKWICK" 1
CHAPTER II.
FROM SUCCESS TO SUCCESS 20
CHAPTER III.
STRANGE LANDS 49
CHAPTER IV.
"DAVID COPPERFIELD" 85
CHAPTER V.
CHANGES 108
CHAPTER VI.
LAST YEARS 146
CHAPTER VII.
THE FUTURE OF DICKENS'S FAME 192
DICKENS.
CHAPTER I.
BEFORE "PICKWICK."
[1812-1836.]
Charles Dickens, the eldest son, and the second of the eight children, of
John and Elizabeth Dickens, was born at Landport, a suburb of Portsea, on
Friday, February 7, 1812. His baptismal names were Charles John Huffham.
His father, at that time a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and employed in
the Portsmouth Dock-yard, was recalled to London when his eldest son was
only two years of age; and two years afterwards was transferred to
Chatham, where he resided with his family from 1816 to 1821. Thus Chatham,
and the more venerable city of Rochester adjoining, with their
neighbourhood of chalk hills and deep green lanes and woodland and
marshes, became, in the words of Dickens's biographer, the birthplace of
his fancy. He looked upon himself as, to all intents and purposes, a
Kentish man born and bred, and his heart was always in this particular
corner of the incomparable county. Again and again, after Mr. Alfred
Jingle's spasmodic eloquence had, in the very first number of _Pickwick_,
epitomised the antiquities and comforts of Rochester, already the scene of
one of the _Sketches_, Dickens returned to the local associations of his
early childhood. It was at Chatham that poor little David Copperfield, on
his solitary tramp to Dover, slept his Sunday night's sleep "near a
cannon, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps;" and in many a
Christmas narrative or uncommercial etching the familiar features of town
and country, of road and river, were reproduced, before in _Great
Expectations_ they suggested some of the most picturesque effects of his
later art, and before in his last unfinished romance his faithful fancy
once more haunted the well-known precincts. During the last thirteen years
of his life he was again an inhabitant of the loved neighbourhood where,
with the companions of his mirthful idleness, he had so often made
holiday; where, when hope was young, he had spent his honey-moon; and
whither, after his last restless wanderings, he was to return, to seek
such repose as he would allow himself, and to die. But, of course, the
daily life of the "very queer small boy" of that early time is only quite
incidentally to be associated with the grand gentleman's house on Gad's
Hill, where his father, little thinking that his son was to act over again
the story of Warren Hastings and Daylesford, had told him he might some
day come to live, if he were to be very persevering, and to work hard. The
family abode was in Ordnance (not St. Mary's) Place, at Chatham, amidst
surroundings classified in Mr. Pickwick's notes as "appearing to be
soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, offices, and dock-yard men." But
though the half-mean, half-picturesque aspect of the Chatham streets may
already at an early age have had its fascination for Dickens, yet his
childish fancy was fed as fully as were his powers of observation. Having
learned reading from his mother, he was sent with his elder sister, Fanny,
to a day-school kept in Gibraltar Place, New Road, by Mr. William Giles,
the eldest son and namesake of a worthy Baptist minister, whose family had
formed an intimate acquaintance with their neighbours in Ordnance Row. The
younger Giles children were pupils at the school of their elder brother
with Charles and Fanny Dickens, and thus naturally their constant
playmates. In later life Dickens preserved a grateful remembrance, at
times refreshed by pleasant communications between the families, of the
training he had received from Mr. William Giles, an intelligent as well as
generous man, who, recognising his pupil's abilities, seems to have
resolved that they should not lie fallow for want of early cultivation.
Nor does there appear to be the slightest reason for supposing that this
period of his life was anything but happy.
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