CHARLES DICKENS
This, who has been considered the most popular, and even the biggest English novelist, was born in Portsmouth, in a family of great economic instability, because of the bad luck and the changeable character of his father. He would be the inspiration for the characters of Mr Micawber (David Copperfield) and Mr Dorrit (Little Dorrit). Dickens was an eager and early reader, influenced by his mother learnings.
In 1823 the family had to move to a poor suburb in London, this would be the stage that inspirated Charles in the most of his work. When he was 10, he knew in his own the misery of child working explotation, so topic in Industrial Revolution, when he worked in a factory as learner while the rest of the family went to prison because of father's debts.
He worked also as writer in a lawyer's office and then as a journalist. He began to write the reports of his reality which emphasize his mind sharpness and great vitality.
His novelist career and his marriage were almost at the same time. He began writing short narrations, characters and that time's happenings, which were published anonimously as Sketches by Boz (1836). That was the beginning for a singular and successful literary career.
That year appeared published monthly Club Pickwick. This work shows some parallellism with the Spanish "El Quijote" because it parodies one preexistent gender - English novel from XVIIIth century - and its main character is an idealist and philanthropist gentleman who looks for his time habits in his travels. He goes with a servant, Sam Weller, who will reach his owner with funny and friendliness. This work has been considered as a master.
Oliver Twist (1837-1838) starts a darker period because of squalid environment descriptions and the abandonment of the main character, an orphan. Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839) is also about an orphan but this character differences from Oliver Twist because he looks for a place in the society to go away from this.
In The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), Dickens knew how to mix dosis of humour with the desventures of the little Nell.
David Copperfield is writen in first person and, sometimes, is authobiographic. The most important thing in this novel is the description of secundary characters.
With Bleak House (1852-1853), starts a new cycle: he satirizes that juridic system and the whole society, inspired in the conviction of a social reform. In this line he also wrote Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-1856); the first one is an attack to the life in that industrial zones and to the capitalist society in general, and the second one enters in prison environment. In both he wants a personal regeneration to change society.
Great Expectations (1860-1861) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) are two of his last novels. He died in all activity with 58 years. He was all his life a man busy on thousand activities, a multifaceted genus who died with some fortune. His bigger got has been to lift the novel to the nowadays cathegory and prestige.