He was twenty-three at the time The Pickwick Papers first appeared. That year, he had married Catherine (Kate) Hogarth—the daughter of a colleague—after having ardently but unsuccessfully pursued a young woman named Maria Beadnell three years before. He became quite close to his wife’s family, grieving disconsolately at the death of her sister Mary (which caused him to break a deadline on Oliver Twist) and formed strong ties to her sister Georgina.
Dickens and Kate had ten children. Their firstborn, a son, was named after himself (including his pseudonymous “Boz”). Afterward, he began to name subsequent offspring for the leading figures of the day, such as Henry Fielding, Alfred D’Orsay and Alfred, Lord Tennyson (whom he combined as Alfred D’Orsay Tennyson). While some of his peers found this practice outlandish and risible, others like the novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton (for whom Dickens named his tenth child), were happy to be honored this way.
Dickens and Kate were married for twenty-three years, but separated in 1858. Contributing to the marriage’s dissolution were—on Dickens’s part—overcommitments, an unmanageable temperament, and infidelity with the actress Ellen Ternan; on Kate’s part, a general lassitude and inability to keep up with her vital and energetic husband.
Indeed, Dickens was a man of enormous vivacity. His “strolls” were legendary (twenty miles at a time), his output of work enormous, his interests and hobbies many. He was a magician, an expert dancer, an amateur actor, a candidate for public office, and a thrilling public speaker. Toward the end of his life (in fact, this is said to have shortened it) he gave public readings of his work. These were tremendously popular; and Dickens himself enjoyed being in the public eye. The books from which he frequently read included Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, and these never failed to produce strong reactions.
From the first, Dickens often worked on several projects at a time. While finishing The Pickwick Papers he began Oliver Twist (1837), and A Christmas Carol (1843) followed on the heels of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44). Magazine editorships and other assignments were undertaken while novels such as Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), and Barnaby Rudge (1841) were serialized and published in book form with annual regularity.
During his entire career, Dickens had only one financial failure—Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44), but this was followed by the phenomenal Christmas Carol. When A Christmas Carol was published, people were suddenly overwhelmed with the heretofore unknown Christmas spirit; Dickens had created an atmosphere so charged with good will and charity that the world at large felt compelled to comply with his vision.
Of all Dickens’s books, A Christmas Carol continues to have the largest hold on the popular imagination. Not since Shakespeare has a story been so reenacted and reinterpreted; it is a moral tale that enjoys perennial success.
Dickens followed A Christmas Carol with Dombey and Son (1846-47), David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1855-56), all of which appeared in serialization. Following the break with his wife were A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-61), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-65). His final book, Edwin Drood (1870), went unfinished.
The same criticism that was leveled at Dickens’s novels—that they were often vulgar—was also applied to him personally. But criticisms regarding the literary merits of his novels did not keep them from achieving unheard-of popularity (and they remain popular today), nor did remarks about his brightly-colored vests keep Dickens from being admired and lionized. Perhaps the key to Dickens’s appeal is that he wrote for everyone: for the masses as well as for the middle class (of whom he had a somewhat acerbic opinion). With keen observation for human character, atmospheric detail, and tremendous sympathy for the downtrodden, Dickens was able to reach everyone.
In his prosperity, Dickens bought Gad’s Hill Place in Chatham simply because his father had once remarked that a house like it could be owned if one worked hard enough. In 1870, he suffered a stroke brought on by an over-strenuous speaking engagement in America, and died there a day later. Mourned deeply, he was laid to rest in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
In the year of Dickens’s death, the artist Robert Williams Buss (who had tried and failed to continue the Pickwick sporting plates after Seymour—the original artist—committed suicide), painted “Dickens’s Dream.” In this painting Dickens sits in his study while his characters swirl about in the air above his head. This fanciful work best describes the creative process of the writer: by the end of his life, Dickens had conjured up hundreds, perhaps thousands of unforgettable characters out of the air (or rather, from his imagination and personal experience), characters who live and prosper in the hearts of readers today just as much as when they were first penned. These remain his permanent legacy.