Charles Dickens: A Popularity COntest
... 1823, when his father, John, a former navy clerk, was arrested on February 2nd for debt problems and was incarcerated in Marshalesa Debtors Prison. Charles, eleven at the time, was put to work in the horrible conditions of Warrens Blacking Factory. While at Warren’s, Dickens met the boy whom he would bases his ever clever character, Oliver Twist, on. Now twenty-four, Dickens started his weekly publication of Pickwick Papers, which quickly made him popular in the crowd of Londoners. At this time he also starts the novel " Oliver Twist." In 1841 Dickens became the author and editor of the weekly periodical Master Humphrey's Clock, which included Barnaby's Rudge, and The Old Curiosity Shop. Finally in 1842 Charles Dickens takes a six-month tour of American in which he does many public reading one such was presented in Boston. One of the American authors at the time, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was also present at this public reading. He is quoted as saying: "Dickens possesses too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound and he can never be free from it nor set to rest...He daunts me!" In 1856, Dickens purchased the residence that he had always dreamed of owning, Gad's Hill Place, in Kent. The purchase of Gad's Hill influenced him to write the ever popular, A Tale of Two Cities. The stress of Dickens' public readings caused him t...