"a registered charity. Perhaps the best-known exhibit is the portrait of Dickens known as ""Dickens's Dream"" by R. W. Buss, an original illustrator of ""The Pickwick Papers"". This unfinished portrait shows Dickens in his study at Gads Hill Place surrounded by many of the characters he had created. The painting was begun in 1870 after Dickens's death. Other notable artefacts in the museum include numerous first editions and original manuscripts as well as original letters by Dickens, and many personal items owned by Dickens and his family. The only known item of clothing worn by Dickens still in existence is"
"Augustus Dickens Augustus Newnham Dickens (10 November 1827 – 4 October 1866) was the youngest brother of English novelist Charles Dickens, and the inspiration for Charles's pen name 'Boz'. Augustus Dickens was the son of Elizabeth (""née"" Barrow) and John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth. Charles Dickens's pen name, 'Boz', was actually taken from his youngest brother's family nickname 'Moses', given to him in honour of one of the brothers in ""The Vicar of Wakefield"" (one of the most widely read novels in the early 19th century), which when playfully pronounced through the nose became"
"and yet knew he wanted fame. Drawn to the theatre—he became an early member of the Garrick—he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble were to see him. Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate the comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold. Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer. In 1833, he submitted his first story, ""A Dinner at Poplar Walk"", to the London periodical ""Monthly Magazine"". William Barrow, a brother of his mother, offered him"
"Biggles James Bigglesworth, nicknamed ""Biggles"", is a fictional pilot and adventurer, the title character and hero of the ""Biggles"" series of adventure books, written for young readers by W. E. Johns (1893–1968). Biggles made his first appearance in the story ""The White Fokker"", published in the first issue of ""Popular Flying"" magazine and again as part of the first collection of Biggles stories, ""The Camels Are Coming"" (both 1932). Johns continued to write ""Biggles books"" until his death in 1968, the series eventually spanning nearly a hundred volumes – including novels and short story collections – most of the latter"
"of all classes. One of his most popular works to this day is ""A Christmas Carol"" (1843). In more recent years Dickens has been most admired for his later novels, such as ""Dombey and Son"" (1846–48), ""Great Expectations"" (1860–61), ""Bleak House"" (1852–53) and ""Little Dorrit"" (1855–57) and ""Our Mutual Friend"" (1864–65). An early rival to Dickens was William Makepeace Thackeray, who during the Victorian period ranked second only to him, but he is now much less read and is known almost exclusively for ""Vanity Fair"" (1847). In that novel he satirizes whole swaths of humanity while retaining a light touch."
"brother smuggled a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's ""Kavanagh"" into the house for her (because her father might disapprove) and a friend lent her Charlotte Brontë's ""Jane Eyre"" in late 1849. ""Jane Eyre""s influence cannot be measured, but when Dickinson acquired her first and only dog, a Newfoundland, she named him ""Carlo"" after the character St. John Rivers' dog. William Shakespeare was also a potent influence in her life. Referring to his plays, she wrote to one friend, ""Why clasp any hand but this?"" and to another, ""Why is any other book needed?"" In early 1850, Dickinson wrote that ""Amherst"
"Frederick Dickens Frederick William Dickens (4 July 1820 – 20 October 1868) was the son of John and Elizabeth Dickens and was Charles Dickens's younger brother, who lived with Charles when he moved on to Furnival's Inn in 1834. He was the inspiration for two different Freds in his brother's books: the jovial nephew of Ebenezer Scrooge in ""A Christmas Carol"" and the dissolute brother of Little Nell in ""The Old Curiosity Shop"". While Fred was a child and a youth, Charles Dickens often described him as his favourite brother, showing great concern for his welfare. As a boy, Fred"
"see them pitted against Nazis and common criminals, enjoying lots of sex along the way. Biggles James Bigglesworth, nicknamed ""Biggles"", is a fictional pilot and adventurer, the title character and hero of the ""Biggles"" series of adventure books, written for young readers by W. E. Johns (1893–1968). Biggles made his first appearance in the story ""The White Fokker"", published in the first issue of ""Popular Flying"" magazine and again as part of the first collection of Biggles stories, ""The Camels Are Coming"" (both 1932). Johns continued to write ""Biggles books"" until his death in 1968, the series eventually spanning nearly"
"and Son"" (1846–48), ""Bleak House"" (1852–53) and ""Little Dorrit"" (1855–57), ""Great Expectations"" (1860–1), and ""Our Mutual Friend"" (1864–65). An early rival to Dickens was William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63), who during the Victorian period ranked second only to him, but he is now much less read and is known almost exclusively for ""Vanity Fair"" (1847). The Brontë sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne, were other significant novelists in the 1840s and 1850s. Their novels caused a sensation when they were first published but were subsequently accepted as classics. Charlotte Brontë's (1816–55) work was ""Jane Eyre"", broke new ground in being written from"
"and the plight of the poor and oppressed. His most important works include ""Oliver Twist"" (1837–39), ""Nicholas Nickleby"" (183839)"", A Christmas Carol"" (1843), ""Dombey and Son"" (1846–48), ""David Copperfield"" (184950), ""Bleak House"" (185253), ""Little Dorrit"" (185557), ""A Tale of Two Cities"" (1859), and ""Great Expectations"" (186061). There is a gradual trend in his fiction towards darker themes which mirrors a tendency in much of the writing of the 19th century. William Thackeray was Dickens' great rival in the first half of Queen Victoria's reign. With a similar style but a slightly more detached, acerbic and barbed satirical view of his"
"on,'"" a member of ""a nation that fails to recognize him as one of its citizens."" Jo was a popular character among readers of the novel which no doubt in part led to the production of a stage adaptation entitled ""Bleak House; or Poor 'Jo. A drama in four acts"". A real fourteen-year-old youth named George Ruby who was called to testify at the Guildhall in 1850 is often thought to have been Dickens' inspiration for Jo (who, in the novel, was called to testify before an inquest). While not disagreeing with that assessment, Edwin M. Eigner and Joseph I."
"couple applied for a judicial separation on the grounds of adultery. Anna was granted alimony, which Fred Dickens refused to pay, leaving the country. On his return in 1862, he was arrested and imprisoned for debt. Like his father before him, who had also been imprisoned for debt, Fred had gained credit from various sources by trading on his brother's fame, ""...rasping my very heart,"" Charles Dickens stated. Fred became the inspiration for the dissolute brother of Little Nell, also named Fred, in ""The Old Curiosity Shop"". During the period Charles was writing the novel, Fred Dickens had been obtaining"
"Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majesty's Navy, gentleman, and head of an established firm, to act as godfather to Charles. Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's novel ""Dombey and Son"" (1848). In January 1815, John Dickens was called back to London, and the family moved to Norfolk Street, Fitzrovia. When Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness, and thence to Chatham, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life"
"autumn of 1851, Charles Dickens obtained the lease on Tavistock House from his friend and fellow Shakespeare Society member, the artist Frank Stone. In 1851 Dickens, with his young family, moved into the western section of the by now divided Tavistock House. His first published story, ""A Dinner at Poplar Walk"" (1833) (later re-titled ""Mr. Minns and His Cousin"") is set in Tavistock House. Dickens wrote ""Bleak House"" (1852-3), ""Hard Times"" (1854), ""Little Dorrit"" (1855-7), and ""A Tale of Two Cities"" (1859) at Tavistock House. He also put on amateur theatricals there which are described in John Forster's ""Life of"
"Charles Dickens novels are littered with stock-market speculations, villains, swindlers and fictional speculators. Little Dorrit (1857) The financial house of Mr Merdle; Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) 'Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Company, modeled loosely on the South Sea Bubble,- is in essence a classic Ponzi scheme; Nicholas Nickleby (1839) Ralph Nickleby's great Joint Stock Company, United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company; David Copperfield (1850) the false accounting by the sycophant Uriah Heep, clerk to lawyer Mr Wickfield; South Sea Company The South Sea Company (officially The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain,"
"Piccadilly Jim Piccadilly Jim is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 24 February 1917 by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and in the United Kingdom in May 1918 by Herbert Jenkins, London. The story had previously appeared in the US in the ""Saturday Evening Post"" between 16 September and 11 November 1916. The novel features Ogden Ford and his mother Nesta (both previously encountered in ""The Little Nugget"" (1913). Nesta has remarried, to the hen-pecked, baseball-loving millionaire Mr. Peter Pett, and Ogden remains spoilt and obnoxious. The story takes its title from"
"one short story ""The Lamplighter's Story"". Other contributors included William Harrison Ainsworth, Thomas Moore, Leitch Ritchie and Agnes Strickland. Macrone's widow eventually received 450 pounds from this charitable publication. Mary Weller, Charles Dickens's nurse, recalling her famous charge's occupations as a child, said: ""Little Charles was a terrible boy to read"". ""In the young Charles Dickens's reading we have in some ways the very core of his novels...the young Charles came upon the great picaresque novels of the eighteenth century — ""Roderick Random"", ""Peregrine Pickle"", ""Humphry Clinker"", ""Tom Jones"", ""The Vicar of Wakefield"", their French counterpart ""Gil Blas"", and their"
"where he saw—and was affected by seeing—fettered prisoners. For the character Tiny Tim, Dickens used his nephew Henry, a disabled boy who was five at the time ""A Christmas Carol"" was written. The two figures of Want and Ignorance, sheltering in the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present, were inspired by the children Dickens had seen on his visit to a ragged school in the East End of London. The transformation of Scrooge is central to the story. Davis considers Scrooge to be ""a protean figure always in process of reformation""; Kelly writes that the transformation is reflected in"
"was, in myself, something huge, terrible and at the same time noble. I remember that I sat, for a long time, while the army passed, opening and closing my eyes"". Combined with his later reading of works by Thomas Carlyle, Mark Twain, and possibly Jack London, Anderson had inspiration for ""Marching Men"" that was both experiential and literary. The novel begins with the fourteen-year-old Norman McGregor packaging a loaf of bread for his uncle, the ""village wit"", – who ironically nicknames him ""Beaut"" because of his off-putting appearance – in his mother Nance's Coal Creek bakery (bought with the savings"
"wooden leg, who has an acute interest in the dust heap, Silas Wegg, and another character, Jenny Wren, with ""poor withered legs"". In 1862 Dickens jotted down in his notebook: ""LEADING INCIDENT FOR A STORY. A man—young and eccentric?—feigns to be dead, and is dead to all intents and purposes, and ... for years retains that singular view of life and character"". Additionally, Dickens's longtime friend John Forster was a possible model for the wealthy, pompous John Podsnap. ""Our Mutual Friend"" was published in nineteen monthly numbers, in the fashion of many earlier Dickens novels, for the first time since"
"good character and 'the respect of the neighborhood,' there is not a living to be got out of the broom."" The occupation of crossing sweeper received perhaps its most famous literary treatment in Charles Dickens' novel ""Bleak House"" with the character of Jo, a homeless boy who ""fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum..."" Jo has been characterized as ""one of the most significant figures"" in the novel and as a way for Dickens to address juvenile vagrancy, which was seen as a serious social"
"Augustus Dickens, after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's ""The Vicar of Wakefield"". When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, ""Moses"" became ""Boses""—later shortened to ""Boz"". Dickens's own name was considered ""queer"" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: ""Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations."" He contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career. In January 1835, the ""Morning Chronicle"" launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the ""Chronicle""s music critic, George Hogarth. Hogarth invited Dickens to contribute ""Street Sketches"" and Dickens became"
"the eldest of ten children in South Oxford (now Webster), Massachusetts. He took his pen name from a Native American who had befriended him in early childhood. He was fascinated by the few books about Native Americans his family possessed, which left him with an abiding interest in forest life and adventure. A period of factory labor while still a child left him with a fondness for the writing of Charles Dickens. At age twelve he started working in a commercial fishing fleet based on Cape Cod and at nineteen he signed on for a three-year voyage on a whaler"
"21-year-old adult dwarf actor named Master Gabriel (1882–1929), born Gabriel Weigel. Photos of Master Gabriel in the role show him very convincing as a child. Gabriel appeared in another children's-oriented play in 1908 ""Little Nemo"" and a return engagement as Buster Brown in 1913. It also featured famous animal actor George Ali as Tige. A Buster Brown radio series began in 1943 with Smilin' Ed McConnell on the West Coast NBC Radio Network. It included such characters as Froggy the Gremlin (""Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!"") and Midnight the Cat (""What do you say to the kids, Midnight?"" ""Nice.""). McConnell"
"Adaptations of A Christmas Carol ""A Christmas Carol"", the popular 1843 novella by Charles Dickens (1812–1870), is one of the British author's best-known works. It is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a greedy miser who hates Christmas, but is transformed into a caring, kindly person through the visitations of four ghosts. The classic work has been dramatised and adapted countless times for virtually every medium and performance genre, and new versions appear regularly. The novel was the subject of Dickens' first public reading, given in Birmingham Town Hall to the Industrial and Literary Institute on 27 December 1852. This was"
"corrupted as 'Boses', and later shortened to 'Boz' – pronounced with a long vowel 'o' through the nose. In 1844, Charles Dickens wrote to Chapman & Co., a shipping merchant, trying to obtain a position for Augustus, saying ""I have a young brother recently come up from a good school at Exeter, and now living, with his father, at Greenwich...He is quick and clever: has never given trouble to anybody: and has been well brought up."" In 1845 and 1847, Augustus performed in Charles Dickens's amateur theatricals while continuing to work for Chapman & Co. In 1848, Charles Dickens invited"
"non-narrative pen-portraits, but the last section comprises fictional stories. The sketch ""Mr Minns and his Cousin"" (originally titled ""A Dinner at Poplar Walk""), was the first work of fiction Dickens ever published. It appeared in ""The Monthly Magazine"" in December 1833. Although Dickens continued to place pieces in that magazine, none of them bore a signature until August 1834, when ""The Boarding House"" appeared under the strange pen-name ""Boz"". A verse in ""Bentley's Miscellany"" for March 1837 recalled the public's perplexity about this pseudonym: Dickens took the pseudonym from a nickname he had given his younger brother Augustus, whom he"
"King James III by blowing up the royal palace; Mr. Slighcarp, the Sarah Casket's first mate, is part of the plot together with his sister Letitia, the villainess of ""The Wolves of Willoughby Chase"". Disbelieved by the other adults, Dido and Pen, with the help of Nate, attempt to disable the cannon, whose recoil would send the island of Nantucket crashing into New York City. Nightbirds on Nantucket Nightbirds on Nantucket is a children's novel by Joan Aiken, first published in 1966. Taking place in an alternate history, the story presents the further adventures of Dido Twite, an eleven-year-old Victorian"
"a real Yorkshire schoolmaster named William Shaw became the basis for Dickens's brutal character of Wackford Squeers. Dickens visited Shaw's school in Bowes and based the school section of ""Nicholas Nickleby"" on his visit. Like most of Dickens's early works, the novel had a contemporary setting. Much of the action takes place in London, with several chapters taking place in Dickens's birthplace of Portsmouth, as well as settings in Yorkshire and Devon. The tone of the work is that of ironic social satire, with Dickens taking aim at what he perceives to be social injustices. Many memorable characters are introduced,"
"and thousands of titles were sold. The novels relied on a series of predictable literary formulas appealing to mass tastes and were often written in as little as a few days. The most successful of all dime novels was Edward S. Ellis' ""Seth Jones"" (1860). Ned Buntline's stories glamorized Buffalo Bill Cody and Edward L. Wheeler created ""Deadwood Dick"", ""Hurricane Nell"", and ""Calamity Jane"". Buffalo Bill Cody was the most effective popularizer of the Old West in the U.S. and Europe. He presented the first ""Wild West"" show in 1883, featuring a recreation of famous battles (especially Custer's Last Stand),"
"Ebenezer Scrooge Ebenezer Scrooge () is the protagonist of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella, ""A Christmas Carol"". At the beginning of the novella, Scrooge is a cold-hearted miser who despises Christmas. Dickens describes him thus: ""The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice."" His last name has come into the English language as a byword for miserliness and misanthropy. The tale of his redemption by the three Ghosts of Christmas (Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost"
"their eight children, was born in 1812. As a young boy he was taught to read by his mother, and later also a little Latin, awakening, as Charles later told his friend and biographer John Forster ""his first desire for knowledge and his earliest passion for reading"". According to Mary Weller, the Dickenses' servant when they were living in Chatham, Elizabeth Dickens was ""a dear, good mother and a fine woman"". By 1812 her husband had fallen heavily into debt and Elizabeth, like Mrs Micawber in ""David Copperfield"", tried to help his financial situation by setting up a school called"
"into the fire on that first of January 1853. The Long Voyage ""The Long Voyage"" is a New Year's Eve short story by Charles Dickens. It was originally published in the 31 December 1853 issue of ""Household Words"" magazine. The story concerns a man alone on New Year's Eve, who loves to ""sit by the fire, thinking of what I have read in books of voyage and travel"" while he himself has never been ""around the world, never has been shipwrecked, ice-environed, tomahawked, or eaten."" Some of the books he has read concern Christopher Columbus, James Bruce who searched for"