His clothes were untidy, but he had a commanding short-collar on." (Charles Dickens (1812-1870): (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/)Dora, David's first wife, expires and he marries Agnes. He seeks his vocation as a journalist and later as a novelist. (Charles Dickens (1812-1870): (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/) GREAT EXPECTATIONS in 1860-61 started as a serialized publication in Dickens's periodical All the Year Round on December 1, 1860. The story of Pip or Philip Pirrip was among Tolstoy's and Dostoyevsky's preferred novels. Pip, an urchin, lives with his old sister and her husband. He comes across a runaway convict named Abel Magwitch and assists him against his wish. Magwitch is summoned up and Pip is taken care of Miss Havisham. He falls in love with the merciless Estella, Miss Havisham's ward. With the help of an unknown supporter, Pip is correctly educated, and he becomes a snob. Magwitch turns out to be the supporter; he dies and Pip's great expectations are damaged. He works as a clerk in a trading company, and marries Estella, Magwitch's daughter. (Charles Dickens (1812-1870): (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/)

The novels of Dickens have in it cruelty and enchanted dream; quick, sensible, actual detail and fable, mockery, and melodrama; the ordinary and the strange. They vary through the "comic, tender, dramatic, sentimental, grotesque, melodramatic, horrible, eccentric, mysterious, violent, romantic, and morally earnest." Though Dickens was firm in making money out of writing, he was conscious what his readers wanted and he also understood that novels had a moral purpose to stir natural moral feelings and to cheer good behavior in readers. This moral purpose led the London Times to call Dickens the most admired instructor of the Nineteenth Century in his obituary. At his time, Dickens was the most celebrated writer in Europe and America. During his visit to America to give a lecture, his fans chased him, waited outside his hotel, gazed in windows at him, and stressed him in railway cars. In their eagerness, Dickens's fans behaved in a manner comparable to the fans of a superstar today. (Charles Dickens: cademic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/)

Life Experiences of Charles Dickens:

When Charles Dickens was eight or nine years old, he was mislaid in the city in the crowded financial and commercial center of the great city of London. A pal of the family had taken him to have a glance at the outside of St. Giles's Church. On parting from his friend, he was aghast; but he soon recovered and was firm in setting to search for his fortune. Taking a glance at his own childhood, Dickens saw that he was not a well-cared boy. The boy grew into a young man through the pure productiveness of his innovative intellect and an amazing amount of hard work, changed himself into the most well-known writer of his age. Dickens wrote to his friend and upcoming biographer John Forster in April 1856, of how obvious it was to him, that one is motivated by appealing strength until the voyage is worked out. The cheerful years of Dickens early days was from 1817-1822, which he spent in Chatham, a busy port on England's southeast coast. He was sent to school, and started to read avidly as if for life. Charles Dickens got extremely upset, when his father John Dickens was detained for debit. Dickens was an extraordinarily responsive child, and this dreadful period of disgrace and disregard stained him permanently. Even at the altitude of his reputation, he would forget himself in his dreams, and, as he said he would stroll sadly back to that time of his life. (Charles Dickens: The Life of the Author)

Contributions of Charles Dickens:

Dickens began a weekly magazine titled Household words in 1850, in which he gave the serialized works of Child's History of England in 1851-53, Hard Times in 1854, a Tale of Two Cities in 1859, and Great Expectations in 1860-61. Diagonally, he continued with his novels like David Copperfield in 1849-50, Bleak House in 1852-53, Little Dorrot in 1855-57, and Our Mutual Friend in 1864-65. Dickens became more and more dissatisfied, as his career improved. His works had always replicated the troubles of the common man, but works like Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend uttered his succeeding irritation and disappointment with society. In 1858, Dickens started a chain of paid readings, which became accepted immediately. By these readings, Dickens was able to collect his love of the stage with a correct version of his writings. In all, Dickens presented more than 400 times. The readings regularly made him tired and sick, but they made him to raise his income, get creative happiness, and stay in touch with his fans. (Charles Dickens: (www.incwell.com)

Social Class...

Social class ascertained the way in which a person was dealt with and their entree to education. but, social class did not describe the quality of the person. In Great Expectations, an individual's social class ascertained the quantity of education they had. It is essential to recognize this connection between education and social class to obviously recognize the significance of social class. A person like Joe who was an ordinary blacksmith did not have any education at all. Pip, in the early days when he was low class, had a deprived education at a small school. The school was not the finest of schools, but it's all that the lower class possessed. The teacher used up more time resting than teaching and Pip had learned more from Biddy than from the real teacher. Even though he had an education when he was low class, his education as a gentleman with Mr. Pocket was much superior. Another instance of how social class changes education is the distinction of education between the two criminals. Magwitch, born underprivileged and low class had no education at all while Compeyson, born wealthy was high class and a gentleman with an education. Education is an aspect in showing how social class deeply ascertained individual lives. (Importance of Social Class in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations) Dickens's works are distinguished by assaults on social evils, inequality, and duplicity. (Charles Dickens: The Literature Network)
Charles Dickens on Childhood:

At the age of twelve, Charles Dickens' father got into financial problems and Dickens was taken from the school and sent to work in a boot-blacking factory. This experience at this time smashed his expectations of living a happy, flourishing life and he never forgot the degradation and suffering he felt. When he worked as a newspaper reporter, he became extremely conscious of the torment that innumerable boys and girls experience, desperately working for long hours in mines and factories and he was firm to do everything he could in his novels and writing to recover them. He wished all children must enjoy cheerful desire and to find possibility for their inquisitiveness and thoughts. In this fervor he was induced by writers of the previous generation especially Wordsworth, who imagined childhood as a special state of purity and natural wisdom. (Talking to Charles Dickens's: Dickens's Answers)

Conclusion:

To conclude, Charles Dickens was one of the most admired and great fictional intellects of all time. It is predicted that one out of ten Britons can read his works. He was given a pet name "The Inimitable" and only Shakespeare can compete with his creativity. He was an extremely multifaceted man, a fact seen by many of the main literary figures of his day that were familiar with him. Dickens's intelligence, his passion with work, his enduring love affair with his public, and his deep compassion all helped to make him a literary prodigy. As his works attracted people of all circumstances, and as he could take benefit of new technological developments, he touched, from the publication of the Pickwick Papers on, spectators of unparalleled size an audience, which he was able to pressure expressively to an extent never matched. He was not only a writer, but also a public figure. He was extensively regarded as the best after-dinner speaker, as well as the best part-time actor of his day and was also a mythic figure. When he dies, a little girl cried "Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?" (Dickens's Popularity) He was a popular comic artist and a great performer, but his effect on his public was intense, as he struck a vein of sentiment that went deep in Victorian society. Carlyle, quite gravely, narrated the strange wicked story of a clergyman who had called to console a sick man on his deathbed. When the clergyman left the room thinking that his task has been completed, he heard the sick man say "Well thank God, Pickwick will be out in ten days anyway!" (Dickens's Popularity)

References

Benson, Kenneth. Charles Dickens: The Life of the Author. New York Public Library. Retrieved at http://www.fathom.com/course/21701768/session1.html. Accessed on 1 March 2005

Charles Dickens. May 6, 2002. Retrieved at http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/dickens/. Accessed on 1 March 2005

Charles Dickens (1812-1870). 2003. Retrieved at http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dickens.htm. Accessed on 1 March 2005

Charles Dickens. Retrieved at http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRdickens.htm. Accessed on…