HE BROKE every literary rule and freely indulged in sentimentality, sensationalism, melodrama, coincidence and brazen polemic.
As for multiple clauses, well, he has few equals. But if world literature can claim an undisputed king, it must be that showman extraordinaire, Charles Dickens, who was born 200 years today. Not one writer, with the possible exception of Shakespeare, the supreme lyric artist, has a wider appeal. Dickens remains the consummate storyteller, capable of manipulating an audience cheerfully aware of being manipulated and loving every second of it.
Somehow this obsessive, mercurial and frenetic maverick who wrote at speed not only because of the demands of serial weekly and monthly instalments, but to pay his bills, produced enduring masterpieces that continue to summon readers – most of whom invariably become life re-readers of his work.
His plots are labyrinthine; his characters, comic, grotesque and human in their failings, are unforgettable, and the dialogue is brilliant. Dickens is all things to most men. That he can stand equal to and, indeed, hold off the challenge of the geniuses that created the 19th-century Russian novel – Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Gogol – confirms his singularity. No less than Tolstoy conceded that Dickens was the greatest.
No doubt Dickens would have agreed, humility not being among his many qualities. He lived hard and wrote as if possessed, and he was; possessed by a hunger to write, record, note, explore, to enlighten – and always to entertain. Dickens loved applause. He was a performer and also a social commentator, a passion possibly nurtured by his time as a court reporter.
Above all, when telling stories he was dramatising his own experiences. David Copperfield(1846-1850) was his personal favourite, not least perhaps because it was strongly autobiographical, and Dickens would remain drawn to the theme of a boy learning to overcome early hardship. It runs through his fiction and dominates Great Expectations, which he wrote in 1860-1861; he was by then an international celebrity. Fame came early: by the time he was 30 he was the most famous writer in the world, and this was long before the era of atmospheric television adaptations, such as Bleak Houseand more recently Great Expectations.
There are many reasons to love Dickens, warts and all. He was a bit of a snob and was clearly, as one of his daughters pointed out, not a gentleman. His paternal grandparents had both been in service and Dickens’s father, John, a lazy charmer, was given a lucky break and, through the political connections of his mother’s employer, was offered a clerical job in the Navy Pay Office, a secure enough post as England appeared set to be at war with France for a very long time.
John Dickens, the model for his son’s most famous creation, Mr Micawber, always lived beyond his means, enjoyed good clothes and also, vital to the young Dickens, he loved books – and bought them.
As a boy, Dickens was quite sickly and physically incapable of rigorous sport, but he loved playing and enjoyed games and parlour tricks – a love he kept throughout his life. He was clever and quickly became obsessed with reading. His early childhood was spent in Kent and as a small child he noticed Gad’s Hill House. It created a lasting impression. His father told him that if he worked very hard he might one day own it.
The family fortunes were to ebb and flow and wane for a while before the situation became so bad that John Dickens ended up in debtors’ prison. This was distressing, but nothing would ease the resentment felt by the 12-year-old Charles Dickens who was sent, with the approval of both of his parents, to work in a blacking warehouse, where his speed in pasting labels on to the pots resulted in his being positioned in a window to attract passers-by. This humiliation lasted a year and Dickens never forgot it.
At 13 he was able to resume his education. His resentment was further compounded by the very different circumstances enjoyed by his sister Fanny. Two years older than him, she was a talented pianist and their parents supported her talent and she went to study at the Royal Academy of Music. It was very unusual at a time when sons were educated and girls pinned their hopes on the marriage market.
Charles Dickens never forgave his father for a number of slights, but he wept openly when Dickens senior died.
When he was 15, his briefly resumed schooling ended for good and he accepted a job as a clerk with a legal firm. His adult life had begun and, within his limited means, he asserted his individuality as a dandy and soon became popular with his workmates as he was a good mimic. All the while he was learning the geography of London, an element which was to prove invaluable to his fiction, which, aside from the roller- coaster narratives, immortalised the Victorian city.
Dickens quite liked the idea of becoming a barrister, and no doubt the theatricality of the courts appealed to him. Lawyers feature in most of his novel and are usually nasty, such as Tulkinghorn in Bleak House;although the sinister Mr Jaggers in Great Expectationsis not completely bad, while Traddles in David Copperfieldis a decent fellow. Instead Dickens became a reporter, at the courts, but also at the House of Commons. Dickens the journalist was also busy writing; noting both the routine and the absurd in daily life. Sketches by Bozappeared in two volumes on February 8th, 1836, the day after his 24th birthday.
He was off on a literary career the like of which had never been seen before – or since. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Clubwas published the following year, followed by Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Dombey and Son, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Droodunfinished at the time of his death, exhausted at 58, at Gad's Hill House, the childhood dream he did succeed in buying. His life was the stuff of fiction and has kept biographers, from the first, his great friend John Forster, to most recently Claire Tomalin, busy.
He was no saint; he was suspicious, devious and cruel to his wife, but only the most human of men could have written his books. He wanted to be buried in Kent, but his wishes were ignored and instead he lies in Poet’s Corner, beside Handel, in Westminster Abbey.
Is Dickens the greatest? Who knows? He was certainly unique.