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Jayatee Bhattacharya, Lovely Professional University Unit 24: The Nineteenth Century (Dickens, Hardy, Women Novelists)

Unit 24: The Nineteenth Century Notes

(Dickens, Hardy, Women Novelists)

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
24.1 Charles Dickens
24.1.1 Journalism and Early Novels
24.2 Thomas Hardy
24.2.1 Hardy Novel
24.3 Summary
24.4 Keywords
24.5 Review Questions
24.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
Define charles dickens.
Describe Journalism and early novels.
Explain Thomas Hardy.

Introduction

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the
Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author
during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's
most iconic novels and characters.

24.1 Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens writings were originally published serially, in monthly installments
or parts, a format of publication which Dickens himself helped popularize at that time. Unlike
other authors who completed entire novels before serialization, Dickens often created the episodes
as they were being serialized. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by
cliffhangers to keep the public looking forward to the next installment. The continuing popularity
of his novels and short stories is such that they have never gone out of print.
Dickens' work has been highly praised for its realism, comedy, mastery of prose, unique
personalities and concern for social reform by writers such as Leo Tolstoy, George Gissing and
G.K. Chesterton; though others, such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf, have criticised it for
sentimentality and implausibility.
Charles Dickens was born at Landport, in Portsea, on February 7, 1812, the second of eight children,
to John and Elizabeth Dickens. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay-office and was temporarily
on duty in the neighbourhood. Very soon after the birth of Charles, however, the family moved
for a short period to Norfolk Street, Bloomsbury, and then for a long period to Chatham, in Kent,
which thus became the real childhood home, and for all serious purposes, the native place of
Dickens. His early years seem to have been idyllic, although he thought himself a "very small and
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