Coordinates	52°24′″N16°55′″N
name	Charles Dickens
birth name	Charles John Huffam Dickens
birth date	February 07, 1812
birth place	Landport, Portsmouth, England
death date	June 09, 1870
death place	Gad's Hill Place, Higham, Kent, England
death cause	Stroke
resting place	Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey
resting place coordinates
nationality	British
citizenship	UK
other names	Boz
notableworks	''Sketches by Boz'', ''The Old Curiosity Shop'', ''Oliver Twist'', ''Nicholas Nickleby'', ''Barnaby Rudge'', ''A Christmas Carol'', ''Martin Chuzzlewit'', ''A Tale of Two Cities'', ''David Copperfield'', ''Great Expectations'', ''Bleak House'', ''Little Dorrit'', ''Hard Times'', ''Our Mutual Friend'', ''The Pickwick Papers''
occupation	Writer
years active	1833–1870
spouse	Catherine Thomson Hogarth
children	Charles Dickens, Jr., Mary Dickens, Kate Perugini, Walter Landor Dickens, Francis Dickens, Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens, Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens, Henry Fielding Dickens, Dora Annie Dickens, and Edward Dickens
parents	John DickensElizabeth Dickens
influences	William Shakespeare, The New Testament, Tobias Smollett, Henry Fielding, Miguel de Cervantes, William Wordsworth
influenced	William Makepeace Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Longfellow, Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Gissing, G.K.Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw, Franz Kafka, T.S.Eliot, James Joyce, Diana Gabaldon
signature	Charles Dickens Signature.svg
footnotes	}}

Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) 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.

Many of his writings were originally published serially, in monthly instalments, a format of publication which Dickens himself helped popularise. Unlike other authors who completed novels before serialisation, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialised. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by cliffhangers to keep the public looking forward to the next instalment. The continuing popularity of his novels and short stories is such that they have never gone out of print.

Dickens's 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.

Life

Early years

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 not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy". Charles spent time outdoors, but also read voraciously, especially the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. He spoke, later in life, of his poignant memories of childhood, and of his near-photographic memory of the people and events, which he used in his writing. His father's brief period as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office afforded him a few years of private education at William Giles's School, in Chatham.

This period came to an abrupt end when the Dickens family, because of financial difficulties, moved from Kent to Camden Town, in London in 1822. John Dickens continually lived beyond his means and was eventually imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtor's prison in Southwark, London in 1824. Shortly afterwards, the rest of his family joined him – except 12-year-old Charles, who was boarded with family friend Elizabeth Roylance in Camden Town. Mrs. Roylance was "a reduced [impoverished] old lady, long known to our family", whom Dickens later immortalised, "with a few alterations and embellishments", as "Mrs. Pipchin", in ''Dombey and Son''. Later, he lived in a "back-attic...at the house of an insolvent-court agent...in Lant Street in The Borough...he was a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman, with a quiet old wife"; and he had a very innocent grown-up son; these three were the inspiration for the Garland family in ''The Old Curiosity Shop''.

On Sundays, Dickens and his sister Frances ("Fanny") were allowed out from the Royal Academy of Music and spent the day at the Marshalsea. (Dickens later used the prison as a setting in ''Little Dorrit''). To pay for his board and to help his family, Dickens was forced to leave school and began working ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station. He earned six shillings a week pasting labels on blacking. The strenuous – and often cruel – work conditions made a deep impression on Dickens, and later influenced his fiction and essays, forming the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigors of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor. He would later write that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age." As told to John Forster (from ''The Life of Charles Dickens''):

After only a few months in Marshalsea, John Dickens's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him the sum of £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens was granted release from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left Marshalsea for the home of Mrs. Roylance.

Although Charles eventually attended the Wellington House Academy in North London, his mother Elizabeth Dickens did not immediately remove him from the boot-blacking factory. The incident may have done much to confirm Dickens's view that a father should rule the family, a mother find her proper sphere inside the home. "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back." His mother's failure to request his return was no doubt a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women.'

Righteous anger stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel, ''David Copperfield'': "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!" The Wellington House Academy was not a good school. 'Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr. Creakle's Establishment in ''David Copperfield''.' Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828. Then, having learned Gurneys system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons, and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years. This education informed works such as ''Nicholas Nickleby'', ''Dombey and Son'', and especially ''Bleak House''—whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much to enlighten the general public, and was a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to "go to law".

In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in ''David Copperfield''. Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and effectively ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris.

Journalism and early novels

In 1833 Dickens's first story, ''A Dinner at Poplar Walk'' was published in the London periodical, ''Monthly Magazine''. The following year he rented rooms at Furnival's Inn becoming a political journalist, reporting on parliamentary debate and travelling across Britain to cover election campaigns for the ''Morning Chronicle''. His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces ''Sketches by Boz'', published in 1836. This led to the serialisation of his first novel, ''The Pickwick Papers'', in March 1836. He continued to contribute to and edit journals throughout his literary career.

In 1836 Dickens accepted the job of editor of ''Bentley's Miscellany'', a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner. At the same time, his success as a novelist continued, producing ''Oliver Twist'' (1837–39), ''Nicholas Nickleby'' (1838–39), ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' and, finally, ''Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty'' as part of the ''Master Humphrey's Clock'' series (1840–41)—all published in monthly instalments before being made into books. During this period Dickens kept a pet raven named Grip, which he had stuffed when it died in 1841. (It is now at the Free Library of Philadelphia).

On 2 April 1836, he married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1816–1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the ''Evening Chronicle''. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk, Kent, they set up home in Bloomsbury. They had ten children:

Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (C. C. B. Dickens), later known as Charles Dickens, Jr.

Mary Dickens

Kate Macready Dickens

Walter Landor Dickens

Francis Jeffrey Dickens

Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens

Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens

Sir Henry Fielding Dickens

Dora Annie Dickens

Edward Dickens

Dickens and his family lived at 48 Doughty Street, London, (on which he had a three year lease at £80 a year) from 25 March 1837 until December 1839. Dickens's younger brother Frederick and Catherine's 17-year-old sister Mary moved in with them. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837. She became a character in many of his books, and her death is fictionalised as the death of Nell in ''The Old Curiosity Shop''.

First visit to America

During his visit, Dickens spent a month in New York City, giving lectures, raising support for copyright laws, and recording many of his impressions of America. He met such luminaries as Washington Irving and William Cullen Bryant. On 14 February 1842, a Boz Ball was held in his honour at the Park Theater, with 3,000 guests. Among the neighbourhoods he visited were Five Points, Wall Street, The Bowery, and the prison known as The Tombs. At this time Georgina Hogarth, another sister of Catherine, joined the Dickens household, now living at Devonshire Terrace, Marylebone, to care for the young family they had left behind. She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser and friend until Dickens's death in 1870.

Shortly thereafter, he began to show interest in Unitarian Christianity, although he remained an Anglican for the rest of his life. Soon after his return to England, Dickens began work on the first of his two or three famous Yuletide tales ''A Christmas Carol'' written in 1843, which was followed by The Chimes in 1844 and The Cricket on the Hearth in 1845. Of these "A Christmas Carol" was most popular and it did much to rekindle the joy of Christmas in Britain and America when the traditional celebration of Christmas was in decline. The seeds for the story were planted in Dickens's mind during a trip to Manchester to witness conditions of the manufacturing workers there. This, along with scenes he had recently witnessed at the Field Lane Ragged School, caused Dickens to resolve to "strike a sledge hammer blow" for the poor. As the idea for the story took shape and the writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. He wrote that as the tale unfolded he "wept and laughed, and wept again' as he 'walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed." After living briefly abroad in Italy (1844) Dickens travelled to Switzerland (1846), it was here he began work on ''Dombey and Son'' (1846–48). This and ''David Copperfield'' (1849–50) marks a significant artistic break in Dickens's career as his novels became more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early works.

Philanthropy

In May 1846 Angela Burdett Coutts, heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens about setting up a home for the redemption of "fallen" women. Coutts envisioned a home that would differ from existing institutions, which offered harsh and punishing regimes for these women, and instead provide an environment where they could learn to read and write and become proficient in domestic household chores so as to re-integrate them into society. After initially resisting, Dickens eventually founded the home, named "Urania Cottage", in the Lime Grove section of Shepherds Bush. He became involved in many aspects of its day-to-day running, setting the house rules, reviewing the accounts and interviewing prospective residents, some of whom became characters in his books. He would scour prisons and workhouses for potentially suitable candidates and relied on friends, such as the Magistrate John Hardwick, to bring them to his attention. Each potential candidate was given a printed invitation written by Dickens called ‘An Appeal to Fallen Women’, which he signed only as ‘Your friend’. If the woman accepted the invitation, Dickens would personally interview her for admission. All of the women were required to emigrate following their time at Urania Cottage. In research published in 2009, the families of two of these women were identified, one in Canada and one in Australia. It is estimated that about 100 women graduated between 1847 and 1859.

Middle years

left|thumb|Photograph of the author, c. 1850thumb|right|200px|Dickens painted by Ary Scheffer, 1855. Dickens wrote to John Forster of the experience: "I can scarcely express how uneasy and unsettled it makes me to sit, sit, sit, with ''Little Dorrit'' on my mind." In late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House where he would write ''Bleak House'' (1852–53), ''Hard Times'' (1854) and ''Little Dorrit'' (1857). It was here he indulged in the amateur theatricals which are described in Forster's "Life". In 1856, the income he was earning from his writing allowed him to buy Gad's Hill Place in Higham, Kent. As a child, Dickens had walked past the house and dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of Shakespeare's ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and this literary connection pleased him.

In 1857, Dickens hired professional actresses for the play ''The Frozen Deep'', which he and his protégé Wilkie Collins had written. Dickens formed a bond with one of the actresses, Ellen Ternan, which was to last the rest of his life. He then separated from his wife, Catherine, in 1858 – divorce was still unthinkable for someone as famous as he was.

During this period, whilst pondering about giving public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approached by Great Ormond Street Hospital to help it survive its first major financial crisis through a charitable appeal. Dickens, whose philanthropy was well-known, was asked to preside by his friend, the hospital's founder Charles West and he threw himself into the task, heart and soul (a little known fact is that Dickens reported anonymously in the weekly ''The Examiner'' in 1849 to help mishandled children and wrote another article to help publicise the hospital's opening in 1852). On 9 February 1858, Dickens spoke at the hospital's first annual festival dinner at Freemasons' Hall and later gave a public reading of ''A Christmas Carol'' at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church hall. The events raised enough money to enable the hospital to purchase the neighbouring house, No. 48 Great Ormond Street, increasing the bed capacity from 20 to 75.

After separating from his wife in the summer of 1858 Dickens undertook his first series of public readings in London, which ended on 22 July. After 10 days rest, he began a gruelling and ambitious tour through the English provinces, Scotland and Ireland, beginning with a performance in Clifton on 2 August and closing in Brighton, more than three months later, on 13 November. Altogether he read eighty-seven times, on some days giving both a matinée and an evening performance. Major works, ''A Tale of Two Cities'' (1859); and ''Great Expectations'' (1861) soon followed and would prove resounding successes. During this time he was also the publisher and editor of, and a major contributor to, the journals ''Household Words'' (1850–1859) and ''All the Year Round'' (1858–1870).

In early September 1860, in a field behind Gad's Hill, Dickens made a great bonfire of almost his entire correspondence - only those letters on business matters were spared. Since Ellen Ternan also burned all of his letters to her, the extent of the affair between the two was unknown until the publication in 1939 of ''Dickens and Daughter'', a book about Dickens's relationship with his daughter Kate. Kate Dickens worked with author Gladys Storey on the book prior to her death in 1929, and alleged that Dickens and Ternan had a son who died in infancy, although no contemporary evidence exists. On his death, Dickens settled an annuity on Ternan which made her a financially independent woman. Claire Tomalin's book, ''The Invisible Woman'', set out to prove that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life. The book was subsequently turned into a play, ''Little Nell'', by Simon Gray.

In the same period, Dickens furthered his interest in the paranormal becoming one of the early members of The Ghost Club.

Franklin incident

A recurring theme in Dickens's writing reflected the public's interest in Arctic exploration. The heroic friendship between explorers John Franklin and John Richardson gave Dicken's the idea for ''A Tale of Two Cities'', ''The Wreck of the Golden Mary'' and the play ''The Frozen Deep''. After Franklin died in unexplained circumstances on an expedition to find the North West Passage, Dickens wrote a piece in ''Household Words'' defending his hero against the claim made in 1854 that recently discovered evidence showed that Franklin's men had, in their desperation, resorted to cannibalism. Without adducing any supporting evidence he speculated that, far from resorting to cannibalism amongst themselves, the members of the expedition may have been "set upon and slain by the Esquimaux ... We believe every savage to be in his heart covetous, treacherous, and cruel." Although publishing a defence of the Esquimaux, written by John Rae, a member of one of Franklin's rescue parties who had actually visited the scene of the supposed cannibalism, in a subsequent issue of ''Household Words'', Dickens refused to alter his view.

Last years

On 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash. The first seven carriages of the train plunged off a cast iron bridge under repair. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Dickens tried to help the wounded and the dying before rescuers arrived. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for ''Our Mutual Friend'', and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it. Typically, Dickens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story ''The Signal-Man'' in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He based the story around several previous rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash of 1861.

Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the inquest, to avoid disclosing that he had been travelling with Ternan and her mother, which would have caused a scandal. Although physically unharmed, Dickens never really recovered from the trauma of the Staplehurst crash, and his normally prolific writing shrank to completing ''Our Mutual Friend'' and starting the unfinished ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood''. Much of his time was taken up with public readings from his best-loved novels. Dickens was fascinated by the theatre as an escape from the world, and theatres and theatrical people appear in ''Nicholas Nickleby''. The travelling shows were extremely popular. In 1866, a series of public readings were undertaken in England and Scotland. The following year saw more readings in England and Ireland.

Second visit to America

On 9 November 1867, Dickens sailed from Liverpool for his second American reading tour. Landing at Boston, he devoted the rest of the month to a round of dinners with such notables as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his American publisher James Thomas Fields. In early December, the readings began and Dickens spent the month shuttling between Boston and New York. Although he had started to suffer from what he called the "true American catarrh", he kept to a schedule that would have challenged a much younger man, even managing to squeeze in some sleighing in Central Park. In New York, he gave twenty-two readings at Steinway Hall between 9 December 1867 and 18 April 1868, and four at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims between 16 and 21 January 1868. During his travels, he saw a significant change in the people and the circumstances of America. His final appearance was at a banquet the American Press held in his honour at Delmonico's on 18 April, when he promised never to denounce America again. By the end of the tour, the author could hardly manage solid food, subsisting on champagne and eggs beaten in sherry. On 23 April, he boarded his ship to return to Britain, barely escaping a Federal Tax Lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour.

Farewell readings

Between 1868 and 1869, Dickens gave a series of "farewell readings" in England, Scotland, and Ireland, until he collapsed on 22 April 1869, at Preston in Lancashire showing symptoms of a mild stroke. After further provincial readings were cancelled, he began work on his final novel, ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood''. In an opium den in Shadwell, he witnessed an elderly pusher known as "Opium Sal", who subsequently featured in his mystery novel. When he had regained sufficient strength, Dickens arranged, with medical approval, for a final series of readings at least partially to make up to his sponsors what they had lost due of his illness. There were to be twelve performances, running between 11 January and 15 March 1870, the last taking place at 8:00 pm at St. James's Hall in London. Although in grave health by this time, he read ''A Christmas Carol'' and ''The Trial from Pickwick''. On 2 May, he made his last public appearance at a Royal Academy Banquet in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, paying a special tribute to the passing of his friend, illustrator Daniel Maclise.

Death

On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home, after a full day's work on ''Edwin Drood''. The next day, on 9 June, and five years to the day after the Staplehurst rail crash 9 June 1865, he died at Gad's Hill Place, never having regained consciousness. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." Dickens's last words, as reported in his obituary in The Times were alleged to have been:

On Sunday, 19 June 1870, five days after Dickens's interment in the Abbey, Dean Arthur Penrhyn Stanley delivered a memorial elegy, lauding "the genial and loving humorist whom we now mourn", for showing by his own example "that even in dealing with the darkest scenes and the most degraded characters, genius could still be clean, and mirth could be innocent." Pointing to the fresh flowers that adorned the novelist's grave, Stanley assured those present that "the spot would thenceforth be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue."

Dickens's will stipulated that no memorial be erected to honour him. The only life-size bronze statue of Dickens, cast in 1891 by Francis Edwin Elwell, is located in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. The couch on which he died is preserved at the Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth.

Literary style

Dickens loved the style of the 18th century picturesque or Gothic romance novels, although it had already become a target for parody. One "character" vividly drawn throughout his novels is London itself. From the coaching inns on the outskirts of the city to the lower reaches of the Thames, all aspects of the capital are described over the course of his body of work.

His writing style is florid and poetic, with a strong comic touch. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery—he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator"—are often popular. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats, or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy. Many of his characters' names provide the reader with a hint as to the roles played in advancing the storyline, such as Mr. Murdstone in the novel David Copperfield, which is clearly a combination of "murder" and stony coldness. His literary style is also a mixture of fantasy and realism.

Characters

Dickens is famed for his depiction of the hardships of the working class, his intricate plots, and his sense of humour. But he is perhaps most famed for the characters he created. His novels were heralded early in his career for their ability to capture the everyday man and thus create characters to whom readers could relate. Beginning with ''The Pickwick Papers'' in 1836, Dickens wrote numerous novels, each uniquely filled with believable personalities and vivid physical descriptions. Dickens's friend and biographer, John Forster, said that Dickens made "characters real existences, not by describing them but by letting them describe themselves."

Dickensian characters—especially their typically whimsical names—are among the most memorable in English literature. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit, Oliver Twist, The Artful Dodger, Fagin, Bill Sikes, Pip, Miss Havisham, Charles Darnay, David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Daniel Quilp, Samuel Pickwick, Wackford Squeers, Uriah Heep and many others are so well known and can be believed to be living a life outside the novels that their stories have been continued by other authors.

The author worked closely with his illustrators supplying them with a summary of the work at the outset and thus ensuring that his characters and settings were exactly how he envisioned them. He would brief the illustrator on plans for each month's instalment so that work could begin before he wrote them. Marcus Stone, illustrator of ''Our Mutual Friend'', recalled that the author was always "ready to describe down to the minutest details the personal characteristics, and ... life-history of the creations of his fancy." This close working relationship is important to readers of Dickens today. The illustrations give us a glimpse of the characters as Dickens described them. Film makers still use the illustrations as a basis for characterisation, costume, and set design.

Often these characters were based on people he knew. In a few instances Dickens based the character too closely on the original, as in the case of Harold Skimpole in ''Bleak House'', based on James Henry Leigh Hunt, and Miss Mowcher in ''David Copperfield'', based on his wife's dwarf chiropodist. Indeed, the acquaintances made when reading a Dickens novel are not easily forgotten. The author Virginia Woolf maintained that "we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens" as he produces "characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks."

Autobiographical elements

All authors might be said to incorporate autobiographical elements in their fiction, but with Dickens this is very noticeable, even though he took pains to mask what he considered his shameful, lowly past. ''David Copperfield'' is one of the most clearly autobiographical but the scenes from ''Bleak House'' of interminable court cases and legal arguments are drawn from the author's brief career as a court reporter. Dickens's own father was sent to prison for debt, and this became a common theme in many of his books, with the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in ''Little Dorrit'' resulting from Dickens's own experiences of the institution. Childhood sweethearts in many of his books (such as Little Em'ly in ''David Copperfield'') may have been based on Dickens's own childhood infatuation with Lucy Stroughill. Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he gathered his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated.

Episodic writing

As noted above, most of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as ''Master Humphrey's Clock'' and ''Household Words'', later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories cheap, accessible and the series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. American fans even waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, "Is little Nell dead?" Part of Dickens's great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end. The monthly numbers were illustrated by, amongst others, "Phiz" (a pseudonym for Hablot Browne). Among his best-known works are ''Great Expectations'', ''David Copperfield'', ''Oliver Twist'', ''A Tale of Two Cities'', ''Bleak House'', ''Nicholas Nickleby'', ''The Pickwick Papers'', and ''A Christmas Carol''.

Dickens's technique of writing in monthly or weekly instalments (depending on the work) can be understood by analysing his relationship with his illustrators. The several artists who filled this role were privy to the contents and intentions of Dickens's instalments before the general public. Thus, by reading these correspondences between author and illustrator, the intentions behind Dickens's work can be better understood. These also reveal how the interests of the reader and author do not coincide. A great example of that appears in the monthly novel ''Oliver Twist''. At one point in this work, Dickens had Oliver become embroiled in a robbery. That particular monthly instalment concludes with young Oliver being shot. Readers expected that they would be forced to wait only a month to find out the outcome of that gunshot. In fact, Dickens did not reveal what became of young Oliver in the succeeding number. Rather, the reading public was forced to wait ''two'' months to discover if the boy lived.

Another important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style resulted from his exposure to the opinions of his readers. Since Dickens did not write the chapters very far ahead of their publication, he was allowed to witness the public reaction and alter the story depending on those public reactions. A fine example of this process can be seen in his weekly serial ''The Old Curiosity Shop'', which is a chase story. In this novel, Nell and her grandfather are fleeing the villain Quilp. The progress of the novel follows the gradual success of that pursuit. As Dickens wrote and published the weekly instalments, his friend John Forster pointed out: "You know you're going to have to kill her, don't you?" Why this end was necessary can be explained by a brief analysis of the difference between the structure of a comedy versus a tragedy. In a comedy, the action covers a sequence "You think they're going to lose, you think they're going to lose, they win". In tragedy, it is: "You think they're going to win, you think they're going to win, they lose". The dramatic conclusion of the story is implicit throughout the novel. So, as Dickens wrote the novel in the form of a tragedy, the sad outcome of the novel was a foregone conclusion. If he had not caused his heroine to lose, he would not have completed his dramatic structure. Dickens admitted that his friend Forster was right and, in the end, Nell died.

Social commentary

Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. Dickens's second novel, ''Oliver Twist'' (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime and was responsible for the clearing of the actual London slum, Jacob's Island, that was the basis of the story. In addition, with the character of the tragic prostitute, Nancy, Dickens "humanised" such women for the reading public; women who were regarded as "unfortunates", inherently immoral casualties of the Victorian class/economic system. ''Bleak House'' and ''Little Dorrit'' elaborated expansive critiques of the Victorian institutional apparatus: the interminable lawsuits of the Court of Chancery that destroyed people's lives in ''Bleak House'' and a dual attack in ''Little Dorrit'' on inefficient, corrupt patent offices and unregulated market speculation.

Literary techniques

Dickens is often described as using 'idealised' characters and highly sentimental scenes to contrast with his caricatures and the ugly social truths he reveals. The story of Nell Trent in ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' (1841) was received as incredibly moving by contemporary readers but viewed as ludicrously sentimental by Oscar Wilde. "You would need to have a heart of stone", he declared in one of his famous witticisms, "not to laugh at the death of little Nell." (although her death actually takes place off-stage). In 1903 G. K. Chesterton said, "It is not the death of little Nell, but the life of little Nell, that I object to."

In ''Oliver Twist'' Dickens provides readers with an idealised portrait of a boy so inherently and unrealistically 'good' that his values are never subverted by either brutal orphanages or coerced involvement in a gang of young pickpockets. While later novels also centre on idealised characters (Esther Summerson in ''Bleak House'' and Amy Dorrit in ''Little Dorrit''), this idealism serves only to highlight Dickens's goal of poignant social commentary. Many of his novels are concerned with social realism, focusing on mechanisms of social control that direct people's lives (for instance, factory networks in ''Hard Times'' and hypocritical exclusionary class codes in ''Our Mutual Friend'').Dickens also employs incredible coincidences (e.g., Oliver Twist turns out to be the lost nephew of the upper class family that randomly rescues him from the dangers of the pickpocket group). Such coincidences are a staple of eighteenth century picaresque novels such as Henry Fielding's ''Tom Jones'' that Dickens enjoyed so much. But, to Dickens, these were not just plot devices but an index of the humanism that led him to believe that good wins out in the end and often in unexpected ways.

Legacy

A well-known personality, his novels proved immensely popular during his lifetime. His first full novel, ''The Pickwick Papers'' (1837), brought him immediate fame, and this success continued throughout his career. Although rarely departing greatly from his typical "Dickensian" method of always attempting to write a great "story" in a somewhat conventional manner (the dual narrators of ''Bleak House'' constitute a notable exception), he experimented with varied themes, characterisations, and genres. Some of these experiments achieved more popularity than others, and the public's taste and appreciation of his many works have varied over time. Usually keen to give his readers what they wanted, the monthly or weekly publication of his works in episodes meant that the books could change as the story proceeded at the whim of the public. Good examples of this are the American episodes in ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' which Dickens included in response to lower-than-normal sales of the earlier chapters. Dickens continues to be one of the best known and most read of English authors, and his works have never gone out of print. At least 180 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on Dickens's works help confirm his success. Many of his works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime and as early as 1913 a silent film of ''The Pickwick Papers'' was made. His characters were often so memorable that they took on a life of their own outside his books. Gamp became a slang expression for an umbrella from the character Mrs. Gamp and Pickwickian, Pecksniffian, and Gradgrind all entered dictionaries due to Dickens's original portraits of such characters who were quixotic, hypocritical, or emotionlessly logical. Sam Weller, the carefree and irreverent valet of ''The Pickwick Papers'', was an early superstar, perhaps better known than his author at first. It is likely that ''A Christmas Carol'' stands as his best-known story, with new adaptations almost every year. It is also the most-filmed of Dickens's stories, with many versions dating from the early years of cinema. This simple morality tale with both pathos and its theme of redemption, sums up (for many) the true meaning of Christmas. Indeed, it eclipses all other Yuletide stories in not only popularity, but in adding archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) to the Western cultural consciousness. A prominent phrase from the tale, '''Merry Christmas''', was popularised following the appearance of the story. The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, with '''Bah! Humbug!''' dismissive of the festive spirit. Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray called the book "a national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads it a personal kindness". Some historians claim the book significantly redefined the "spirit" and importance of Christmas, and initiated a rebirth of seasonal merriment after Puritan authorities in 17th century England and America suppressed pagan rituals associated with the holiday. According to the historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of the observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by ''A Christmas Carol''. Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centred festival of generosity, in contrast to the community-based and church-centred observations, the observance of which had dwindled during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Superimposing his secular vision of the holiday, Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today among Western nations, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit. ''A Christmas Carol'' rejuvenated his career as a renowned author. ''A Tale of Two Cities'' is Dickens best selling novel. Since its inaugural publication in 1859, the novel has sold over 200 million copies, and is among the most famous works of fiction.

At a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged within society. Through his journalism he campaigned on specific issues—such as sanitation and the workhouse—but his fiction probably demonstrated its greatest prowess in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and oppression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist, but flourished as a result. His most strident indictment of this condition is in ''Hard Times'' (1854), Dickens's only novel-length treatment of the industrial working class. In this work, he uses both vitriol and satire to illustrate how this marginalised social stratum was termed "Hands" by the factory owners; that is, not really "people" but rather only appendages of the machines that they operated. His writings inspired others, in particular journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. For example, the prison scenes in ''The Pickwick Papers'' are claimed to have been influential in having the Fleet Prison shut down. As Karl Marx said, Dickens, and the other novelists of Victorian England, "...issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together...". The exceptional popularity of his novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (''Bleak House'', 1853; ''Little Dorrit'', 1857; ''Our Mutual Friend'', 1865) underscored not only his almost preternatural ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also ensured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored.

His fiction, with often vivid descriptions of life in nineteenth century England, has inaccurately and anachronistically come to symbolise on a global level Victorian society (1837 – 1901) as uniformly "Dickensian", when in fact, his novels' time span spanned from the 1770s to the 1860s. In the decade following his death in 1870, a more intense degree of socially and philosophically pessimistic perspectives invested British fiction; such themes stood in marked contrast to the religious faith that ultimately held together even the bleakest of Dickens's novels. Dickens clearly influenced later Victorian novelists such as Thomas Hardy and George Gissing; their works display a greater willingness to confront and challenge the Victorian institution of religion. They also portray characters caught up by social forces (primarily via lower-class conditions), but they usually steered them to tragic ends beyond their control.

Novelists continue to be influenced by his books; for instance, such disparate current writers as Anne Rice, Tom Wolfe, and John Irving evidence direct Dickensian connections. Humorist James Finn Garner even wrote a tongue-in-cheek "politically correct" version of ''A Christmas Carol'', and other affectionate parodies include the Radio 4 comedy ''Bleak Expectations''. Matthew Pearl's novel ''The Last Dickens'' is a thriller about how Charles Dickens would have ended ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood''. In the UK survey entitled ''The Big Read'' carried out by the BBC in 2003, five of Dickens's books were named in the Top 100, featuring alongside Terry Pratchett with the most.

Although Dickens's life has been the subject of at least two TV miniseries, a television film ''The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens'' in which he was portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, and two famous one-man shows, he has never been the subject of a Hollywood big screen biography.

Claims of anti-Semitism and racism

Paul Vallely writes in ''The Independent'' that Dickens's Fagin in ''Oliver Twist'' —the Jew who runs a school in London for child pickpockets—is widely seen as one of the most grotesque Jews in English literature, and the most vivid of Dickens's 989 characters.

The character is thought to have been partly based on Ikey Solomon, a 19th century Jewish criminal in London, who was interviewed by Dickens during the latter's time as a journalist. Nadia Valdman, who writes about the portrayal of Jews in literature, argues that Fagin's representation was drawn from the image of the Jew as inherently evil, that the imagery associated him with the Devil, and with beasts.

The novel refers to Fagin 257 times in the first 38 chapters as "the Jew", while the ethnicity or religion of the other characters is rarely mentioned. In 1854, the ''Jewish Chronicle'' asked why "Jews alone should be excluded from the 'sympathizing heart' of this great author and powerful friend of the oppressed." Eliza Davis, whose husband had purchased Dickens's home in 1860 when he had put it up for sale, wrote to Dickens in protest at his portrayal of Fagin, arguing that he had "encouraged a vile prejudice against the despised Hebrew", and that he had done a great wrong to the Jewish people. Dickens had described her husband at the time of the sale as a "Jewish moneylender", though also someone he came to know as an honest gentleman.

Surprisingly, Dickens took her complaint seriously. He halted the printing of ''Oliver Twist'', and changed the text for the parts of the book that had not been set, which is why Fagin is called "the Jew" 257 times in the first 38 chapters, but barely at all in the next 179 references to him. In his novel, ''Our Mutual Friend'', he created the character of Riah (meaning "friend" in Hebrew), whose goodness, Vallely writes, is almost as complete as Fagin's evil. Riah says in the novel: "Men say, 'This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but there are good Turks.' Not so with the Jews ... they take the worst of us as samples of the best ..." Davis sent Dickens a copy of the Hebrew bible in gratitude.

Dickens's attitudes towards blacks were also complex, although he fiercely opposed the inhumanity of slavery in the United States, and expressed a desire for African American emancipation. In ''American Notes'', he includes a comic episode with a black coach driver, presenting a grotesque description focused on the man's dark complexion and way of movement, which to Dickens amounts to an "insane imitation of an English coachman". In 1868, alluding to the then poor intellectual condition of the black population in America, Dickens railed against "the mechanical absurdity of giving these people votes", which "at any rate at present, would glare out of every roll of their eyes, chuckle in their mouths, and bump in their heads."

In ''The Perils of Certain English Prisoners'' Dickens offers an allegory of the Indian Mutiny, where the "native Sambo", a paradigm of the Indian mutineers, is a "double-dyed traitor, and a most infernal villain" who takes part in a massacre of women and children, in an allusion to the Cawnpore Massacre. Dickens was much incensed by the massacre, in which over a hundred English prisoners, most of them women and children, were killed, and on 4 October 1857 wrote in a private letter to Baroness Burdett-Coutts: "I wish I were the Commander in Chief in India. ... I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested ... proceeding, with all convenient dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of mankind and raze it off the face of the earth."

''Perils'' greatly influenced the cultural reaction from English writers to the mutiny, by attributing guilt so as to portray the British as victims, and the Indians as villains. Wilkie Collins, who co-wrote ''Perils'', deviates from Dickens's view, writing the second chapter from a different perspective which, quoting poet Jaya Mehta, was "parodying British racism, instead of promoting it". Contemporary literary critic Arthur Quiller-Couch praised Dickens for eschewing any real-life depiction of the incident, for fear of inflaming his "raging mad" readership further, in favour of a romantic story "empty of racial or propagandist hatred". A modern inference is that it was his son's position in India, there on military service, at the mercy of inept imperial leaders who misunderstood conquered people, that may have influenced his reluctance to set ''Perils'' in India, for fear that his criticism may antagonise the son's superiors.

Names: 'Dickens' and 'Boz'

Charles Dickens had, as a contemporary critic put it, a "queer name". The name Dickens was used in interjective exclamations like "What the Dickens!" as a substitute for "devil". It was recorded in the OED as originating from Shakespeare's ''The Merry Wives of Windsor''. It was also used in the phrase "to play the Dickens" in the meaning "to play havoc/mischief".

'Boz' was Dickens's occasional pen-name, but was a familiar name in the Dickens household long before Charles became a famous author. It was actually taken from his youngest brother Augustus Dickens' 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 during the early 19th century). When playfully pronounced through the nose 'Moses' became 'Boses', and was later shortened to 'Boz' – pronounced through the nose with a long vowel 'o'.

Siblings

Frances (Fanny) Elizabeth Dickens 1810–1848

Letitia Dickens 1816–1893

Harriet Dickens 1819–1824

Frederick Dickens

Alfred Lamert Dickens

Augustus Newnham Dickens

Adaptations of readings

There have been several performances of Dickens readings by Emlyn Williams, Bransby Williams, Clive Francis performing the John Mortimer adaptation of ''A Christmas Carol'' and also Simon Callow in the ''Mystery of Charles Dickens'' by Peter Ackroyd. Entertainer Mike Randall re-enacts Dickens's readings (in character as Dickens) for a series of shows known as "Charles Dickens Presents A Christmas Carol," primarily in his home region in Western New York.

Museums and festivals

There are museums and festivals celebrating Dickens's life and works in many of the towns with which he was associated.

The Charles Dickens Museum, in Doughty Street, Holborn is the only one of Dickens's London homes to survive. He lived there only two years but in that time wrote ''The Pickwick Papers'', ''Oliver Twist'' and ''Nicholas Nickleby''. It contains a major collection of manuscripts, original furniture and memorabilia.

Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth is the house in which Dickens was born. It has been re-furnished in the likely style of 1812 and contains Dickens memorabilia.

The Dickens House Museum in Broadstairs, Kent is the house of Miss Mary Pearson Strong, the basis for Miss Betsey Trotwood in ''David Copperfield''. It is visible across the bay from the original Bleak House (also a museum until 2005) where ''David Copperfield'' was written. The museum contains memorabilia, general Victoriana and some of Dickens's letters. Broadstairs has held a Dickens Festival annually since 1937.

The Victoria and Albert Museum holds the original manuscripts for many of his novels, plus printers' proofs, first editions, and illustrations. At least one of the manuscripts is usually on display in the Museum's British Galleries. The Charles Dickens Centre in Eastgate House, Rochester, closed in 2004, but the garden containing the author's Swiss chalet is still open. The 16th century house, which appeared as Westgate House in ''The Pickwick Papers'' and the Nun's House in ''Edwin Drood'', is now used as a wedding venue. The city's annual Dickens Festival (summer) and Dickensian Christmas celebrations continue unaffected. ''Summer Dickens'' is held at the end of May or in the first few days of June, it commences with an invitation only ball on the Thursday and then continues with street entertainment, and many costumed characters, on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. ''Christmas Dickens'' is the first weekend in December- Saturday and Sunday only. Dickens World themed attraction, covering , and including a cinema and restaurants, opened in Chatham on 25 May 2007. It stands on a small part of the site of the former naval dockyard where Dickens's father had once worked in the Navy Pay Office.

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens in 2012 the Museum of London hosts the UK's first major exhibition on the author for 40 years. Dickens and London opens on 9 December 2011 and is on until 10 June 2012.

Dickens festivals are also held across the world. Four notable ones in the United States are:

The Riverside Dickens Festival in Riverside, California, includes literary studies as well as entertainments.

The Great Dickens Christmas Fair has been held in San Francisco, California, since the 1970s. During the four or five weekends before Christmas, over 500 costumed performers mingle with and entertain thousands of visitors amidst the recreated full-scale blocks of Dickensian London in over of public area. This is the oldest, largest, and most successful of the modern Dickens festivals outside England. Many (including the Martin Harris who acts in the Rochester festival and flies out from London to play Scrooge every year in SF) say it is the most impressive in the world.

Dickens on The Strand in Galveston, Texas, is a holiday festival held on the first weekend in December since 1974, where bobbies, Beefeaters and the "Queen" herself are on hand to recreate the Victorian London of Charles Dickens. Many festival volunteers and attendees dress in Victorian attire and bring the world of Dickens to life.

The Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council holds a Dickens Festival in the Village of Port Jefferson, New York each year. In 2009, the Dickens Festival was 4 December, 5 and 6 December. It includes many events, along with a troupe of street performers who bring an authentic Dickensian atmosphere to the town.

Other memorials

Charles Dickens was commemorated on the Series E £10 note issued by the Bank of England which was in circulation in the UK between 1992 and 2003. Dickens appeared on the reverse of the note accompanied by a scene from ''The Pickwick Papers''.

Notable works

Charles Dickens published over a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories (including a number of Christmas-themed stories), a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.

Novels

{| |- | valign="top" | ''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (Monthly serial, April 1836 to November 1837)

''The Adventures of Oliver Twist'' (Monthly serial in ''Bentley's Miscellany'', February 1837 to April 1839)

''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' (Monthly serial, April 1838 to October 1839)

''The Old Curiosity Shop'' (Weekly serial in ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', 25 April 1840, to 6 February 1841)

''Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty'' (Weekly serial in ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', 13 February 1841, to 27 November 1841)

The Christmas books:

* ''A Christmas Carol'' (1843)

* ''The Chimes'' (1844)

* ''The Cricket on the Hearth'' (1845)

* ''The Battle of Life'' (1846)

* ''The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain'' (1848)

''The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit'' (Monthly serial, January 1843 to July 1844)

| valign="top" |

''Dombey and Son'' (Monthly serial, October 1846 to April 1848)

''David Copperfield'' (Monthly serial, May 1849 to November 1850)

''Bleak House'' (Monthly serial, March 1852 to September 1853)

''Hard Times: For These Times'' (Weekly serial in ''Household Words'', 1 April 1854, to 12 August 1854)

''Little Dorrit'' (Monthly serial, December 1855 to June 1857)

''A Tale of Two Cities'' (Weekly serial in ''All the Year Round'', 30 April 1859, to 26 November 1859)

''Great Expectations'' (Weekly serial in ''All the Year Round'', 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861)

''Our Mutual Friend'' (Monthly serial, May 1864 to November 1865)

''The Mystery of Edwin Drood'' (Monthly serial, April 1870 to September 1870. Only six of twelve planned numbers completed)

|}

Short story collections

''Sketches by Boz'' (1836)

''The Mudfog Papers'' (1837) in ''Bentley's Miscellany'' magazine

''Reprinted Pieces'' (1861)

''The Uncommercial Traveller'' (1860–1869)

{| |- | valign="top" | Christmas numbers of ''Household Words'' magazine:

''What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older'' (1851)

''A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire'' (1852)

''Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire'' (1853)

''The Seven Poor Travellers'' (1854)

''The Holly-Tree Inn'' (1855)

''The Wreck of the "Golden Mary"'' (1856)

''The Perils of Certain English Prisoners'' (1857)

''A House to Let'' (1858)

| valign="top" | Christmas numbers of ''All the Year Round'' magazine:

''The Haunted House'' (1859)

''A Message From the Sea'' (1860)

''Tom Tiddler's Ground'' (1861)

''Somebody's Luggage'' (1862)

''Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings'' (1863)

''Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy'' (1864)

''Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions'' (1865)

''Mugby Junction'' (1866)

''No Thoroughfare'' (1867)

|}

Selected non-fiction, poetry, and plays

{| |- | valign="top" |

''The Village Coquettes'' (Plays, 1836)

''The Fine Old English Gentleman'' (poetry, 1841)

''Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi'' (1838)

''American Notes: For General Circulation'' (1842)

''Pictures from Italy'' (1846)

| valign="top" |

''The Life of Our Lord: As written for his children'' (1849)

''A Child's History of England'' (1853)

''The Frozen Deep'' (play, 1857)

''Speeches, Letters and Sayings'' (1870)

|}

Notes

References

''A Charles Dickens Devotional''. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4003-1954-1.

Ackroyd, Peter, ''Dickens'', (2002), Vintage, ISBN 0099437090

Drabble, Margaret (ed.), ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'', (1997), Oxford University Press

Glavin, John. (ed.) ''Dickens on Screen'',(2003), New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kaplan, Fred. ''Dickens: A Biography'' William Morros, 1988

Lewis, Peter R. ''Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847'', Tempus (2007) for a discussion of the Staplehurst accident, and its influence on Dickens.

Meckier, Jerome. ''Innocent Abroad: Charles Dickens' American Engagements'' University Press of Kentucky, 1990

Moss, Sidney P. ''Charles Dickens' Quarrel with America'' (New York: Whitson, 1984).

Patten, Robert L. (ed.) ''The Pickwick Papers'' (Introduction), (1978), Penguin Books.

Slater, Michael. "Dickens, Charles John Huffam (1812 – 1870)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004

Slater, Michael. ''Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing'', 2009 New Haven/London: Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-11207-8

Further reading

Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert, "Becoming Dickens 'The Invention of a Novelist'", London: Harvard University Press, 2011

Johnson, Edgar, ''Charles Dickens: his tragedy and triumph'', New York : Simon and Schuster, 1952. In two volumes.

Tomalin, Claire, ''Charles Dickens: A Life'', Penguin Press HC, The, 2011.

External links

Works

, HTML and plain text versions.

Works by or about Charles Dickens at Internet Archive and Google Books. Scanned books.

Works by Charles Dickens at EveryAuthor, HTML versions.

Works by Charles Dickens at Dickens Literature, HTML versions.

Works by Charles Dickens at Penn State University Electronic Classics Series, PDF versions.

Organizations and portals

The Dickens Fellowship, an international society dedicated to the study of Dickens and his Writings

David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page

A Dickens web page, portal.

The Dickens Page, portal.

Gad's Hill Place, Dickens information.

Museums

Dickens Museum Situated in a former Dickens House, 48 Doughty Street, London, WC1

Dickens Museum Virtual Tour

Dickens Birthplace Museum Old Commercial Road, Portsmouth

Victoria and Albert Museum The V&A;'s collections relating to Dickens

Other

A Charles Dickens Journal Timeline of Dickens's Life

David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page – Dickens's London (Interactive Map)

Hints to Collectors of Original Editions (1885)

Category:1812 births Category:1870 deaths Category:19th-century English people Category:19th-century novelists Category:British newspaper founders Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey Category:English Anglicans Category:English historical novelists Category:English journalists Category:English novelists Category:English prisoners and detainees Category:English short story writers Category:People associated with the Royal Society of Arts Category:People from Camden Town Category:People from Chatham, Kent Category:People from Portsmouth Category:Writers from London Category:People illustrated on sterling banknotes Category:Victorian novelists

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Claire Tomalin (nėe Delavenay, 20 June 1933) is an English biographer and journalist. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge.

She was literary editor of the ''New Statesman'' and of the ''Sunday Times'', and has written several noted biographies. Her work has been recognised with the award of the 1990 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1991 Hawthornden Prize for ''The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens''. Her biography of Samuel Pepys won the Whitbread Book Award in 2002, the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 2003, the Latham Prize of the Samuel Pepys Club in 2003, and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2003.

Claire Tomalin is Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature and of the English PEN (International PEN).

Tomalin's first husband Nicholas Tomalin, a prominent journalist, was killed in the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War in 1973; she is now married to the novelist and playwright Michael Frayn.

Awards and honours

2011 Costa Book Awards (Biography), shortlist, ''Charles Dickens: A Life''

Selected works

''Charles Dickens: A Life'', 2011

''Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man'', 2007, ISBN 978-1594201189

''Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self'', (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), ISBN 0-670-88568-1 or ISBN 0-14-028234-3

''Jane Austen: A Life'', 2000, ISBN 0-14-029690-5

''Several Strangers; writing from three decades'', 1999, Viking, London.

''Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life'', (London, Viking, 1987)1998, ISBN 0-14-011715-6

''Mrs. Jordan's Profession: The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King'', 1995, ISBN 0-14-015923-1

''Shelley and His World'', 1992, ISBN 978-0140171525

''The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens'', (New York, Knopf, 1991), ISBN 0-14-012136-

''The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft'' (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolsen, 1974), 1992, ISBN 0-14-016761-7

Trivia

She made a number of tongue-in-cheek criticisms against the Samuel Pepys Wikipedia article in ''The Guardian'' on 24 October 2005, awarding the page a score of 6/10. On 4 April 2009, Tomalin wrote to ''The Guardian'' and expressed facts on Thomas Hardy's life. The letter was titled "A Poet to the End".

Notes

Further reading

'Aida Edemariam meets Claire Tomalin' ''The Guardian'' 18 November 2006

'Claire Tomalin: a Life in Words' BBC World News, Entertainment, 29 Jan 2003

Claire Tomalin at www.contemporarywriters

Category:1933 births Category:Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge Category:English journalists Category:English biographers Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Category:Honorary Fellows of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge Category:Living people Category:NCR Book Award winners Category:Rose Mary Crawshay Prize

de:Claire Tomalin fr:Claire Tomalin hu:Claire Tomalin sv:Claire Tomalin

Coordinates	52°24′″N16°55′″N
name	Vincent Price
birth date	May 27, 1911
birth place	St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
death date	October 25, 1993
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
occupation	Actor
years active	1935–93
spouse	Edith Barrett (1938–48)Mary Grant Price (1949–73)Coral Browne (1974–91; her death) }}

Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.

Early life and career

Price was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Marguerite Cobb (née Wilcox) and Vincent Leonard Price, Sr., who was the president of the National Candy Company. His grandfather, Vincent Clarence Price, invented "Dr. Price's Baking Powder," the first cream of tartar baking powder, and secured the family's fortune.

Price attended St. Louis Country Day School. He was further educated at Yale in art history and fine art. He was a member of the Courtauld Institute, London. He became interested in the theatre during the 1930s, appearing professionally on stage for the first time in 1935.

Career

He made his film debut in 1938 with ''Service de Luxe'' and established himself in the film ''Laura'' (1944), opposite Gene Tierney, directed by Otto Preminger. He also played Joseph Smith, Jr. in the movie ''Brigham Young'' (1940) and William Gibbs McAdoo in ''Wilson'' (1944) as well as a pretentious priest in ''The Keys of the Kingdom'' (1944). Price's first venture into the horror genre was in the 1939 Boris Karloff film ''Tower of London''. The following year he portrayed the title character in the film ''The Invisible Man Returns'' (a role he reprised in a vocal cameo at the end of the 1948 horror-comedy spoof ''Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'').

In 1946 Price reunited with Tierney in two notable films, ''Dragonwyck'' and ''Leave Her to Heaven''. There were also many villainous roles in film noir thrillers like ''The Web'' (1947), ''The Long Night'' (1947), ''Rogues' Regiment'' (1948) and ''The Bribe'' (1949) with Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner and Charles Laughton. His first starring role was as conman James Addison Reavis in the 1950 biopic ''The Baron of Arizona''. He also did a comedic turn as the tycoon Burnbridge Waters, co-starring with Ronald Colman in ''Champagne for Caesar''. He was active in radio, portraying the Robin Hood-inspired crime-fighter Simon Templar in ''The Saint'' that ran from 1943 to 1951.

In the 1950s, he moved into horror films, with a role in ''House of Wax'' (1953), the first 3-D film to land in the year's top ten at the North American box office, then ''The Mad Magician'' (1954), and then the monster movie ''The Fly'' (1958) and its sequel ''Return of the Fly'' (1959) . Price also starred in the original ''House on Haunted Hill'' (1959) as the eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. Price played Dr. Warren Chapin, in ''The Tingler'', a 1959 horror-thriller film by the American producer and director William Castle. In between these horror films, Price played Baka (the master builder) in ''The Ten Commandments''. In the 1955–1956 television season he appeared three times as Rabbi Gershom Seixos in the ABC anthology series, ''Crossroads'', a study of clergymen from different denominations. About this time, he also appeared on NBC's ''The Martha Raye Show''.

1960s

In the 1960s, Price had a number of low-budget successes with Roger Corman and American International Pictures (AIP) including the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations ''House of Usher'' (1960), ''The Pit and the Pendulum'' (1961), ''Tales of Terror'' (1962), ''The Comedy of Terrors'' (1963) ''The Raven'' (1963), ''The Masque of the Red Death'' (1964), and ''The Tomb of Ligeia'' (1965). He starred in ''The Last Man on Earth'' (1964), the first adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel ''I Am Legend''. In 1968 Price portrayed witchhunter Matthew Hopkins in ''Witchfinder General'' (released in the US as ''The Conqueror Worm''). He starred in comedy films, notably ''Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine'' (1965) and its sequel ''Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs'' (1966). In 1968 he played the part of an eccentric artist in the musical ''Darling of the Day'' opposite Patricia Routledge.

Price often spoke of his pleasure at playing Egghead in the ''Batman'' television series. One of his co-stars, Yvonne Craig (Batgirl), said Price was her favorite villain in the series. In an often-repeated anecdote from the set of ''Batman'', Price, after a take was printed, started throwing eggs at series stars Adam West and Burt Ward, and when asked to stop, replied, "With a full artillery? Not a chance!", causing an eggfight to erupt on the soundstage. This incident is reenacted in the behind-the-scenes telefilm ''Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt''. In the 1960s, he began his role as a guest on the game show ''Hollywood Squares'', even becoming a semi-regular in the 1970s, including being one of the guest panelists on the finale in 1980. He was known for usually making fun of Rose Marie's age, and using his famous voice to answer questions in a playfully menacing tone.

Later career

During the early 1970s, Price hosted and starred in BBC Radio's horror and mystery series ''The Price of Fear''. Price accepted a cameo part in the Canadian children's television program ''The Hilarious House of Frightenstein'' (1971) in Hamilton, Ontario, on the local television station CHCH. In addition to the opening and closing monologues, his role in the show was to recite poems about the show's various characters, sometimes wearing a cloak or other costumes. He appeared in ''The Abominable Dr. Phibes'' (1971), its sequel ''Dr. Phibes Rises Again'' (1972) and ''Theatre of Blood'' (1973), in which he portrayed a pair of campy serial killers. That same year Price appeared as himself in ''Mooch Goes to Hollywood'', a film written by Jim Backus. Price recorded dramatic readings of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and poems, which were collected together with readings by Basil Rathbone.

Price greatly reduced his film work from around 1975, as horror itself suffered a slump, and increased his narrative and voice work, as well as advertising Milton Bradley's Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture. Price's voiceover is heard on Alice Cooper's first solo album, ''Welcome to My Nightmare'' from 1975, and he also appeared in the corresponding TV special ''Alice Cooper: The Nightmare''. He starred for a year in the early 1970s in a syndicated daily radio program, ''Tales of the Unexplained''. He made guest appearances in a 1970 episode of ''Here's Lucy'' showcasing his art expertise and in a 1972 episode of ABC's ''The Brady Bunch'', in which he played a deranged archaeologist. In October 1976, Price appeared as the featured guest in an episode of ''The Muppet Show''.

In the summer of 1977, Price began performing as Oscar Wilde in the one-man stage play ''Diversions and Delights''. Written by John Gay and directed by Joe Hardy, the play is set in a Parisian theatre on a night about one year before Wilde's death. In an attempt to earn some much-needed money, the Wilde character speaks to the audience about his life, his works and, in the second act, about his love for Lord Alfred Douglas, which led to his downfall. The original tour of the play was a success in every city that it played, except for New York City. In the summer of 1979, Price performed it at the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado on the same stage from which Wilde had spoken to miners about art some 96 years before. Price would eventually perform the play worldwide. In her biography of her father, Victoria Price stated that several members of Price's family and friends thought that this was the best acting that he ever performed. In the spring of 1979, Price starred with his wife Coral Browne in the short-lived CBS TV series ''Time Express''.

In 1982, Price provided the narrator's voice in ''Vincent'', Tim Burton's six-minute film about a young boy who flashes from reality into a fantasy where he is Vincent Price. That same year, he performed a sinister "rap" on the title track of Michael Jackson's ''Thriller'' album. A longer version of the rap, ''sans'' the music, along with some conversation can be heard on Jackson's 2001 remastered reissue of the ''Thriller'' album. Part of the extended version can be heard on the ''Thriller 25'' album, released in 2008. Price appeared as Sir Despard Murgatroyd in a 1982 television production of Gilbert & Sullivan's ''Ruddigore'' (with Keith Michell as Robin Oakapple). In 1983, Price played the Sinister Man in the British spoof horror film ''Bloodbath at the House of Death'' starring Kenny Everett, and he also appeared in the film ''House of the Long Shadows'', which teamed him with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine. While Price had worked with each one of them at least once in the prior decade, this was the first teaming of all of them together. One of his last major roles, and one of his favorites, was as the voice of Professor Ratigan in Walt Disney Pictures' ''The Great Mouse Detective'' in 1986.

From 1981 to 1989, he hosted the PBS television series ''Mystery!'' In 1985, he provided voice talent on the Hanna-Barbera series ''The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo'' as the mysterious Vincent Van Ghoul, who aided Scooby-Doo, Scrappy-Doo and the gang in recapturing thirteen evil demons. During this time (1985–1989), he appeared in horror-themed commercials for Tilex bathroom cleanser. In 1984, Price appeared in Shelley Duvall's live-action series ''Faerie Tale Theatre'' as the Mirror in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", and the narrator for "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers." In 1987, he starred with Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, and Ann Sothern in ''The Whales of August'', a story of two sisters living in Maine, facing the end of their days. In 1989, Price was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. His last significant film work was as the inventor in Tim Burton's ''Edward Scissorhands'' (1990).

A witty raconteur, Price was a frequent guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', where he once demonstrated how to poach a fish in a dishwasher. Price was a noted gourmet cook and art collector. He also authored several cookbooks and hosted a cookery TV show, ''Cooking Pricewise''.

From 1962 to 1971, Sears, Roebuck offered the "Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art", selling about 50,000 pieces of fine art to the general public. Price selected and commissioned works for the collection, including works by Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Nate Dunn.

Personal life

Price was married three times and fathered a son, named Vincent Barrett Price, with his first wife, former actress Edith Barrett. Price and his second wife Mary Grant Price donated hundreds of works of art and a large amount of money to East Los Angeles College in the early 1960s in order to endow the Vincent and Mary Price Gallery there. Their daughter, Mary Victoria Price, was born in 1962. Price's last marriage was to the Australian actress Coral Browne, who appeared with him (as one of his victims) in ''Theatre of Blood'' (1973). He converted to Catholicism to marry her, and she became a U.S. citizen for him.

One example of his outspoken political action came when he concluded an episode of ''The Saint'' titled "Author of Murder", which aired on NBC Radio on July 30, 1950. While concluding the episode, Price denounced racial and religious prejudice as a form of poison and stated that Americans must actively fight against it because racial and religious prejudice within the United States fuels support for the nation's enemies.

Death

Price was a lifelong smoker. He suffered from emphysema and Parkinson's disease, which had caused his role in ''Edward Scissorhands'' to be much shorter than expected.

His illness also contributed to his retirement from ''Mystery!'', as his condition was becoming noticeable on-screen. He died of lung cancer on October 25, 1993 at the age of 82. He was cremated and his ashes scattered off Point Dume in Malibu, California.

Legacy

In 1951, impressed by the spirit of the students and the community's need for the opportunity to experience original art works first hand, Price donated some 90 pieces from his own collection to East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, California, thus establishing the first "teaching art collection" owned by a community college in the U.S. Today, the Vincent Price Art Museum continues to present world-class exhibitions, and remains one of the actor's most enduring legacies. The collection contains over 9,000 pieces and has been valued in excess of five million dollars.

The A&E; Network aired an episode of ''Biography'' highlighting Price's horror career the night following his death, but because of its failure to clear copyrights, the show was never aired again. Four years later, A&E; produced its updated episode, a show titled ''Vincent Price: The Versatile Villain'', which aired on October 12, 1997. The script was by Lucy Chase Williams, author of ''The Complete Films of Vincent Price'' (Citadel Press, 1995). In early 1991, Tim Burton was developing a personal documentary with the working title ''Conversations with Vincent'', in which interviews with Price were shot at the Vincent Price Gallery, but the project was never completed and was eventually shelved.

Price was an Honorary Board Member and strong supporter of the Witch's Dungeon Classic Movie Museum located in Bristol, Connecticut until his death. The museum features detailed life-size wax replicas of characters from some of Price's films, including ''The Fly'', ''The Abominable Dr. Phibes'' and ''The Masque of the Red Death''. A black box theater at Price's alma mater, Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School, is named after him.

Director Tim Burton directed a short stop-motion film as a tribute to Vincent Price called ''Vincent'', about a young boy named Vincent Malloy who was obsessed with the grim and macabre. It is narrated by Price. "Vincent Twice, Vincent Twice" was a parody on ''Sesame Street''. He was parodied in an episode of ''The Simpsons'' ("Sunday, Cruddy Sunday"). Price even had his own ''Spitting Image'' puppet, who was always trying to be "sinister" and lure people into his ghoulish traps, only for his victims to point out all the obvious flaws. The October 2005 episode of the Channel 101 series ''Yacht Rock'' featured comedian James Adomian as Vincent Price during the recording of Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Starting in November 2005, featured cast member Bill Hader of the NBC sketch comedy/variety show ''Saturday Night Live'' has played Price in a recurring sketch where Vincent Price hosts botched holiday specials filled with celebrities of the 1950s and '60s. Other cast members who have played Price on ''SNL'' include Dan Aykroyd and Michael McKean (who played Price when he hosted a season 10 episode and again when he was hired as a cast member for the 1994–95 season).

In 1999, a frank and detailed biography written by his daughter, Victoria Price, about her father was published by St. Martin's Press. In late May 2011, an event was held by the organization Cinema St. Louis to celebrate what would have been Price's 100th Birthday. It included a public event with Victoria at the Missouri History Museum and a showcase of ephemeral and historic items at the gallery inside the Sheldon Concert Hall.

Filmography

References

Further reading

Price, Vincent, ''I Like What I Know – A Visual Autobiography'', Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, copyright 1959.

External links

Vincent Price Gallery

St. Louis Walk of Fame

Profile @ Turner Classic Movies

Vincent Price Papers catalog

''The Saint'' radio program

Category:Actors from Missouri Category:Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Category:American film actors Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism Category:Deaths from emphysema Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:People from St. Louis, Missouri Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:Yale University alumni Category:Gilbert and Sullivan performers Category:1911 births Category:1993 deaths Category:The Yale Record alumni

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Coordinates	52°24′″N16°55′″N
name	The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)
type	Christmas song
artist	The King Cole Trio
b-side	"In the Cool of Evening" (Capitol 311)"Laguna Mood" (Capitol 15201)"(All I Want for Christmas Is) My Two Front Teeth" (Capitol F90036; Capitol F2955)"The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot" (Capitol 3561)
published	1944
released
recorded
format	10-inch, 7-inch
genre	Christmas, Jazz, Pop
length	(1946 recording) (1953 recording)
label	Capitol 311 (1946)Capitol 15201 (1948)Capitol F90036 (1953)Capitol F2955 (1954)Capitol 3561 (1956)
writer	Mel Tormé,Bob Wells
misc	}}

"The Christmas Song" (commonly subtitled "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" or, as it was originally subtitled, "Merry Christmas to You") is a classic Christmas song written in 1944 by musician, composer, and vocalist Mel Tormé (aka The Velvet Fog), and Bob Wells. According to Tormé, the song was written during a blistering hot summer. In an effort to "stay cool by thinking cool", the most-performed (according to BMI) Christmas song was born.

"I saw a spiral pad on his piano with four lines written in pencil", Tormé recalled. "They started, "Chestnuts roasting..., Jack Frost nipping..., Yuletide carols..., Folks dressed up like Eskimos.' Bob (Wells, co-writer) didn't think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics."

The Nat King Cole Trio first recorded the song early in 1946. At Cole's behestand over the objections of his label, Capitol Recordsa second recording was made the same year utilizing a small string section, this version becoming a massive hit on both the pop and R&B; charts. Cole again recorded the song in 1953, using the same arrangement with a full orchestra arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle, and once more in 1961, in a stereophonic version with orchestra conducted by Ralph Carmichael. Nat King Cole's 1961 version is generally regarded as definitive, and in 2004 was the most loved seasonal song with women aged 30–49, while Cole's original 1946 recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1974. Mel Tormé recorded the song himself in 1954, and again in 1961, 1966 and 1992.

The Nat King Cole recordings

First recording: Recorded at WMCA Radio Studios, New York City, June 14, 1946. Label credit: The King Cole Trio (Nat King Cole, vocal-pianist; Oscar Moore, guitarist; Johnny Miller, bassist). Not issued until 1989, when it was (accidentally) included on the various-artists compilation ''Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits (1935–1954)'' Rhino R1 70637(LP) / R2 70637(CD).

Second recording: Recorded at WMCA Radio Studios, New York City, August 19, 1946. First record issue. Label credit: The King Cole Trio with String Choir (Nat King Cole, vocal-pianist, Oscar Moore, guitarist; Johnny Miller, bassist; Charlie Grean, conductor of 4 string players, a harpist and a drummer) Lacquer disc master #981. Issued November 1946 as Capitol 311 (78rpm). This is featured on a CD called ''The Holiday Album'', which has 1940s Christmas songs recorded by Cole and Bing Crosby. In 2005 Capitol restored and re-released it for the 25 bit re-mastered Cole album "The Christmas Song", which also contains tracks from his 1960 and 1963 holiday albums.

Third recording: Recorded at Capitol Studios, Hollywood, August 24, 1953. This was the song,s first magnetic tape recording. Label credit: The King Cole Trio with String Choir (Actual artists: Nat King Cole, vocal; Nelson Riddle, orchestra conductor) Master #11726, take 11. Issued November 1953 as the "new" Capitol 90036(78rpm) / F90036(45rpm) (Capitol first issued 90036 in 1950 with the second recording). Correct label credit issued on October 18, 1954 as Capitol 2955(78rpm) / F2955(45rpm). Label credit: Nat "King" Cole with Orchestra Conducted by Nelson Riddle. This recording is available on the 1990 CD ''Cole, Christmas and Kids,'' as well as the various-artists compilation ''Casey Kasem Presents All Time Christmas Favorites''. It was also included, along with both 1946 recordings, on the 1991 Mosaic Records box set ''The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio''.

Fourth recording: Recorded at Capitol Studios, New York City, March 30, 1961. This rendition, the first recorded in stereo, is widely played on radio stations during the Christmas season, and is probably the most famous version of this song. Label credit: Nat King Cole (Nat King Cole, vocal; Charles Grean and Pete Rugolo, orchestration; Ralph Carmichael, orchestra conductor). The instrumental arrangement is nearly identical with the 1953 version, but the vocals are much deeper and more focused. Originally done for ''The Nat King Cole Story'' (a 1961 LP devoted to stereo re-recordings of Cole's earlier hits), this recording was later appended to a reissue of Cole's 1960 holiday album ''The Magic of Christmas''. Retitled ''The Christmas Song'', the album was issued in 1963 as Capitol W-1967(mono) / SW-1967(stereo) and today is in print on compact disc. This recording of "The Christmas Song" is also available on numerous compilation albums. Some are Capitol pop standards Christmas compilations while others are broader-based. It's available on WCBS-FM's ''Ultimate Christmas Album Volume 3'', for example.

There were several covers of Nat Cole's original record in the 1940s. The first of these was said to be by Dick Haymes on the Decca label, but his was released firstnot recorded first. The first cover of "The Christmas Song" was performed by pop tenor and bandleader Eddy Howard on Majestic. Howard was a big Cole fan, and also covered Nat's versions of "I Want to Thank Your Folks" and "I Love You for Sentimental Reasons", among others.

Selective list of notable recordings

"The Christmas Song" has been covered by numerous artists from a wide variety of genres, including:

Aaliyah

Trace Adkins

Christina Aguilera (#18 in US, #22 in Canada)

Clay Aiken

Herb Alpert

Thomas Anders

India.Arie and Stevie Wonder (winner of the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2003)

Aska

Babyface

Tony Bennett

Polly Bergen (who sang the song on the December 14, 1957 airing of her NBC variety show, ''The Polly Bergen Show'')

Justin Bieber and Usher (#58 in US, #59 in Canada)

Michael Bolton

Toni Braxton

Garth Brooks

James Brown

Les Brown and his Orchestra (with Doris Day on lead vocal)

Michael Bublé (his version, bearing close similarities to Celine Dion's recording of the song, reached #6 on the ''Billboard'' Adult Contemporary chart in December 2003.)

Kenny Burrell

The Canadian Brass (from their 1985 Christmas album ''A Canadian Brass Christmas'')

The Carpenters (from their 1978 Christmas album ''Christmas Portrait'')

Celtic Woman

Charice

Chicago

Christmas Who? (a SpongeBob Christmas special. SpongeBob and Patrick in a Christmas song sing as a lyric "...chestnuts roasting and burns in the third degree" before the ending of their song.)

Charlotte Church

Rosemary Clooney

Natalie Cole

Bing Crosby

Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass (1970)

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Doris Day (from her 1964 Christmas album ''The Doris Day Christmas Album'')

Gavin DeGraw

Celine Dion

Vanessa Doofenshmirtz (voiced by Olivia Olson on the album ''Phineas and Ferb Holiday Favorites'')

Bob Dylan

Gloria Estefan

Connie Francis

Aretha Franklin

Judy Garland, who sang the song in a duet with its composer, Mel Torme, on a Christmas-themed episode of her television show in December 1963.

Amy Grant (from her 1983 Christmas album ''A Christmas Album'')

Josh Groban (from his 2007 holiday album, ''Noël'')

Robert Goulet

Hampton String Quartet

Eddie Higgins

Hootie and the Blowfish

Whitney Houston

Ramon "RJ" Jacinto (from his 1988 Christmas album ''Pasko Na Naman'')

The Jackson 5

Alan Jackson (from his 2007 Christmas album ''Let It Be Christmas'')

Joni James (from her 1956 ''Merry Christmas from Joni''). Joni's version alters the lyric: "I'm offering this simple phrase, for kids from one to ninety-two" to "... kids from one to ninety-one".

Al Jarreau

Joe

Wynonna Judd

Peggy Lee

Damien Leith (from a special limited Christmas edition of his 2007 album ''Where We Land'')

The Lettermen

Lovedrug

Aimee Mann (from her 2006 album ''One More Drifter in the Snow'')

Johnny Mathis

Martina McBride

Reba McEntire

Brian McKnight

*NSYNC

Ricky Nelson (on the episode of TV's ''The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet'' titled "A Busy Christmas")

Aaron Neville

New Kids on the Block

Des O'Connor (from a Tesco Christmas advert)

Alexander O'Neal

Olivia Olson (from a 2010 Christmas album ''Phineas and Ferb: Holiday Favourites'')

The Partridge Family (from their 1971 Christmas album ''A Partridge Family Christmas Card'')

Les Paul

CeCe Peniston (from the 1996 Christmas album ''Merry Arizona II: Desert Stars Shine at Christmas'')

LeAnn Rimes (on her first holiday album ''What a Wonderful World'')

Raven-Symoné

Smokey Robinson and The Miracles (from their 1963 Christmas album ''Christmas with The Miracles)

Linda Ronstadt (from her 2000 Christmas album ''A Merry Little Christmas'')

SWV

Diane Schuur (nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female in 1990)

Neil Sedaka (from his 2008 first-ever holiday album, ''The Miracle of Christmas'')

Jessica Simpson

Frank Sinatra (including two recordings: a virtual duet with Nat King Cole, and an actual duet with Bing Crosby)

Tom Smith (of the Editors) and Agnes Obel (on the 2011 Smith and Burrows album, ''Funny Looking Angels'')

George Strait

Donna Summer

Demi Lovato

The Supremes (remained unreleased until their 1965 Christmas album, ''Merry Christmas'', was re-released in 1999 with additional tracks)

Kim Taeyeon (of the South Korean pop group Girls' Generation)

Take 6

James Taylor

Team Rocket (voiced by Rachael Lillis, Eric Stewart and Maddie Blaustein on the album ''Pokémon Christmas Bash'')

The Temptations

Mel Tormérecorded by the writer four times (1954, 1961, 1966 and finally in 1992 as part of his album "Christmas Songs")

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

Luther Vandross

Andy Williams

Stevie Wonder (from his 1967 Christmas album ''Someday at Christmas'')

Dwight Yoakam

Ascap entry for song showing numerous other covers

Parodies

The title of ''The Simpsons'' episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" is a parody of the song.

Bob Rivers parodied the song with his 2000 album, and the title track from said album, "Chipmunks Roasting On an Open Fire".

Stan Freberg's "Green Chri$tma$" includes several snippets of holiday songs. One segment begins with a sincere-sounding "Chestnuts roasting..." and quickly segués into a mock 1950s radio or TV ad, for a brand of chestnuts, being described as if they were toothpaste or cigarettes.

Twisted Sister parodied the song in his 2006 album ''A Twisted Christmas''.

Footnotes

External links

Mark Evanier on Tormé and "The Christmas Song"

Category:Christmas songs Category:1946 songs Category:1961 singles Category:1999 singles Category:2009 singles Category:Nat King Cole songs Category:Amy Grant songs Category:Christina Aguilera songs Category:Toby Keith songs Category:Martina McBride songs Category:Joe Nichols songs Category:George Strait songs Category:Kenny Loggins songs Category:Trisha Yearwood songs Category:Vocal duets Category:Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients Category:Barbra Streisand songs Category:Bob Dylan songs Category:Sheryl Crow songs Category:CeCe Peniston songs Category:The Partridge Family songs

es:The Christmas Song fr:The Christmas Song id:The Christmas Song it:The Christmas Song no:The Christmas Song pl:The Christmas Song pt:The Christmas Song simple:The Christmas Song sv:The Christmas Song tr:The Christmas Song vi:The Christmas Song