Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
Name	Alfred Marshall
School tradition	Neoclassical economics
Color	indigo
Birth date	July 26, 1842
Death date	July 13, 1924
Contributions	Founder of neoclassical economics''Principles of Economics'' (1890)
Nationality
Influences	Leon Walras, Vilfredo Pareto, Jules Dupuit, Stanley Jevons
Influenced	Neoclassical economists, John Maynard Keynes, Arthur Cecil Pigou, Gary Becker }}

Alfred Marshall (born 26 July 1842 in Bermondsey, London, England, died 13 July 1924 in Cambridge, England) was an Englishman and one of the most influential economists of his time. His book, ''Principles of Economics'' (1890), was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. It brings the ideas of supply and demand, marginal utility and costs of production into a coherent whole. He is known as one of the founders of economics.

Career

Marshall was born in Clapham, England, July 26, 1842. His father was a bank cashier and a devout Evangelical. Marshall grew up in the London suburb of Clapham and was educated at the Merchant Taylor's School, Northwood and St John's College, Cambridge, where he demonstrated an aptitude in mathematics, achieving the rank of Second Wrangler in the 1865 Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. Marshall experienced a mental crisis that led him to abandon physics and switch to philosophy. He began with metaphysics, specifically "the philosophical foundation of knowledge, especially in relation to theology.". Metaphysics led Marshall to ethics, specifically a Sidgwickian version of utilitarianism; ethics, in turn, led him to economics, because economics played an essential role in providing the preconditions for the improvement of the working class. Even as he turned to economics, his ethical views continued to be a dominant force in his thinking.

Marshall took a broad approach to social science in which economics plays an important but limited role. He recognized that in the real world, economic life is tightly bound up with ethical, social and political currents—currents he felt economists should not ignore. Marshall envisioned dramatic social change involving the elimination of poverty and a sharp reduction of inequality. He saw the duty of economics was to improve material conditions, but such improvement would occur, Marshall believed, only in connection with social and political forces. His interest in liberalism, socialism, trade unions, women's education, poverty and progress reflect the influence of his early social philosophy to his later activities and writings.

Marshall was elected in 1865 to a fellowship at St John's College at Cambridge, and became lecturer in the moral sciences in 1868. In 1885 he became professor of political economy at Cambridge, where he remained until his retirement in 1908. Over the years he interacted with many British thinkers including Henry Sidgwick, W.K. Clifford, Benjamin Jowett, William Stanley Jevons, Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, John Neville Keynes and John Maynard Keynes. Marshall founded the "Cambridge School" which paid special attention to increasing returns, the theory of the firm, and welfare economics; after his retirement leadership passed to Alfred Pigou and John Maynard Keynes.

Economics

He desired to improve the mathematical rigor of economics and transform it into a more scientific profession. In the 1870s he wrote a small number of tracts on international trade and the problems of protectionism. In 1879, many of these works were compiled into a work entitled ''The Pure Theory of Foreign Trade: The Pure Theory of Domestic Values''. In the same year (1879) he published ''The Economics of Industry'' with his wife Mary Paley Marshall.

Although Marshall took economics to a more mathematically rigorous level, he did not want mathematics to overshadow economics and thus make economics irrelevant to the layman. Accordingly, Marshall tailored the text of his books to laymen and put the mathematical content in the footnotes and appendices for the professionals. In a letter to A. L. Bowley, he laid out the following system: }}

Marshall had been Mary Paley's professor of political economy at Cambridge and the two were married in 1877, forcing Marshall to leave his position as a Fellow (college) of St John's College, Cambridge in order to comply with celibacy rules at the university. He became the first principal at University College, Bristol, which was the institution that later became the University of Bristol, again lecturing on political economy and economics. He perfected his ''Economics of Industry'' while at Bristol, and published it more widely in England as an economic curriculum; its simple form stood upon sophisticated theoretical foundations. Marshall achieved a measure of fame from this work, and upon the death of William Jevons in 1882, Marshall became the leading British economist of the scientific school of his time.

Marshall returned to Cambridge, via a brief period at Balliol College, Oxford during 1883–4, to take the seat as Professor of Political Economy in 1884 on the death of Henry Fawcett. At Cambridge he endeavored to create a new tripos for economics, a goal which he would only achieve in 1903. Until that time, economics was taught under the Historical and Moral Sciences Triposes which failed to provide Marshall the kind of energetic and specialized students he desired.

''Principles of Economics'' (1890)

Marshall began his seminal work, the ''Principles of Economics'', in 1881, and spent much of the next decade at work on the treatise. His plan for the work gradually extended to a two-volume compilation on the whole of economic thought. The first volume was published in 1890 to worldwide acclaim that established him as one of the leading economists of his time. The second volume, which was to address foreign trade, money, trade fluctuations, taxation, and collectivism, was never published.

''Principles of Economics'' established his worldwide reputation. It appeared in 8 editions, starting at 750 pages and growing to 870 pages. It decisively shaped the teaching of economics in English-speaking countries. Its main technical contribution was a masterful analysis of the issues of elasticity, consumer surplus, increasing and diminishing returns, short and long terms, and marginal utility; many of the ideas were original with Marshall, others were improved version of ideas by W. S. Jevons and others.

In a broader sense Marshall hoped to reconcile the classical and modern theories of value. John Stuart Mill had examined the relationship between the value of commodities and their production costs, on the theory that value depends on effort expended in manufacture. Jevons and the Marginal Utility theorists had elaborated a theory of value based on the idea of maximizing utility, holding that value depends on demand. Marshall's work used both these approaches, but he focused more on costs. He noted that, in the short run, supply cannot be changed and market value depends mainly on demand. In an intermediate time period, production can be expanded by existing facilities, such as buildings and machinery; but since these do not require renewal within this intermediate period their costs (called fixed, overhead, or supplementary costs) have little influence on the sale price of the product. Marshall pointed out that it is the prime or variable costs, which constantly recur, that influence the sale price most in this period. In a still longer period, machines and buildings wear out and have to be replaced, so that the sale price of the product must be high enough to cover such replacement costs. This classification of costs into fixed and variable and the emphasis given to the element of time probably represent one of Marshall's chief contributions to economic theory. He was committed to partial equilibrium models over general equilibrium on the grounds that the inherently dynamical nature of economics made the former more practically useful.

Much of the success of Marshall's teaching and ''Principles'' book derived from his effective use of diagrams, which were soon emulated by other teachers worldwide.

Later career

He served as President of the first day of the 1889 Co-operative Congress.

Over the next two decades he worked to complete the second volume of his ''Principles,'' but his unyielding attention to detail and ambition for completeness prevented him from mastering the work's breadth. The work was never finished and many other, lesser works he had begun work on - a memorandum on trade policy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1890s, for instance - were left incomplete for the same reasons.

His health problems had gradually grown worse since the 1880s, and in 1908 he retired from the university. He hoped to continue work on his ''Principles'' but his health continued to deteriorate and the project had continued to grow with each further investigation. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 prompted him to revise his examinations of the international economy and in 1919 he published ''Industry and Trade'' at the age of 77. This work was a more empirical treatise than the largely theoretical ''Principles'', and for that reason it failed to attract as much acclaim from theoretical economists. In 1923, he published ''Money, Credit, and Commerce,'' a broad amalgam of previous economic ideas, published and unpublished, stretching back a half-century.

From 1890 to 1924 he was the respected father of the economic profession and to most economists for the half-century after his death, the venerable grandfather. He had shied away from controversy during his life in a way that previous leaders of the profession had not, although his even-handedness drew great respect and even reverence from fellow economists, and his home at Balliol Croft in Cambridge had no shortage of distinguished guests. His students at Cambridge became leading figures in economics, including John Maynard Keynes and Arthur Cecil Pigou. His most important legacy was creating a respected, academic, scientifically founded profession for economists in the future that set the tone of the field for the remainder of the 20th century.

Having died aged 81 at his home in Cambridge, Marshall is buried in the Ascension Parish Burial Ground. The library of the Department of Economics at Cambridge University (The Marshall Library of Economics), the Economics society at Cambridge (The Marshall Society) as well as the University of Bristol Economics department are named for him.

His home, Balliol Croft, was renamed Marshall House in 1991 in his honour when it was bought by Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.

Theoretical contributions

Marshall is considered to be one of the most influential economists of his time, largely shaping mainstream economic thought for the next fifty years, and being one of the founders of the school of neoclassical economics. Although his economics was advertised as extensions and refinements of the work of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus and John Stuart Mill, he extended economics away from its classical focus on the market economy and instead popularized it as a study of human behavior. He downplayed the contributions of certain other economists to his work, such as Leon Walras, Vilfredo Pareto and Jules Dupuit, and only grudgingly acknowledged the influence of Stanley Jevons himself.

Marshall's influence on codifying economic thought is difficult to deny. He popularized the use of supply and demand functions as tools of price determination (previously discovered independently by Cournot); modern economists owe the linkage between price shifts and curve shifts to Marshall. Marshall was an important part of the "marginalist revolution;" the idea that consumers attempt to adjust consumption until marginal utility equals the price was another of his contributions. The price elasticity of demand was presented by Marshall as an extension of these ideas. Economic welfare, divided into producer surplus and consumer surplus, was contributed by Marshall, and indeed, the two are sometimes described eponymously as 'Marshallian surplus.' He used this idea of surplus to rigorously analyze the effect of taxes and price shifts on market welfare. Marshall also identified quasi-rents.

Marshall's brief references to the social and cultural relations in the "industrial districts" of England were used as a starting point for late twentieth-century work in economic geography and institutional economics on clustering and learning organizations.

Gary Becker (b. 1930), the 1992 Nobel prize winner in economics, has mentioned that Milton Friedman and Alfred Marshall were the two greatest influences on his work.

Another contribution that Marshall made was differentiating concepts of internal and external economies of scale. That is that when costs of input factors of production go down, it's a positive externality for all the firms in the market place, outside the control of any of the firms.

The Marshallian industrial district

A concept based on a pattern of organization that was common in late nineteenth century Britain in which firms concentrating on the manufacture of certain products were geographically clustered. Comments made by Marshall in Book 4, Chapter 10 of Principles of Economics have been used by economists and economic geographers to discuss this phenomenon.

The two dominant characteristics of a Marshallian industrial district are high degrees of vertical and horizontal specialisation and a very heavy reliance on market mechanism for exchange. Firms tend to be small and to focus on a single function in the production chain. Firms located in industrial districts are highly competitive in the neoclassical sense, and in many cases there is little product differentiation. The major advantages of Marshallian industrial districts arise from simple propinquity of firms, which allows easier recruitment of skilled labour and rapid exchanges of commercial and technical information through informal channels. They illustrate competitive capitalism at its most efficient, with transaction costs reduced to a practical minimum; but they are feasible only when economies of scale are limited.

Works

''The Pure Theory of Foreign Trade: The Pure Theory of Domestic Values''.

''Principles of Economics''.

''The Economics of Industry'' (with Mary Paley Marshall)

''Industry and Trade''.

See also

Marshall Jevons, a pseudonym partly derived from Marshall's name

The Age of Marshall: Aspects of British Economic Thought - 1890-1915] by Narmadeshwar Jha, London: F. Cass, 1973

References

Bibliography and further reading

Backhouse, Roger E. "Sidgwick, Marshall, and the Cambridge School of Economics." ''History of Political Economy'' 2006 38(1): 15-44. Issn: 0018-2702 Fulltext: Ebsco

Cook, Simon J. "Late Victorian Visual Reasoning and Alfred Marshall's Economic Science." ''British Journal for the History of Science'' 2005 38(2): 179-195. Issn: 0007-0874

Cook, Simon J. ''The Intellectual Foundations of Alfred Marshall's Economic Science: A Rounded Globe of Knowledge'' (2009)

Groenewegen, Peter. ''A Soaring Eagle: Alfred Marshall: 1842-1924'' (1995) 880pp, the major scholarly biography

* Groenewegen, Peter. ''Alfred Marshall: Economist 1842-1924'' (2007, short version)

Keynes, John Maynard. "Alfred Marshall, 1842-1924," ''The Economic Journal'' 34#135 September, 1924 pp. 311–372, included in his ''Essays in Biography'' (1933, 1951) at 125-217, in JSTOR

Raffaelli, Tiziano et al. ''The Elgar Companion to Alfred Marshall'' 2006. 752 ISBN 1-84376-072-X.

Tullberg, Rita McWilliams. "Marshall, Alfred (1842�1924)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' 2004;

Tullberg, Rita McWilliams, ed. ''Alfred Marshall in Retrospect'' (1990) ·

External links

Biography of Alfred Marshall in the ''Concise Encyclopedia of Economics''

''Principles of Economics'', by Alfred Marshall, at the Library of Economics and Liberty.

''Principles of Economics'', free audio downloads from Librivox.

Principles of economics by Alfred Marshall at the marxists.org.

Links to ''Principles'', ''Industry and Trade'', chapters on the pure theory of international trade and domestic value, and article "On Rent" and reviews by Edgeworth, Pigou, and Wagner.

''Money, Credit and Commerce'', 1923. Amazon.com link to analytical Table of Contents, pp. 7–24.

List of major works.

Robertson, Paul L. and Langlois, Richard N. (1995) "Innovation, networks, and vertical integration" Elsevier Science B.V. PDF:

Category:1842 births Category:1924 deaths Category:Neoclassical economists Category:English economists Category:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Category:Academics of the University of Bristol Category:Old Merchant Taylors Category:Presidents of Co-operative Congress Category:Second Wranglers Category:Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge Category:Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford

ar:ألفرد مارشال az:Alfred Marşal be:Альфрэд Маршал be-x-old:Альфрэд Маршал bg:Алфред Маршал ca:Alfred Marshall cs:Alfred Marshall de:Alfred Marshall et:Alfred Marshall es:Alfred Marshall eu:Alfred Marshall fr:Alfred Marshall ko:앨프리드 마셜 id:Alfred Marshall it:Alfred Marshall he:אלפרד מרשל lv:Alfrēds Māršals hu:Alfred Marshall ms:Alfred Marshall nl:Alfred Marshall ja:アルフレッド・マーシャル no:Alfred Marshall nn:Alfred Marshall pl:Alfred Marshall pt:Alfred Marshall ro:Alfred Marshall ru:Маршалл, Альфред sk:Alfred Marshall sr:Алфред Маршал fi:Alfred Marshall sv:Alfred Marshall te:ఆల్ఫ్రెడ్ మార్షల్ th:อัลเฟรด มาร์แชล uk:Альфред Маршалл zh:艾尔弗雷德·马歇尔

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Sylvia Nasar
birth date	August 17, 1947
birth place	Rosenheim, Germany
occupation	Journalist Biographer Professor of Journalism }}

Sylvia Nasar (born 17 August 1947 in Rosenheim) is a German-born American economist and author, best known for her biography of John Forbes Nash, ''A Beautiful Mind''.

Early life and history

Nasar was born to a German mother and an Uzbek father; CIA agent Ruzi Nazar (Nasar). Her family immigrated to the United States in 1951, then moved to Ankara, Turkey in 1960. She graduated from Antioch College in 1970, and earned a masters' degree in economics at New York University in 1976. For four years, she did research with Nobel Laureate Wassily Leontief. She is currently the Knight Chair in Business Journalism at Columbia University. Her husband is the economist Darryl McLeod. She has three children and lives in Tarrytown, New York.

Manifold Destiny

In the 28 August 2006 ''The New Yorker'', Nasar's article "Manifold Destiny" contained the only interview with Grigori Perelman, who solved the Poincaré conjecture, but rejected the 2006 Fields Medal, and examined Fields Medalist S.T. Yau's response to Perelman's proof. Yau threatened to file a lawsuit, but never followed through.

Works

''A Beautiful Mind: A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics'' Simon & Schuster, 1994. ISBN 0684819066

''Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius'' Simon & Schuster, Sept. 13, 2011. ISBN 9780684872988

External links

Sylvia Nasar Official Website

Columbia University Faculty Page

Interview

Biography by Royce Carlton Inc.

Lecture by Nasar

Manifold Destiny by Sylvia Nasar & David Gruber

Category:1947 births Category:American biographers Category:American journalists Category:German emigrants to the United States Category:Living people Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Antioch College alumni Category:Columbia University faculty Category:The New Yorker people Category:American people of Uzbek descent Category:The New York Times people

de:Sylvia Nasar es:Sylvia Nasar uz:Sylvia Nasar pl:Sylvia Nasar ru:Назар, Сильвия

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Joseph Schumpeter
school tradition	Austrian School
color	firebrick
birth date	February 08, 1883
birth place	Třešť, Moravia, Austria–Hungary (now Czech Republic)
death date	January 08, 1950
death place	Taconic, Connecticut, U.S.
institution	Harvard University 1932-50University of Bonn 1925-32Biedermann Bank 1921-24University of Graz 1912-14University of Czernowitz 1909-11
field	Economics
alma mater	University of Vienna
influences	Tocqueville, Marx, Spencer, Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, Wieser, Schmoller, Weber, Sombart, Durkheim, Walras, Pareto, Juglar
opposed	Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes
influenced	Christopher Freeman, Dahl, Kirzner, Hicks, Friedman, Samuelson, Tobin, Williams, Bergson, Georgescu-Roegen, Heilbroner, Huntington
contributions	Business cyclesEconomic developmentEntrepreneurshipEvolutionary economics
signature	}}

Joseph Alois Schumpeter (8 February 1883 – 8 January 1950) was an Austrian-American economist and political scientist. He popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics.

Life

Born in Třešť, Moravia (now Czech Republic, then part of Austria-Hungary) in 1883 to Catholic ethnic German parents. His father owned a factory, but he died when Joseph was only four years old. In 1893, Joseph and his mother moved to Vienna.

Schumpeter began his career studying law at the University of Vienna under the Austrian capital theorist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, taking his PhD in 1906. In 1909, after some study trips, he became a professor of economics and government at the University of Czernowitz. In 1911 he joined the University of Graz, where he remained until World War I. In 1919-1920, he served as the Austrian Minister of Finance, with some success, and in 1920-1924, as president of the private Biedermann Bank. That bank, along with a great part of that regional economy, collapsed in 1924 leaving Schumpeter bankrupt.

From 1925-1932, he held a chair at the University of Bonn, Germany. He lectured at Harvard in 1927-1928 and 1930. In 1931 he was a visiting professor at The Tokyo College of Commerce. In 1932 he moved to the United States, in 1939 he became an US citizen. Schumpeter had a highly conservative political attitude. In the beginning of WWII, the FBI investigated him for pro-Nazi leanings, but no evidence was found that he had any sympathies for Nazism. Although, he is reported to have said that there were too many fine horsemen in Austria for him to succeed in all his aspirations!

He died in his home in Taconic, Connecticut, at the age of 66, on the night of 7 January 1950.

Most important work

According to Christopher Freeman (2009), a scholar who devoted much time researching Schumpeter's work: "the central point of his whole life work [is]: that capitalism can only be understood as an evolutionary process of continuous innovation and 'creative destruction' [This] is still not taken into the bosom of mainstream theory, although many now pay lip service to it."

Evolutionary economics

''History of Economic Analysis''

Schumpeter's scholarship is apparent in his posthumous ''History of Economic Analysis'', although some of his judgments seem idiosyncratic and sometimes cavalier. For instance, Schumpeter thought that the greatest 18th century economist was Turgot, not Adam Smith, as many consider, and he considered Léon Walras to be the "greatest of all economists", beside whom other economists' theories were "like inadequate attempts to catch some particular aspects of Walrasian truth". Schumpeter criticized John Maynard Keynes and David Ricardo for the "Ricardian vice." According to Schumpeter, Ricardo and Keynes reasoned in terms of abstract models, where they would freeze all but a few variables. Then they could argue that one caused the other in a simple monotonic fashion. This led to the belief that one could easily deduce policy conclusions directly from a highly abstract theoretical model.

Business cycles

Schumpeter's relationships with the ideas of other economists were quite complex in his most important contributions to economic analysis - the theory of business cycles and development. Following neither Walras nor Keynes, Schumpeter starts in ''The Theory of Economic Development'' with a treatise of circular flow which, excluding any innovations and innovative activities, leads to a stationary state. The stationary state is, according to Schumpeter, described by Walrasian equilibrium. The hero of his story is the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur disturbs this equilibrium and is the prime cause of economic development, which proceeds in cyclic fashion along several time scales. In fashioning this theory connecting innovations, cycles, and development, Schumpeter kept alive the Russian Nikolai Kondratiev's ideas on 50-year cycles, Kondratiev waves.

Schumpeter suggested a model in which the four main cycles, Kondratiev (54 years), Kuznets (18 years), Juglar (9 years) and Kitchin (about 4 years) can be added together to form a composite waveform. Actually there was considerable professional rivalry between Schumpeter and Kuznets. The wave form suggested here did not include the Kuznets Cycle simply because Schumpeter did not recognize it as a valid cycle. See "Business Cycle" for further information. A Kondratiev wave could consist of three lower degree Kuznets waves. Each Kuznets wave could, itself, be made up of two Juglar waves. Similarly two (or three) Kitchin waves could form a higher degree Juglar wave. If each of these were in phase, more importantly if the downward arc of each was simultaneous so that the nadir of each was coincident it would explain disastrous slumps and consequent depressions. As far as the segmentation of the Kondratiev Wave, Schumpeter never proposed such a fixed model. He saw these cycles varying in time - although in a tight time frame by coincidence - and for each to serve a specific purpose.

Schumpeter and Keynesianism

Unlike Keynes, in Schumpeter's theory, Walrasian equilibrium is not adequate to capture the key mechanisms of economic development. Schumpeter also thought that the institution enabling the entrepreneur to purchase the resources needed to realize his or her vision was a well-developed capitalist financial system, including a whole range of institutions for granting credit. One could divide economists among (1) those who emphasized "real" analysis and regarded money as merely a "veil" and (2) those who thought monetary institutions are important and money could be a separate driving force. Both Schumpeter and Keynes were among the latter.

Schumpeter and capitalism's demise

Schumpeter's most popular book in English is probably ''Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy''. This book opens with a treatment of Karl Marx. While he is sympathetic to Marx's theory that capitalism will collapse and will be replaced by socialism, Schumpeter concludes that this will not come about in the way Marx predicted. To describe it he borrowed the phrase "creative destruction", and made it famous by using it to describe a process in which the old ways of doing things are endogenously destroyed and replaced by new ways.

Schumpeter's theory is that the success of capitalism will lead to a form of corporatism and a fostering of values hostile to capitalism, especially among intellectuals. The intellectual and social climate needed to allow entrepreneurship to thrive will not exist in advanced capitalism; it will be replaced by socialism in some form. There will not be a revolution, but merely a trend in parliaments to elect social democratic parties of one stripe or another. He argued that capitalism's collapse from within will come about as democratic majorities vote for restrictions upon entrepreneurship that will burden and destroy the capitalist structure, but also emphasizes non-political, evolutionary processes in society where "liberal capitalism" was evolving into democratic socialism because of the growth of workers' self-management, industrial democracy and regulatory institutions. Schumpeter emphasizes throughout this book that he is analyzing trends, not engaging in political advocacy. In his vision, the intellectual class will play an important role in capitalism's demise. The term "intellectuals" denotes a class of persons in a position to develop critiques of societal matters for which they are not directly responsible and able to stand up for the interests of strata to which they themselves do not belong. One of the great advantages of capitalism, he argues, is that as compared with pre-capitalist periods, when education was a privilege of the few, more and more people acquire (higher) education. The availability of fulfilling work is however limited and this, coupled with the experience of unemployment, produces discontent. The intellectual class is then able to organize protest and develop critical ideas.

Schumpeter and democratic theory

In the same book, Schumpeter expounded a theory of democracy which sought to challenge what he called the "classical doctrine". He disputed the idea that democracy was a process by which the electorate identified the common good, and politicians carried this out for them. He argued this was unrealistic, and that people's ignorance and superficiality meant that in fact they were largely manipulated by politicians, who set the agenda. This made a 'rule by the people' concept both unlikely and undesirable. Instead he advocated a minimalist model, much influenced by Max Weber, whereby democracy is the mechanism for competition between leaders, much like a market structure. Although periodic votes by the general public legitimize governments and keep them accountable, the policy program is very much seen as their own and not that of the people, and the participatory role for individuals is usually severely limited.

Schumpeter and entrepreneurship

The research of entrepreneurship owes a lot to his contributions. He was probably the first scholar to develop its theories. He gave two theories, sometimes called Mark I and Mark II. In the first one, the early one, Schumpeter argued that the innovation and technological change of a nation comes from the entrepreneurs, or wild spirits. He coined the word ''Unternehmergeist'', German for ''entrepreneur-spirit''. He believed that these individuals are the ones who make things work in the economy of the country. In Mark II, expanded as professor at Harvard, he asserted that the actors that drive innovation and the economy are big companies which have the resources and capital to invest in research and development. Both arguments might be complementary today.

Schumpeter and Innovation

Schumpeter identified innovation as the critical dimension of economic change. He argued that economic change revolves around innovation, entrepreneurial activities and market power and sought to prove that innovation-originated market power could provide better results than the invisible hand & price competition. He argues that technological innovation often creates temporary monopolies, allowing abnormal profits that would soon be competed away by rivals and imitators. He said that these temporary monopolies were necessary to provide the incentive necessary for firms to develop new products and processes.

Schumpeter and the Gold Standard

Joseph Schumpeter recognized the implication of a gold monetary standard compared to a fiat monetary standard. In ''History of Economic Analysis'' he stated the following:

}}

His legacy

For some time after his death, Schumpeter's views were most influential among various heterodox economists, especially European, who were interested in industrial organization, evolutionary theory, and economic development, and who tended to be on the other end of the political spectrum from Schumpeter and were also often influenced by Keynes, Karl Marx, and Thorstein Veblen. Robert Heilbroner was one of Schumpeter's most renowned pupils, who wrote extensively about him in ''The Worldly Philosophers''. In the journal ''Monthly Review'' John Bellamy Foster wrote of that journal's founder Paul Sweezy, one of the leading Marxist economists in the United States and a graduate assistant of Schumpeter's at Harvard, that Schumpeter "played a formative role in his development as a thinker". Other outstanding students of Schumpeter's include the economists Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Hyman Minsky and former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan. Robert Solow, Nobel Prize in Economics, was his student at Harvard, and he expanded on Schumpeter's theory.

Today, Schumpeter has a following outside of standard textbook economics, in areas such as in economic policy, management studies, industrial policy, and the study of innovation. Schumpeter was probably the first scholar to develop theories about entrepreneurship. For instance, the European Union's innovation program, and its main development plan, the Lisbon Strategy, are influenced by Schumpeter. The International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society awards the Schumpeter Prize.

The Schumpeter School of Business and Economics opened in October 2008 at the University of Wuppertal. According to University President Professor Lambert T. Koch, “Schumpeter will not only be the name of the Faculty of Management and Economics, but this is also a research and teaching programme related to Joseph A. Schumpeter."

On 17 September 2009, The Economist inaugurated a column on business and management named "Schumpeter." The publication has a history of naming columns after significant figures or symbols in the covered field, including naming its British affairs column after former editor Walter Bagehot and its European affairs column after Charlemagne. The initial Schumpeter column praised him as a "champion of innovation and entrepreneurship" whose writing showed an understanding of the benefits and dangers of business that proved far ahead of its time.

Major works

"Über die mathematische Methode der theoretischen Ökonomie", 1906, ''ZfVSV''.

"Das Rentenprinzip in der Verteilungslehre", 1907, ''Schmollers Jahrbuch''.

''Wesen und Hauptinhalt der theoretischen Nationalökonomie'' (transl. ''The Nature and Essence of Theoretical Economics''), 1908.

"Methodological Individualism", 1908,

"On the Concept of Social Value", 1909, ''QJE''.

''Wie studiert man Sozialwissenschaft'', 1910 (transl. by J.Z. Muller, "How to Study Social Science", ''Society'', 2003).

"Marie Esprit Leon Walras", 1910, ''ZfVSV''.

"Über das Wesen der Wirtschaftskrisen", 1910, ''ZfVSV''.

''Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung'' (transl. 1934, ''The Theory of Economic Development: An inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest and the business cycle'') 1911.

''Economic Doctrine and Method: An historical sketch'', 1914.

"Das wissenschaftliche Lebenswerk Eugen von Böhm-Bawerks", 1914, ''ZfVSV''.

''Vergangenkeit und Zukunft der Sozialwissenschaft'', 1915.

''The Crisis of the Tax State'', 1918.

"The Sociology of Imperialisms", 1919, ''Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik''

"Max Weber's Work", 1920, ''Der österreichische Volkswirt''.

"Carl Menger", 1921, ''ZfVS''.

"The Explanation of the Business Cycle", 1927, ''Economica''.

"Social Classes in an Ethnically Homogeneous Environment", 1927, ''Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik''.

"The Instability of Capitalism", 1928, ''EJ''.

''Das deutsche Finanzproblem'', 1928.

"Mitchell's Business Cycles", 1930, ''QJE''.

"The Present World Depression: A tentative diagnosis", 1931, ''AER''.

"The Common Sense of Econometrics", 1933, ''Econometrica''.

"Depressions: Can we learn from past experience?", 1934, in ''Economics of the Recovery Program''

"The Nature and Necessity of a Price System", 1934, ''Economic Reconstruction''.

"Review of Robinson's ''Economics of Imperfect Competition''", 1934, ''JPE''.

"The Analysis of Economic Change", 1935, ''REStat''.

"Professor Taussig on Wages and Capital", 1936, ''Explorations in Economics''.

"Review of Keynes's ''General Theory''", 1936, ''JASA''.

''Business Cycles: A theoretical, historical and statistical analysis of the Capitalist process'', 1939.

"The Influence of Protective Tariffs on the Industrial Development of the United States", 1940, ''Proceedings of AAPS''.

"Alfred Marshall's ''Principles'': A semi-centennial appraisal", 1941, ''AER''.

"Frank William Taussig", 1941, ''QJE''.

''Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy'', 1942.

"Capitalism in the Postwar World", 1943, ''Postwar Economic Problems''.

"John Maynard Keynes", 1946, ''AER''.

"The Future of Private Enterprise in the Face of Modern Socialistic Tendencies", 1946, ''Comment sauvegarder l'entreprise privée''

''Rudimentary Mathematics for Economists and Statisticians'', with W.L .Crum, 1946.

"Capitalism", 1946, ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.

"The Decade of the Twenties", 1946, ''AER''.

"The Creative Response in Economic History", 1947, ''JEH''.

"Theoretical Problems of Economic Growth", 1947, ''JEH''.

"Irving Fisher's Econometrics", 1948, ''Econometrica''.

"There is Still Time to Stop Inflation", 1948, ''Nation's Business''.

"Science and Ideology", 1949, ''AER''.

"Vilfredo Pareto", 1949, ''QJE''.

"Economic Theory and Entrepreneurial History", 1949, ''Change and the Entrepreneur''.

"The ''Communist Manifesto'' in Sociology and Economics", 1949, ''JPE''.

"English Economists and the State-Managed Economy", 1949, ''JPE''.

"The Historical Approach to the Analysis of Business Cycles", 1949, ''NBER Conference on Business Cycle Research''.

"Wesley Clair Mitchell", 1950, ''QJE''.

"March into Socialism", 1950, ''AER''.

''Ten Great Economists: From Marx to Keynes'', 1951.

''Imperialism and Social Classes'', 1951 (reprints of 1919, 1927)

''Essays on Economic Topics'', 1951.

"Review of the Troops", 1951, ''QJE''.

''History of Economic Analysis'', (published posthumously, ed. Elisabeth Boody Schumpeter), 1954.

"American Institutions and Economic Progress", 1983, ''Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Staatswissenschaft''

"The Meaning of Rationality in the Social Sciences", 1984, ''Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Staatswissenschaft''

"Money and Currency", 1991, ''Social Research''.

''Economics and Sociology of Capitalism'', 1991.

See also

List of Austrians

Austrian School of economics (Schumpeter was not a member of the movement)

List of Austrian scientists

Social innovation

Creative destruction

Capitalism

Socialism

Innovation

Schumpeterian rent

References

Further reading

Cheung, Edward "Baby Boomers, Generation X and Social Cycles" "The latest findings on Schumpeter's Creative Destruction."

Robbins, L. C., 1955, "Schumpeter's History of Economic Analysis," ''Quarterly Journal of Economics 69'': 1-22.

Muller, Jerry Z., 2002. ''The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought''. Anchor Books.

Groenewegen, Peter, 2003. ''Classics and Moderns in Economics: Essays on Nineteenth And Twentieth Century Economic Thought: Vol. 2''. Routledge. Chpt. 22, pp 203+.

External links

Retrieved on December 4, 2007. Retrieved on December 4, 2007. Retrieved on December 4, 2007. Retrieved on December 4, 2007. Retrieved on December 4, 2007.

Category:1883 births Category:1950 deaths Category:People from Třešť Category:Moravian Germans Category:Austrian Roman Catholics Category:Austrian economists Category:Austrian politicians Category:Heterodox economists Category:Historians of economic thought Category:Macroeconomists Category:Harvard University people Category:Development economists Category:University of Bonn faculty Category:University of Vienna alumni Category:Austrian people of Moravian German descent

bn:ইয়োজেফ শুম্‌পেটার bg:Йозеф Шумпетер ca:Joseph Schumpeter cs:Josef Alois Schumpeter da:Joseph Schumpeter de:Joseph Schumpeter es:Joseph Alois Schumpeter eo:Joseph Schumpeter fr:Joseph Schumpeter ko:조지프 슘페터 hy:Ջոզեֆ Շումպետեր hr:Joseph Alois Schumpeter io:Joseph Alois Schumpeter is:Joseph Schumpeter it:Joseph Schumpeter he:יוזף שומפטר la:Iosephus Schumpeter lv:Jozefs Šumpeters nl:Joseph Schumpeter ja:ヨーゼフ・シュンペーター no:Joseph Schumpeter pl:Joseph Schumpeter pt:Joseph Schumpeter ro:Joseph Schumpeter ru:Шумпетер, Йозеф simple:Joseph Schumpeter sk:Joseph Alois Schumpeter sr:Јозеф Шумпетер fi:Joseph Schumpeter sv:Joseph Schumpeter tr:Joseph Alois Schumpeter zh:约瑟夫·熊彼特

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″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

af:Charles Dickens ar:تشارلز ديكنز an:Charles Dickens ast:Charles Dickens az:Çarlz Dikkens bn:চার্লস ডিকেন্স zh-min-nan:Charles Dickens ba:Чарльз Диккенс be:Чарльз Дыкенс be-x-old:Чарлз Дыкенз bg:Чарлз Дикенс bs:Charles Dickens br:Charles Dickens ca:Charles Dickens cs:Charles Dickens cy:Charles Dickens da:Charles Dickens de:Charles Dickens et:Charles Dickens el:Κάρολος Ντίκενς es:Charles Dickens eo:Charles Dickens eu:Charles Dickens fa:چارلز دیکنز hif:Charles Dickens fr:Charles Dickens fy:Charles Dickens ga:Charles Dickens gv:Charles Dickens gd:Charles Dickens gl:Charles Dickens ko:찰스 디킨스 hy:Չարլզ Դիքենս hi:चार्ल्स डिकेंस hr:Charles Dickens io:Charles Dickens id:Charles Dickens is:Charles Dickens it:Charles Dickens he:צ'ארלס דיקנס jv:Charles Dickens kn:ಚಾರ್ಲ್ಸ್‌ ಡಿಕನ್ಸ್ ka:ჩარლზ დიკენსი sw:Charles Dickens mrj:Диккенс, Чарльз la:Carolus Dickens lv:Čārlzs Dikenss lb:Charles Dickens lt:Charles Dickens lij:Charles Dickens li:Charles Dickens hu:Charles Dickens mk:Чарлс Дикенс ml:ചാൾസ് ഡിക്കെൻസ് mr:चार्ल्स डिकन्स xmf:ჩარლზ დიკენსი arz:تشارلز ديكينز ms:Charles Dickens mn:Чарльз Диккенс my:ဒစ်ကင်း၊ ချားလ်စ် nl:Charles Dickens ja:チャールズ・ディケンズ no:Charles Dickens nn:Charles Dickens oc:Charles Dickens pnb:چارلز ڈکنز ps:چارلېز ډيکېنز pms:Charles Dickens pl:Karol Dickens pt:Charles Dickens kaa:Charles Dickens ro:Charles Dickens qu:Charles Dickens rue:Чарлз Діккенс ru:Диккенс, Чарльз sah:Чарлз Дикенс sq:Charles Dickens scn:Charles Dickens simple:Charles Dickens sk:Charles Dickens sl:Charles Dickens ckb:چارلز دیکینز sr:Чарлс Дикенс sh:Charles Dickens fi:Charles Dickens sv:Charles Dickens tl:Charles Dickens ta:சார்லஸ் டிக்கின்ஸ் tt:Charles Dickens te:చార్లెస్ డికెన్స్ th:ชาร์ลส์ ดิกคินส์ tg:Чарлз Дикенс tr:Charles Dickens uk:Чарлз Діккенс ur:چارلس ڈکنز vi:Charles Dickens vo:Charles Dickens war:Charles Dickens yo:Charles Dickens zh-yue:狄更斯 diq:Charles Dickens bat-smg:Čarlzos Dėkensos zh:查尔斯·狄更斯

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Amanda Meta Marshall
background	solo_singer
origin	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
genre	Adult contemporary, R&B;
years active	1995–present
label	Epic Records
associated acts	Mila Mason, David Tyson
website	}}

Amanda Meta Marshall (born August 29, 1972 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian pop-rock singer.

She grew up in Toronto in a biracial family to a White Canadian father and a Black Trinidadian mother. In several of her songs, Marshall has reflected on her racial identity "as a woman who looks white but is also half-black".

Marshall studied music extensively during her childhood, including at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. While performing on the Queen Street West bar scene in her teens, she met guitarist Jeff Healey, who was struck by her powerful voice and took her on tour.

Career

She signed a recording contract with Metalblade Records in 1991, but both parties agreed that they were not a good fit and went their separate ways. In 1995, Marshall signed to Epic Records, and released her debut album ''Amanda Marshall'' the same year. The album was a major success in Canada, generating a great deal of airplay and spawning six Top 40 hits -- "Let It Rain," "Beautiful Goodbye," "Dark Horse," "Fall From Grace," "Sitting on Top of the World," and "Birmingham," her most successful hit in Canada and the only song to reach the US charts.

In 1997, her song "I'll Be Okay" was included into the original soundtrack of ''My Best Friend's Wedding''.

In 1999, she released a successful follow-up album, ''Tuesday's Child''. It followed in the same vein as her debut, with a mix of soulful pop songs and ballads, characterizing her powerful voice. Her song "Ride" from that album would be featured in the ''The Replacements'' and on its soundtrack. Another single from that album, "Believe In You," was featured on one episode of ''Touched By An Angel'', while Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi was the guest guitarist on the track "Why Don't You Love Me." She also co wrote a song with Carol King on the track "Right Here All Along". Carol King also performed background vocals on the same track.

In 2001, she released her third album, ''Everybody's Got a Story''. It marked a change in style and sound for Marshall, with a noticeable R&B; influence. Her singles "Everybody's Got a Story" and "Sunday Morning After" received some Canadian airplay, and for the album, Marshall worked with the likes of Peter Asher and Billy Mann.

In 2003, she released a greatest hits album entitled ''Intermission: The Singles Collection'', which was followed by another greatest hits album, ''Collections'', in 2006. In 2008, yet another greatest hits album, ''The Steel Box Collection'', was released.

In 2007, the ''Canadian Idol'' Top Ten Finalists covered Amanda's song "I Believe In You." The profits from this track were to be donated to Ronald McDonald House Charities across Canada.

On July 1, 2009, Amanda Marshall performed during a Canada Day celebration concert at Chinguacousy Park in Brampton, ON. On July 9, 2009, she performed at the 2009 Kinsmen Cornwall Lift-Off in Cornwall, Ontario.

Amanda Marshall's absence from the music scene was due to legal battles with her record label after she fired her management in 2002. As the disputes are not yet settled, Amanda Marshall is not allowed to reveal the substance of the disputes.

Amanda Marshall's latest appearance was a concert at Casino Rama on November 5, 2010.

Amanda has not released a studio album since 2001, but is said to be working on a new one- no release has been set for the CD

Discography

Albums

Year	Album	Chart Positions	!rowspan=2
!width=45	!width=45	!width=45	!width=45
1995
1999	''Tuesday's Child''
2001	''Everybody's Got a Story''

Compilations

!Year	!Album	CAN
2003	''Intermission: The Singles Collection''
2006
2008	''The Steel Box Collection''

Singles

Year	Title	Chart Positions	Album
!width=45	CAN AC	!width=45	!width=45
1995	"Let It Rain"
	"Birmingham"
"Fall from Grace"
"Beautiful Goodbye"
	"Sitting on Top of the World"
"Trust Me (This Is Love)"
"This Could Take All Night"					''Tin Cup'' (soundtrack)
"I'll Be Okay"					''My Best Friend's Wedding'' (soundtrack)
1998	"Believe in You"
	"Love Lift Me"
"If I Didn't Have You"
	"Shades of Gray"
"Why Don't You Love Me?"
2001	"Everybody's Got a Story"
	"Sunday Morning After"
"Marry Me"
"Double Agent"
	"The Voice Inside"
"Until We Fall In"					''Intermission: The Singles Collection''

References

External links

Official Website (last updated in 2003)

Fan Website with all Releases(Albums, Singles, Promos etc. (last updated in 2010)

Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:Canadian female singers Category:Canadian pop singers Category:Canadian singer-songwriters Category:Musicians from Toronto Category:Epic Records artists Category:Black Canadian musicians Category:Canadian people of Trinidad and Tobago descent Category:The Royal Conservatory of Music alumni

de:Amanda Marshall es:Amanda Marshall it:Amanda Marshall nl:Amanda Marshall ja:アマンダ・マーシャル pl:Amanda Marshall pt:Amanda Marshall sv:Amanda Marshall