English writers. Мартемьянова Н.В. - 20 стр.

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wife.Catherine was a good woman but lacked great intelligence.She and Dickens had
10 children.The couple separated in 1858.
     Dickens had remarkable mental and physical energy.He recorded his activities in
thousands of letters, many of which make delightful reading.He spent much of his
crowded social life with friends from the worlds of art and literature.Dickens enjoyed
drama and went to the theatre as often as he could.When he was rich and famous, he
made a hobby of producing and acting in amateur theatrical productions.He had great
success giving public readings of his works.Dickens’gift for creating dramatic scenes in
his novels can be traced to his love for the theatre.
    Besides writing, editing, and touring as a dramatic reader, Dickens busied himself
with various charities.These charities included schools for the poor children and a loan
society to enable he poor to move to Austria.Dickens often walked for hours to work
off his remaining energy.He came to know the streets and alleys of London better,
perhaps, than any other person of his time.
    Dickens’ health began to decline about 1865 and he died of a stroke on June 9,1870.
   Dickens’ books Dickens wrote 20 novels (including 5 short Christmas books), and
many sketches, travel books, and other non-ficyion works.Not all of his books were
best sellers, but the most popular ones broke all sales records for the time.
    The first phase After the success of The Pickwick Papers,Dickens turned to
more serious themes and plots.However, he always introduced enough humor to keep
his books entertaining.
   Oliver twist(1837-1839) describes the adventures of a poor orphan boy.The book
was noted for its sensational presentation of London’s criminal world and for its attack
on England’s mistreatment of the poor.
   In Nicholas Nickleby(1838-1839), Dickens criticized greedy properties of private
schools, who treated students brutally and taught them nothing.
    Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844) is one of two books that Dickens based on his first
trip to America.The other is the travel book American Notes(1842).It is best known for
its unflattering picture of the crudeness of American manners and for its comic
characters.
    The second phase During the 1840s, Dickens’ view of Victorian society, and
perhaps of the world, grew darker.His humour became more bitter, often taking the
form of biting satire.His characters and plots seemed to emphasize the evil side of
human experience.
    Dombey and Son(1846-1848) deals primarily with a selfish egoist whose pride cuts
him off from the warmtn of human love.The book stresses the evils of the Victorian
admiration for money.Dickens believed that money had become the measure of all
personal relations and the goal of all ambition.
    With David Copperfield(1849-1850), Dickens temporarily lessened the role of
social criticism to concentrate more on semiautobiography.David’s youth is clearly
patterned after Dickens’ youth.
    Bleak House(1852-1853) is in many respects Dickens’ greatest novel .The book
deals with many social evils, chiefly wasteful and cruel legal progresses.It also attacks
the neglect of the poor, false humanitarians and clergymen, and poor sanitation.