Hence I set
Dickens at the head of modern novelists and give him an equal place
with Scott as the greatest English writer since Shakespeare.
Take it all in all, Dickens had a successful and a happy life. He was
born in 1812 and died in 1870. His boyhood was hard because of his
father's thriftlessness, and it always rankled in his memory that at
nine years of age he was placed at work pasting labels on boxes of
shoe blacking. But he had many chances in childhood and youth for
reading and study, and his keen mind took advantage of all these. He
was a natural mimic, and it was mere blind chance that kept him from
the stage and made him a great novelist. He drifted into newspaper
work as a shorthand reporter, wrote the stories that are known as
_Sketches by Boz_, and in this way came to be engaged to write the
_Pickwick Papers_, to serve as a story to accompany drawings by
Seymour, a popular artist. But Dickens from the outset planned the
story and Seymour lived only to illustrate the first number.
The tale caught the fancy of the public, and Dickens developed
Pickwick, the Wellers and other characters in a most amusing fashion.
Great success marked the appearance of the _Pickwick Papers_ in book
form, and the public appreciation gave Dickens confidence and
stimulus. Soon appeared _Oliver Twist_, _Nicholas Nickleby_, _Old
Curiosity Shop_ and the long line of familiar stories that ended with
_The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, left unfinished by the master's hand.
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