David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page

Dickens pared down A Christmas Carol for his public readings. Read an annotated version of Dickens' own reading text that can be read in a single sitting!

Map of Dickens' London

Learn more about the London locations Dickens wrote about
New!

Download a hi-res version of the
Dickens' London Map

Great animated
Life of Charles Dickens
by the BBC

Bits of Dickens...
Dickens in a single sitting:
Oliver Asks for More
Cratchit's Christmas
Steamboat Trip
Omnibuses
American Notes
More...

Dickens at the Movies

Dickens' visual style of writing lends itself easily to the stage and screen. The Internet Movie Database lists over 200 films made from Dickens' novels.

Please Help...
In the Charles Dickens tradition of helping the needy and the sick, the Charles Dickens Page supports the following charities. Please help!

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Finding cures. Saving children.

First Book
Books for needy kids

Charles Dickens Page at Zazzle!

Check out my Zazzle page!
Dickens t-shirts, mugs...

Enter Amazon.com from a link on this site and any purchase helps to support The Charles Dickens Page

Charles Dickens's England
New book and DVD
More information...

The Barnaby Rudge Read
Gina Dalfonzo's Dickensblog is sponsoring a group read of Dickens' Barnaby Rudge. Dickens published the novel in weekly parts from February 13 to November 27, 1841. The group will follow the original weekly parts and begin on February 13, reading roughly 2 chapters a week.
Join us!

All of Dickens' works for the Kindle-51 books...only $1.00!
...and much more.

See my photos from the 2009 Dickens on the Strand festival in Galveston, Texas.

Charles Dickens: the name conjures up visions of plum pudding and Christmas punch, quaint coaching inns and cozy firesides, but also of orphaned and starving children, misers, murderers, and abusive schoolmasters. Dickens was 19th century London personified, he survived its mean streets as a child and, largely self-educated, possessed the genius to become the greatest writer of his age.

See more on this topic...

Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, the son of a clerk at the Navy Pay Office. His father, John Dickens, continually living beyond his means, was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea in 1824. 12-year-old Charles was removed from school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory,

12-year-old Charles was removed from school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory earning six shillings a week to help support the family.

earning six shillings a week to help support the family. This dark experience cast a shadow over the clever, sensitive boy that became a defining experience in his life, he would later write that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age."

This childhood poverty and feelings of abandonment, although unknown to his readers until after his death, would be a heavy influence on Dickens' later views on social reform and the world he would create through his fiction.

Dickens would go on to write 15 major novels and countless short stories and articles before his death on June 9, 1870. He wished to be buried, without fanfare, in a small cemetery in Rochester, but the Nation would not allow it. He was laid to rest in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, the flowers from thousands of mourners overflowing the open grave. Among the more beautiful bouquets were many simple clusters of wildflowers, wrapped in rags.

Dickens Family Tree (17k pdf file)
Dickens Biography - David Cody, Associate Professor of English, Hartwick College
Dickensblog - Gina Dalfonzo