I CAN ASK QUESTIONS!

What does Oliver do tonight?

Where does Oliver  live?

The life of Charles Dickens
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unKuZ2wlNdw[/youtube]
Charles John Huffman Dickens was born on the 7th February 1812. His parents were John and Elizabeth Dickens. He was the second child of 8 siblings. John, the father always spent beyond his means. One day he pointed out a house to Charles remarking that he could live in such a house if he worked hard. The family moved to London in 1822. At 12 as the family finances worsened, he started working in a blacking factory labelling bottles for 11 hours a day. John Dickens was eventually sent to a debtors’ prison. Charles visited him every Sunday.
In 1827 he began work as a sollicitor’s clerk. From the surrounding of his office he began to collect names and characteristics of the people he saw.
He began a journalistic career in 1831. Writing became his passion. Working for the paper by day and on his own work by night he was beginning to taste success. His first piece of fiction was published in 1835. That same year Charles met Catherine Hogarth. They fell in love and were married. The further years resulted of much writing and many children. As his writing became more popular and his fame more widespread, rumours began to abound on his drunkenness and admission to an asylum. Stories were easy to concoct about the writer who kept a pet raven and whose writing dealt with the extreme of the sentimental and the grotesque. In 1842 Charles and Catherine set sail for America . On landing to Boston , they were mocked by crowds. He took his whole family on his next big trip to Italy in the summer of 1844. When he returned he looked for new diversions and he helped to start and edit a radical newspaper, founded a refuge for homeless women and performed his work at performed readings. Aged 44 Charles bought the house his father had showed him as a child. It symbolized the pinnacle of achievement. While Dickens was organizing a theatrical project « The frozen deek » , he met a young actress, Ellen Ternan. There was much speculation about this relationship that caused the end of his marriage with Catherine Hogarth.One fateful (catastrophique) night 1865 while Charles and Helen were returning from Paris, the train crashed.Only at the last minute did he remember to retrieve the final part of « Our mutual friend » from the wrecked(endommagé) carriage. The incident left Charles very shaken and his health began to fail.At home on the night of the 9th of June 1870, at the age of 58, Charles suffered a stroke and died. He is buried in Westminster abbey.

Lire sur Dickens ici :http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/charles_dickens/

• The Pickwick Papers (1836)
• Oliver Twist (1837)
• Nicholas Nickleby (1838)
• The Old Curiosity Shop (1840)
• Barnaby Rudge (1841)
• Martin Chuzzlewit (1843)
• Dombey and Son (1846)
• David Copperfield (1849)
• Bleak House (1852)
• Hard Times (1854)
• Little Dorrit (1855)
• A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
• Great Expectations (1860)
• Our Mutual Friend (1864)
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870).

• 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).