Charles Dickens is considered by many to be one of the greatest writers the English language has ever known. But, as is the case with most revered writers, greatness comes at a substantial price.
Born in Landport, Portsmouth in Hampshire, England in 1786, Dickens grew up in a moderately wealthy family in a largely idyllic time. Indeed, the days of his youth were spent outdoors reading voraciously the works Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding.
In 1798, when Dickens was only 12, the family’s time of living in prosperity abruptly came to end when his father was imprisoned at the Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison. An unfortunate victim of a father who was given to overspending, Dickens was removed from the privileged class and sent to work in a Warren’s Boot Blacking Factory. Working 10 hours a day pasting labels on bottles of shoe polish, Dickens witnessed firsthand the horrendous working conditions of English factories. He also witnessed firsthand the impact these kinds of jobs had on the human spirit.
To his great credit, Dickens never forgot what he saw and experienced at Warren’s Factory. Obsessed with portraying the human struggle, Dickens became one of the most prolific writers in literary history. To this day, not one of his novels or short stories has ever gone out of print.
As was certainly the case with Dickens, hardship is perhaps the single most important experience behind great writing. What is particularly interesting in Dickens’ case was the fact that when his father was ultimately released from Debtor’s Prison, Charles was kept at labor in the Boot Blacking Factory–an act he carried with him to his grave.
Leave a note.