Biography about Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Jane Austen

1. BIOGRAPHY ABOUT CHARLES DICKENS
PERSONAL INFORMATION
 Birth Name:
Charles John Huffham Dickens
 Date of Birth:
7 February 1812, Portsmouth,
Hampshire, England, UK
 Date of Death:
9 June 1870, Gad's Hill, Rochester, Kent, England, UK (cerebral haemorrhage)
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
● Charles John Huffen Dickens was born in Hampshire, England, on 7th
February 1812. He died on 4 th june 1870 ( Aged 58).
● Dickens left the school to work in a factory when his father was in prison. But
he wrote fifteen novels, hundreds of shorts stories and non-fiction articles and
lectured and performed extensively.
● Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer, generally considered to
be the greatest novelist of the Victorian period and responsible for some of
English literature's most iconic novels and characters.
● When he was only 12 years old, his father went to prison because of financial
problems and his family moved to Kent in London. Dickens left the school and
went to work in a factory. In 1813 he became a newspaper reporter. Soon he
started writing short stories for magazines.
● Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in April 1836.They had ten children and
he divorced in 1858.
● In 1858 he undertook a tour of the UK and Ireland, where he read excerpts
from his work publicly. After acquiring the house where he spent his
childhood, Gad’s Hill Place, in 1856, soon became their permanent residence.
● On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke in his house, after a full
day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next
day, on 9 June, five years to the day after the Staple hurst rail crash (9 June
1865), he died in Gad's Hill Place.
DICKENS’S CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLING
● Dickens was born in a poor family.
● He was a second child of eight children.
● His father was a clerk and his mother was a factory worker
● In 1824, Dickens worked in the factory (shoes polish) with his mother while
his father was being in prison.
● In the age of 12 he lived alone.
● In 1824- 1827 Dickens returned school in London.
● In the age of 15 he forced to leave school
● and worked as an office boy.
● In the following year he became
● a freelance reporter and stenographer
● (using shorthand to transcribe documents)
● at the law courts of London.

2. IMPORTANT WORKS
 In 1837 a form of serial publication became a standard method of writing and
producing fiction in the Victorian period.
 In the same year he was an editor of Bentley's Miscellany magazine and then
he started his new novel “Oliver Twist’”
 In 1842 Dickens was as popular in America as he was in England, went on a
five-month lecture tour of the United States, speaking out strongly against
slavery and in support of other reforms.
 On his return he wrote American Notes, a book that criticizes American life as
being culturally backward and materialistic.
 His next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844), describes the hero finding
that survival on the American frontier is more difficult than making his way in
England.
 During the years in which Chuzzlewit appeared, Dickens also published two
Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol and The Chimes.
FIRST MAJOR NOVEL
 After a year abroad in Italy and writing Pictures from Italy (1846), Dickens
published installments of Dombey and Son, which continued till 1848.
 Dickens's next novel, David Copperfield (1849–1850), is the first complete
record of the typical course of a young man's life in Victorian England. This
autobiographical novel fictionalized elements of Dickens's childhood, his
pursuit of a journalism career, and his love life. Though Copperfield is not
Dickens's greatest novel, it was his personal favorite.
 In 1850 Dickens began a new magazine, Household Words. His editorials
and articles touched upon English politics, social institutions, and family life.
HIS LATER WORK
 In 1859 his London readings continued, and he began a new weekly, All the
Year Round.
 The first installment of A Tale of Two Cities appeared in the opening number,
and the novel continued through November.
 In 1863, he did public readings both in Paris and London.
 “Our Mutual Friend” was begun in 1864, and appeared monthly until
November 1865.
 In the same year, Dickens was in poor health, due largely to consistent
overwork.
 In 1865, an incident occurred which disturbed Dickens greatly, both
psychologically and physically.
And finally Charles Dickens was one of the best writers in the world. His stories are
very good and famous and funny too. In my opinion, he was a very good writer.

3. BIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN
 Occupation: Author
 Born: November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri
 Died: April 21, 1910 in Redding, Connecticut
 Best known for: Writing the books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Where did Mark Twain grow up?
• Born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, Samuel L. Clemens wrote
under the pen name Mark Twain and went on to pen several novels, including
two major classics of American literature, The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was also a riverboat pilot,
journalist, lecturer, entrepreneur and inventor.
• Grew up near the Mississippi River his whole childhood.
• Learned how to pilot a steamboat in his 20s. He loved this job because it
suited his love of freedom.
• In 1861, the Civil War halted shipping on the Mississippi, so 26-year-old
Clemens traveled west to Nevada.
• 1862—published his first article under the pen name “Mark Twain”, riverboat
jargon for water 2 fathoms (12 feet) deep.
• 1867—Twain traveled to Europe and the Middle East, writing along the way.
Early Career
At the age of 11, Samuel's father died. To help the family, Samuel quit school and
went to work as an apprentice for a printer. It was here that he learned about writing.
Samuel was a funny kid and his writing reflected his personality.
Twain’s Best Known Works
• The Innocents Abroad (1869)
• Life on the Mississippi (1883)
• The last decades of Twain’s life were filled with sadness. He had to declare
bankruptcy in 1894.
• Between 1896 and 1910, he lost his home, his wife died, and 2 of his
daughters died.
• He died on April 21, 1909.
• An adventurer and wily intellectual, Mark Twain wrote the classic American
novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
• The Innocents Abroad Roughing It

4. BIOGRAPHY ABOUT JAME AUSTEN
 Jane Austen was born on16 December 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire,
England.
 She was the seventh of eight children born to Reverend George Austen, vicar
of Steventon, and his wife Cassandra.
 Apart from three years of school in Oxford which she attended with her older
sister, Cassandra, she was educated at home.
 At age 13, she was writing amusing and instructive parodies and variations
on 18th-century literature—from sentimental novels to serious histories.
 Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist.
 Noted for her witty studies of early-19th-century English society.
 Austen portrayed the quiet, day-to-day life of members of the upper middle
class.
 Her works combine romantic comedy with social satire and psychological
insight.
Childhood
• She was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire.
• She was the sixth of the eight children of a clergyman, Reverend George
Austen.
• She began to write as a teenager.
• In 1801 the family moved to Bath.
• After the death of Jane's father in 1805 Jane, her sister Cassandra and their
mother moved several times eventually settling in Chawton, near Steventon.
Youth
• As a young woman Jane enjoyed dancing (an activity which features
frequently in her novels) and she attended balls in many of the great houses
of the neighbourhood.
• She loved the country, enjoyed long country walks, and had many Hampshire
friends.
• After her father's death in 1805, his widow and daughters also suffered
financial difficulties and were forced to rely on the charity of the Austen sons.
• It was also at this time that, Jane fell in love, and when the young man died,
she was deeply upset. Later she accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris
Bigg-Wither, a wealthy landowner and brother to some of her closest friends,
but she changed her mind the next morning and was greatly upset by the
whole episode.
Some of her Novels (wrote six well known novel)
• Mansfield Park
• Pride and Prejudice
• Sense and Sensibility
• Emma
• Persuasion
• Northanger Abbey

5. Early works
The first period of her writing lasted from 1795 to 1798. During this time she wrote
the first versions of:
 Sense and Sensibility
 Pride and Prejudice
 Northanger Abbey
Later works
Austen’s second important period of writing lasted from 1811 to 1816:
revised and prepared Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice for publication
Wrote her last three completed novels:
 Mansfield Park (1814)
 Emma(1816)
 Persuasion (1818)