On February 7, 1812, Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England. In 1833, at the tender age of 21, he submitted his first story (originally titled “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” but published as “Mr. Minns and his Cousin”) to a literary journal, and in 1836, he published his first book, Sketches by Boz, a collection of short pieces he’d written for newspapers and other periodicals. The collection was enough of a success that his publisher asked “Boz” to try his hand at writing descriptions for a series of “cockney sporting plates” by Robert Seymour, who had died a month after the series began; somewhat accidentally, the result would be Dickens’ first serialized novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (now generally called The Pickwick Papers). It became hugely popular: only 400 copies of the first installment were printed, but by the fifteenth installment, publishers Chapman and Hall were printing 40,000 copies at a time.

After that, Dickens became a star, and as you probably know, is still regularly counted among the best—and certainly most influential—English language novelists. Not to mention one of the greatest goths in literary history, due to his love of hanging out in the morgue, his parade of pet ravens (pour one out for Grips I–III), his affinity for writing rain scenes, and his secret bookcase door, which may not exactly be a goth thing but definitely gives Dark Academia vibes.

He also invented a whole host of words that we use all the time (“Butterfingers”! “Sawbones”! “Doormat” to refer to a person!), and probably still reigns as the most creative character-namer in literature. On the other hand, he hated America (too noisy and rude), he hated Hans Christian Andersen (too crafty), and worst of all, he really did 40-year-old women everywhere dirty with the character of Miss Havisham. We’ll probably have to forgive him those foibles, though, considering all the very good books he has written.

In other (old)

news this week

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is published, despite a certain canine’s efforts to the contrary (February 6, 1937) • William Shakespeare’s Richard II is performed at the Globe Theater (February 7, 1601) • Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is acquitted in its obscenity trial (February 7, 1857) • Tristan Tzara invents the term “dada” in the Café de la Terrasse in Zurich—according to Jean Arp, anyway (February 6, 1916) • Voltaire returns to Paris after 28 years of exile and receives some 300 visitors (February 11, 1778) • Oscar Wilde’s Salome premieres in Paris (February 11, 1896)

“When I am in a country where people still sing spontaneously, while working or even while strolling along the street, or beach, I feel comforted, and at home. I regret deeply that more people in more countries have given up the gift to others that is voluntary song. It is true many great voices have been “captured” on machines, I am not ungrateful. But if humans lose completely our human tendency to burst into song when the spirit moves us, we will be like birds who never learned to fly.”

Born this week in 1944

“It’s best not to dwell on what you’ve written, wishing it could be different. We all write what we can. We do the very best we can. You might think, oh, I wish I could write like so-and-so, but you have to write like yourself.”

–JUDY BLUME

Born this week in 1938