1836: I Became a Literary Giant in Great Britain

In profit-driven London, the fact that Michael might turn away business that comes his way, and even personally take him to see Dickens, certainly surprised Michel.

"Michael, thank you." Michelle sincerely expressed her gratitude, "I'll remember this favor."

"Don't thank me yet." Michael waved his hand, a sly look on his face. "When you become a great writer, remember to mention to others that it was Michael from the London Express who first discovered you. That would be the best thank you to me."

He picked up the cup of tea, which had long since gone cold, drank it down in one gulp, stood up, straightened his suit, and then pulled Michelle out.

"Michael, slow down, the manuscript is still on the table!" Michelle reminded him, both amused and exasperated.

"Oh right, right! Look at my memory." Michael slapped his forehead, grabbed the brown paper bag, stuffed it into his pocket like a treasure, and then pulled Michelle out of the coffee shop.

The streets of London were as crowded and busy as ever. The two flagged down a carriage, and Michael immediately gave an address: "48 Dowdy Street, driver, please hurry!"

The carriage bumped along the cobblestone road, and Michelle's heart was pounding with anxiety.

He looked at the street scene rushing past him, then at Michael next to him who was beaming with excitement, and a sense of unreality welled up inside him again.

Charles Dickens

This name was legendary in his original world; he was a figure written into literary history.

He is considered the uncrowned king of Victorian literature. In later generations, his works have been translated into more than 150 languages ​​worldwide, with a cumulative circulation of over 10 billion copies. His works are among the most cited English literary works besides the Bible.

Tolstoy once said of Dickens: "Dickens is the greatest of all English writers; his works are full of love for humanity."

Now, he's actually going to meet a living Dickens.

It felt like a physics student about to discuss Newton's three laws of motion.

On the carriage, Michel couldn't help but recall what he knew about Dickens' life...

In the entire history of British literature, writers like Dickens are rare. From his youth, when he first entered the literary world, he enjoyed a smooth and successful career, receiving enthusiastic acclaim from readers; his works were read in almost every British household. After his death, his literary status rose even higher, and it could be said that he enjoyed both great success during his lifetime and after his passing.

If a person's life has a script, then 24-year-old Dickens is at a turning point in his life's script.

Before this year, Dickens had actually lived a rather miserable life. Two things profoundly influenced his life.

The first thing is his tragic childhood. Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812 and later moved to London. His father was a clerk in the naval department, earning two or three hundred pounds a year, which should have been considered middle class. However, his family had eight children, and his father, John, was a spendthrift, spending all his salary and having to borrow new money to pay off old debts. When Dickens was ten years old, the debt problem finally exploded, and his father went straight to jail.

(The picture shows the Martial West Debt Prison where Dickens' father was imprisoned.)

To make a living, at the age of eleven, he had to become an apprentice at the home of a distant relative. This relative ran a workshop that produced black shoe polish. There, his job was to line the shoe polish cans with a layer of oiled paper, then add a layer of blue paper, seal the cans, and affix the label. The workplace was in the basement, and he earned six shillings a week. After a while, he became very skilled at his job, and the boss thought he could be used as a live performer for passersby (this relative was really inhumane), so he placed him in the shop window. Boys and girls from the neighborhood would run over, munching on jam and bread, pressing their noses against the glass to watch him work.

These humiliating days left Dickens with a lifelong torment. His compassion for children, his conviction that no one could bear the suffering of a child, began at this time. Many years later, even after he achieved fame, he could not forget those terrible years, and the thought of them always weighed heavily on his mind. He never spoke of this past to anyone until later, when he finally freed himself from this burden through his novel, David Copperfield, his best work.

The second thing is that when he was eighteen, he was ruthlessly played by a scumbag woman. The profound impression left by first love is incomparable to anything else. Mother and first love are two fundamental elements in every artist's portrayal of a woman. In Dickens's case, his mother was incoherent and a foolish woman. So, the one who influenced him most was undoubtedly his first love.

This woman, Maria, was the daughter of a small-time banker, far wealthier than Dickens' family. Undoubtedly, Maria never considered marrying Dickens, but he was undeniably the most talented young man around her, so she was willing to have a fling with him, but only a fling. Dickens, however, took it all very seriously. After she returned from Paris after a few months, Dickens found his visits unwelcome. He pleaded for a meeting, and when he did, he disregarded his pride and begged, but it couldn't prevent the relationship from breaking down.

Therefore, like Byron, he was tormented by a woman's flirtatious and fickle nature early in his life. The difference is that, after being abandoned by Mary Ann Wellsworth, Byron inflicted the same pain on every other woman he encountered in his life. Dickens did not, but he also developed a bad habit: despising real women and preferring idealized ones.

This was extremely dangerous for his marriage because he would repeatedly compare reality with his dreams, discovering a vast difference, and ultimately becoming anxious and restless. His ideal woman was invincible; no one could defeat her. This planted a major time bomb in his marriage with his wife, Catherine.

As for the scheming Maria, she eventually married a businessman and disappeared from Dickens's life. If she hadn't instilled doubt in Dickens about love in his early years, Charles Dickens's character would have been entirely different.

It's a pity no.

Of course, Dickens wasn't exactly lucky in the early years either. Just two years ago, his father almost went to jail again for owing money, and to make matters worse, Dickens had signed the back of some of the bills, meaning that the debt could potentially implicate him. In the end, his father was released, but only because Dickens had borrowed money from friends using his own salary as collateral.

Goodness, while others live off their parents, Dickens' family was "lived off by their parents."

A tragic childhood, being manipulated by a scumbag woman, and being betrayed by his father—it can only be said that Dickens' first twenty years were full of debuffs.

Thinking about this, Michelle felt a little sorry for Dickens.