Today is the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birth. He was a frequent visitor to Manchester as Cotton Times- Understanding the Industrial Revolution reports:
"...[Charles Dickens regularly took] the platform at Athenaeum meetings alongside reformers and notables such as Disraeli. He reputedly based the character of the crippled Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol on the son of a friend who owned an Ardwick cotton mill, while the Grant Brothers, William and Daniel, the Ramsbottom industrialists, were the prototypes for the Cheeryble brothers in Nicholas Nickleby.
However, for all his reforming zeal and social conscience, Dickens produced only one work which reflected directly on the Industrial Revolution. His Hard Times (1854) was set in a mythical Coketown, identified variously with Manchester and Preston, and although not one of his better-known works, is worth reading for its descriptions of working-class life." http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/
See also the Weekly Top Shot meme.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity"
ReplyDeleteI assume this could have been written today!
Cheers - Stewart M - Australia
I am a fan and have several of his works on my bookshelves. Dickens characters live on in the English language and his observation of the the human condition stand today. Over a dozen major novels admired the world over and not just in the English world and the literati sniff at his work. He was a social campaigner and should be well thought of for his exposure of the "Yorkshire Schools" alone.
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday Mr Dickens. I have read all his works and Hard Times is one of my favourites, my number one is Martin Chuzzlewit and the great comedy invention of Nurse Gamp. When I lived in England I visited his birthplace in Portsmouth, it bet that little street is abuzz today.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely to live and walk where Charles Dickens walked. Happy birthday Mr Dickens.
ReplyDeleteLaura
Wonderful Chrissy!
ReplyDeleteDitto all of the above Chrissy..long live Mr Dickens!!
ReplyDeleteExcuse for having read so far only one book of him. A wonderful picture and thoughtful story of it. Please have a good Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteMr. Dickens is getting some attention over here today, too. He wrote a good many wonderful books and created numerous characters who live on today. (I have a thing for Uriah Heep.)
ReplyDeleteYou must have emptied your handbag of any embarrassing stuff before meeting your blogger friend . . .
'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...' I've been considering re-reading 'A Tale of Two Cities,' I haven't read that since high school...
ReplyDeleteI followed your link to Lancastershire, and the cotton mills. I reflect on the workers there particularly in the context of the American Civil War. At the time of the war, the main export of the entire United States was cotton. King cotton from the south. Cotton required slaves then before the cotton gin was invented. Eventually the war was fought over slavery. The south thought that by withholding cotton, Industry in the UK would collapse and it very nearly did. The workers, the folks hardest hit by this penury of cotton would not support slavery and the owners and the state ultimately did not cave in to Southern pressure. I think of that in reading the history.
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