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 In 1859 Dickens published A TALE OF TWO CITIES, a historical novel of the French Revolution, which is read today most often as a school text. It is, while below the standard of the long and comprehensive "dark" novels, a fine evocation of the historical period and a moving tale of a surprisingly modern hero's self-sacrifice. Besides publishing this novel in the newly founded ALL THE YEAR ROUND, Dickens also published 17 articles, which appeared as a book in 1860 entitled THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER. Dickens' next novel, GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1860-1861), must rank as his most perfectly executed work of art. It tells the story of a young man's moral development in the course of his life -- from childhood in the provinces to gentleman's status in London. Not an autobiographical novel like DAVID COPPERFIELD, GREAT EXPECTATIONS belongs to the type of fiction called, in German, "Bildungsroman" (the novel of a man's education or formation by experience) and is one of the finest examples of the type. The next work in the Dickens canon had to wait for the (for him) unusual time of 3 years, but in 1864-1865 he produced OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, which challenges LITTLE DORRIT and BLEAK HOUSE for consideration as his masterpiece. Here the vision of English society in all its classes and institutions is presented most thoroughly and devastatingly, while two symbols are developed which resemble those of LITTLE DORRIt in credibility and interest. These symbols are the mounds of rubbish which rose to become features of the landscape in rapidly expanding London, and the river which flows through the city and provides a point of contact for all its members besides suggesting the course of human life from birth to death. In the closing years of his life Dickens worsened his declining health by giving numerous readings from his works. He never fully recovered from a railroad accident in which he had been involved in 1865 and yet insisted on traveling throughout the British Isles and America to read before tumultuous audiences. He broke down in 1869 and gave only a final series of readings in London in the following year. He also began THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD but died in 1870, leaving it unfinished. His burial in Westminster Abbey was an occasion of national mourning.
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Source: From ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD BIOGRAPHY (17 VOLS), Gale Group, © 1998 Gale. Reprinted by permission of The Gale Group. |
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