Question from Ashleigh: What was the most
hardist book to write?
Dear Ashleigh
The hardist (or as we professional writers
like to say "hardest")
books I ever wrote came early in my career. Eager to
make the most of the early success I found myself, in 1837
and 1838, writing two books at once: completing the writing
of The Pickwick Papers whilst starting writing Oliver
Twist. This was hard enough work I can assure
you, but it was made much more difficult when my wife's
sister, Mary Hogarth - a beautiful young woman whom I
loved as dearly as if she had been my own sister-died
unexpectedly. Overwhelmed by grief, and yet with two
novels to complete, I found myself in the hardest situation
of my career as a writer.
Faithfully yours
Charles Dickens
Question from Becky and Justine: How many books did you
write alltogether ?
Dear Becky and Justine
I wrote fourteen novels - although the last
of them, Edwin
Drood, was left unfinished at my death. In addition
to these works I wrote a dozen further shorter works, such
as A Christmas Carol (too short to be considered
a novel, I think) and various other collections of essays.
Faithfully yours
Charles Dickens
Question from Natasha & Laura (best friends): What was
it like in Victorian times?
Dear Becky and Justine
It was like your own times in many respects,
for people were born and grew-up and went to school; and
people took up jobs and worked; and people got married and
were given in marriage and had children of their own; and
people grew old and eventually died. Some things are constants
to all times and places.
Of course, we had no electricity - and, accordingly
there were no electrical devices of any kind, neither mobile
phones, nor televisions, nor anything else of that nature.
Neither had the 'internal combustion engine' been invented,
and so we had no cars, buses or lorries; although most people
got about perfectly well by walking, or by riding upon horses.
Nobody flew anywhere in aeroplanes, for aeroplanes had not
yet been invented, although some few intrepid souls did go
into the sky in hot-air balloons. But I often feel
that such technological devices - as, for instance, cars
and planes and mobile phones - are mere toys, entertaining
but not essential to human life; and therefore that my time
and yours are not essentially different.
Faithfully yours
Charles Dickens
Question from Tommy: How many people are there in your family?
Dear Tommy
I married my wife Catherine in 1836 and together
we proceeded to have a great number of children - ten
in all. Their
names were: Charles Junior, Mary, Katherine, Walter, Francis
(who went off to Canada and became a Mountie), Alfred, Edward
(who was nicknamed "Plorn" and who emigrated
to Australia), Sydney, Henry (who achieved great success
as a lawyer) and Dora (who I am sorry to say died aged only
a year-and-a-half old).
Faithfully yours
Charles Dickens |
