Charles Dickens

Full Report of the First Meeting of the Mudfog Association Charles Dickens

Publisher Marketing: The Mudfog Papers was written by Victorian era novelist Charles Dickens and published from 1837-38 in the monthly literary serial Bentley's Miscellany, which he then edited. The Mudfog Papers relates the proceedings of a fictional society, 'The Mudfog Society for the Advancement of Everything', a Pickwickian parody of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. (The latter, founded in York in 1831, was one of numerous Victorian learned societies dedicated to the advancement of Science.) Like The Pickwick Papers, The Mudfog Papers claim affinity with parliamentary reports, memoirs, and posthumous papers. The serial was illustrated by George Cruikshank. The fictional town of Mudfog was based on Chatham in Kent, where Dickens spent part of his youth. When Oliver Twist first appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in February 1837, Mudfog was described by Dickens as the town where Oliver was born and spent his early years, making Oliver Twist a continuation of The Mudfog Papers; but this allusion was removed when the novel was printed in book form. At the conclusion of his first contribution, about the mayor of the provincial town of Mudfog, Dickens explains that "this is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from this particular source," referring to 'The Mudfog Papers'. He also suggests that "at some future period, we may venture to open the chronicles of Mudfog." The 'Papers' were first published in book form as The Mudfog Papers and Other Sketches in 1880. Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 - 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's most memorable fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented fame, and by the twentieth century his literary genius was broadly acknowledged by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to be widely popular. Contributor Bio:  Dickens, Charles Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and slave factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney s clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.