Thank you for your visit today to The Circumlocution Office. At the Circumlocution Office we look at the life and times of one of history’s great writers, Charles Dickens who lived from 1812 – 1870.
Charles Dickens.
Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelist of the Victorian Era and the creator of some of the world’s most memorable fictional characters and campaigner for social injustice.
Even though he was born over two centuries ago, Dickens’s work transcends his time, language and culture. To this day, his work continue to inspire popular culture, including television, film, art and literature and he remains a massive contemporary influence throughout the world.
Characters.
Charles Dickens created some of the world’s most memorable fictional characters such as Fagin, the leader of the gang of child thieves who teach Oliver Twist how to pick pockets; Ebenezer Scrooge, the miserly focal character of A Christmas Carol; Wilkins Micawber, the feckless, struggling but charming and eternally optimistic man who works with the greedy Uriah Heep in David Copperfield and Samuel Pickwick, the retired businessman and founder of the Pickwick Club who embarks on a series of adventures with friends Snodgrass, Tupman, Winkle and servant Sam Weller.
Discover Dickens works
Charles Dickens produced 15 major novels plus numerous short stories and articles.
At the Circumlocution Office we aim to publish not only all of Dickens works but lots of information about the times, characters and places involved.
Trail.
Explore over 250 places that the Victorian author Charles Dickens visited or influenced him during his lifetime in our Dickens Trail. We also have a number of individual trails for key areas that Dickens visited a number of times including Bath, Birmingham, Exeter, Ireland, Kent, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield.
Quotations.
Latest Quotations.
- He took us home and hammered us. Which, you see, … were a drawback on my learning.
- Let him make a tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no.
- I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.
- We don’t know what you have done, but we wouldn’t have you starved to death for it.
- Down banks and up banks, and over gates, and splashing into dikes, and breaking among coarse rushes: no man cared where he went.
- He’s a gentleman, if you please, this villain.
On this day.
- 1820 George III, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, dies at Windsor Castle at the age of 81.
- 1856 The Victoria Cross medal was introduced by Queen Victoria to honour acts of valour during the Crimean War.