The Friday Five – all about Dickens

As Charles Dickens' 200th birthday week winds down – I'm offering up five things about the man and his works.

1. The majority of his work contained some humor, even if the story was serious. However, he had three works that are considered his dark novels. Bleak House (with a title like that, are you surprised?), Hard Times (ditto on the title), and Little Dorrit.

2. In all of Dickens' works there is only one female narrator – Esther Summerson in Bleak House.

3. Also in Bleak House, Dickens chose to go against the popular grain of thought and include a case of a person (a very despicable person at that) dying by spontaneous human combustion. 

4. Charles Dickens full name is Charles John Huffam Dickens. He was born in 1812 into a large family where he enjoyed much early freedom, until his father was put into debtor's prison. Fortunately, Charles was sent to live with a poor, but, kind old family friend whom he later immortalized as Mrs. Pipchin in Dombey and Son.

5. Dickens fathered ten children – but it is his abundance of characters in his many novels and stories that live on.

Happy 200th, Charles Dickens! I, for one, am glad you were born!