The great English writers from Chaucer to George Eliot: With selections illustrating their works : a text-book of English literature for the use of schools

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ...David Copper/Mid. The story of David in Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was the history of the sad and care-worn little boy, Charles Dickens, employed from one long week to another in pasting labels upon blacking bottles. Of schooling he had next to none. When he was fourteen, he became a lawyer's office-boy, and here again the sharp-eyed, sharp-witted little fellow was laying up a store of material that came to good use later. The turning-point in his life was his decision to become a shorthand reporter. Prom taking down the words of other men, he soon came to write short pieces of his own. The Sketches ty Boz attracted so much attention that they were gathered from the paper in which they had appeared and were republished in book form. The author, moreover, was invited to relate, in comic vein, the adventures of a club of sportsmen. The aid of a comic illustrator was enlisted to increase the fun. Such was the origin of The Pickwick Papers. With this book, Dickens' fame and fortune were made. He was now twenty-four; he lived to be fifty-eight, and the years between are a record of literary prosperity such as falls to the lot of few writers. One success followed another: Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge. Meanwhile, he had become as popular in America as in England, and when he visited this country in 1842, he was welcomed with enthusiastic hospitality. Many people thought American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit a poor return for their cordial reception; but Dickens' exaggeration of American peculiarities is, on the whole, no greater than the extravagance of his English characters. He was a keen observer of superficial manners and customs rather than of the spirit and principles of the American people....