DAZ has launched their "Victorian Christmas" theme, and it made me start thinking about one of my favorite authors, Charles Dickens. Not many people know that Dickens, the "father of Christmas" and creator of all of those beloved tales, had something of a miserable childhood himself.

When he was only twelve years old, Charles Dickens' father was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea. Charlie's mother and sister went to live with relatives in Kent, but Charlie, a boy who showed so much promise that one teacher called him a prodigy, was taken out of school and left in London. He lived alone in a seedy boarding-house and worked to support himself -- and his imprisoned father -- by pasting labels on bottles of shoe polish in a blacking factory for thirteen hours a day. He had no friends; the other boys scorned him as "the son of a gentleman", and those who had known his family in better days refused to associate with them after their disgrace.

Dickens' father was eventually released and the family recouped their fortunes somewhat. Charles was able to return to his family, and to finish his education. The misery of those days in the blacking factory never left him, though, and a fear of abandonment and a horror of failure and the poverty that went with it haunted him for the rest of his life. Some of the most powerful scenes in his books are set in debtors prisons and workhouses, and the theme of an abandoned, frightened child left to survive on its own appears in nearly all of his works.

Before the flood of Christmas card images starts, I thought I'd do a picture of little Charlie as he might have been in those sad days. He was a remarkable man who lived through suffering that would have crushed most people, and made it into art; his marvelous stories, which still enchant readers almost a hundred and fifty years later.

Lovely render. Sharen

Very nice render.
And thank you for the story. Good to "widen ones mind" a bit at this time of year. :o)

Well done ! ... The pic AND the text. ... Thank you. ;=]

Beautiful render and facinating history lesson :)

Of curse, if he got his hair cut he wouldn't have had half the problems with the other boys ;) Jack

Thanks for telling us about Dickens' life. I have greatly enjoyed his books, but knew nothing about his background. Thanks again! Jay PS And of course great picture!

Wonderful image, and the things you told brought back so much mamories of the time when I was really addicted to Dickens' novels. I always felt so delighted someone with such a dark childhood could put so much humour in his books, some of them made me laugh so much, although they often had a very dark background and social criticism inside.

Very nice render. I watched a biography of Dickens just a few weeks ago, on bravo or bio channel one, that portrayed him as being quite an ass, actually. I didn't catch the beginning that would have covered his childhood, but he had a wife that he didn't want anything to do with because she was fat and ugly, but he kept her well paid and taken care of, and in a house seperate from his. something about not letting his kids have much of anything to do with her either. then there was a sister who he was madly in love with, but not until she died at the age of 17. before then he hardly had anything to do with her and treated her more like a nusence. but she was the only one that admired and encouraged him to write. (i think she was quite a bit younger). the bio portrayed him as being quite a womanizer. there was one point when an old friend/crush from his teens/young adult days who wrote him wanting to come visit and for months leading up to it he was exstatic about it, until she actually got there and he found that she was no longer the stunning beauty he remembered her to be but instead had put on several pounds and grown ugly, so he pretty much kicked her out 5 minutes later, then wrote a book that featured a character similar to her, pretty much making fun of her. at one point early on he nearly lost his fame after taking a trip to new york for some book signings, etc, and when returning to england made some statements somewhere about how horrible he thought the states and the people in new york were and that he didn't plan on going back any time soon. apparently that rubbed some folks the wrong way. there was other points the bio brought up but overall it made him seem like quite an ass in person. I've never read much of his stuff. E.D.