document_title: List of best-selling albums

question_text: what is the top 10 selling albums of all time

text: List of best-selling albums

text: Legend

text:
Colors

Studio albums

Greatest hits and compilations

Soundtracks

Live albums

text: 40 million copies or more

text: *All sales figures are shown in millions

text:
Artist
Album
Released
Genre
Total certified copies
(from available markets)*
Claimed sales*
Ref(s)

Michael Jackson
Thriller
1982
Pop, Rock, R&B
7001463190000000000♠
[show]
47.3

US: 33 million[4]
JPN: 100,000[5]
UK: 4.2 million[6]
GER: 1.5 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 2 million[9]
AUS: 1.12 million[10]
MEX: 1.6 million[11]
NLD: 800,000[12]
ITA: 100,000[13]
SWE: 400,000[14]
ARG: 500,000[15]
SWI: 300,000[16]
AUT: 400,000[17]
FIN: 119,061[18]
NZ: 180,000[19][20]
HKG: 15,000[21]

66
[1]

AC/DC
Back in Black
1980
Hard rock
7001259000000000000♠
[show]
26.1

US: 22 million[4]
UK: 300,000[6]
GER: 1 million[7]
FRA: 600,000[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 840,000[10]
ITA: 50,000[13]
ARG: 160,000[22]
SWI: 100,000[16]
AUT: 50,000[17]

50
[23]

Pink Floyd
The Dark Side of the Moon
1973
Progressive rock
7001242100000000000♠
[show]
24.2

US: 15 million[4]
UK: 4.2 million[6]
GER: 1 million[7]
FRA: 400,000[8]
CAN: 2 million[9]
AUS: 980,000[10]
ITA: 100,000[13]
ARG: 120,000[22]
POL: 70,000[24]
AUT: 100,000[17]
NZ: 240,000[25]

45
[26]

Meat Loaf
Bat Out of Hell
1977
Hard rock, Progressive rock
7001215050000000000♠
[show]
21.5

US: 14 million[4]
UK: 3 million[6]
GER: 500,000[7]
CAN: 2 million[9]
AUS: 1.68 million[10]
NZ: 255,000[25]

43
[27]

Whitney Houston / Various artists
The Bodyguard
1992
R&B, Soul, Pop, Soundtrack
7001273460000000000♠
[show]
28.4

US: 18 million[4]
JPN: 2 million[28]
UK: 2.1 million[6]
GER: 1.5 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 350,000[10]
BRA: 750,000[29]
NLD: 100,000[12]
SWE 100,000[14]
SPA: 500,000[30]
ARG: 240,000[22]
SWI: 250,000[16]
AUT: 200,000[17]
NOR: 200,000[31]
FIN: 92,500[18]

42
[32]

Eagles
Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)
1976
Rock, Soft rock, Folk rock
7001321800000000000♠
[show]
32.2

US: 29 million[4]
UK: 600,000[6]
CAN: 2 million[9]
AUS: 560,000[10]
IFPI HKG: 15,000[21]

42
[33][34]

Bee Gees / Various artists
Saturday Night Fever
1977
Disco
7001215700000000000♠
[show]
21.6

US: 16 million[4]
UK: 2.1 million[6]
GER: 1.5 million[7]
FRA: 200,000[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 770,000[35]
HKG: 15,000[21]

40
[36][37]

Fleetwood Mac
Rumours
1977
Soft rock
7001279300000000000♠
[show]
27.9

US: 20 million[4]
UK: 3.3 million[6]
GER: 1.25 million[7]
FRA: 300,000[38]
CAN: 2 million[9]
AUS: 910,000[10]
NZ: 150,000[39]
HKG: 15,000[21]

40
[40][41]

text: 30–39 million copies

text:
Artist
Album
Released
Genre
Total certified copies
(from available markets)*
Claimed sales*
Ref(s)

Shania Twain
Come On Over
1997
Country, Pop
7001295790000000000♠
[show]
29.6

US: 20 million[4]
JPN: 100,000 [5]
UK: 3.3 million[6]
GER: 750,000[7]
FRA: 300,000[38]
CAN: 2 million[9]
AUS: 1.05 million[10]
BRA: 100,000[29]
MEX: 100,000[11]
NLD: 400,000[12]
ITA: 50,000[13]
SWE 180,000[14]
SPA: 100,000[30]
BEL: 100,000[42][43]
ARG: 120,000[22]
SWI: 150,000[16]
AUT: 25,000[17]
NOR: 300,000[31]
DEN: 100,000[44]
FIN: 38,958[18]
NZ: 315,000[20]

39
[45]

Various artists
Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture
1978
Soundtrack
7001143900000000000♠
[show]
14.4

US: 8 million[4]
UK: 2.4 million[6]
GER: 1.25 million[7]
FRA: 400,000[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 980,000[10]
SPA: 300,000[30]
SWI: 25,000[16]
NZ: 15,000[19]
HKG: 15,000[21]

38
[46]

Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin IV
1971
Hard rock, Heavy metal, Folk
7001290200000000000♠
[show]
29.0

US: 23 million[4]
UK: 1.8 million[6]
GER: 750,000[7]
FRA: 600,000[38]
CAN: 2 million[9]
AUS: 630,000[10]
BRA: 100,000[29]
NLD: 100,000[12]
ARG: 60,000[22]
SWI: 50,000[16]

37
[47]

Michael Jackson
Bad
1987
Pop, Funk, Rock
7001192560000000000♠
[show]
19.3

US: 10 million[4]
UK: 3.9 million[6]
GER: 2 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 700,000[9]
AUS: 420,000[10]
MEX: 350,000[11]
SWE 200,000[14]
SPA: 300,000[30]
AUT: 200,000[17]
FIN: 51,287[18]
NZ: 135,000[48]
IFPI HKG: 15,000[21]

35
[49][50]

Alanis Morissette
Jagged Little Pill
1995
Alternative rock
7001247559000000000♠
[show]
24.4

US: 16 million[4]
UK: 3 million[6]
GER: 1 million[7]
FRA: 300,000[38]
CAN: 2 million[9]
AUS: 980,000[10]
NLD: 400,000[12]
SWE 200,000[14]
BRA: 100,000[29]
ARG: 60,000[22]
POL: 50,000[24]
SWI: 50,000[16]
NOR: 50,000[31]
AUT: 100,000[17]
FIN: 65,860[18]

33
[51]

Celine Dion
Falling into You
1996
Pop, Soft rock
7001201770000000000♠
[show]
20.2

US: 11 million[4]
JPN: 800,000[5]
UK: 2.1 million[6]
GER: 1.25 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[38]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 910,000[10]
BRA: 100,000[29]
NLD: 600,000[12]
SWE: 200,000[14]
SPA: 200,000[30]
BEL: 200,000[42]
ARG: 60,000[22]
POL: 100,000[24]
SWI: 150,000[16]
NOR: 150,000[31]
AUT: 100,000[17]
FIN: 51,952[18]
NZ: 180,000[19]
HUN: 25,000[52]

32
[53]

The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1967
Rock
7001130700000000000♠
[show]
13.1

US: 11 million[4]
GER: 500,000[7]
CAN: 800,000[9]
AUS: 280,000[10]
BRA: 100,000[29]
ARG: 300,000[22]
NZ: 90,000[20]

32
[54]

Eagles
Hotel California
1976
Rock, Soft rock, Folk rock
7001214810000000000♠
[show]
21.5

US: 16 million[4]
UK: 1.8 million[6]
GER: 500,000[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 560,000[10]
SPA: 400,000[30]
SWI: 100,000[16]
AUT: 25,000[17]
FIN: 30,933[18]
NZ: 135,000[19]
HKG: 15,000[21]

32
[55]

Various artists
Dirty Dancing
1987
Pop, Rock, R&B
7001178775000000000♠
[show]
17.9

US: 11 million[4]
UK: 1.5 million[6]
GER: 2 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 770,000[10]
BRA: 100,000[29]
NLD: 100,000[12]
SWE 100,000[14]
POL: 50,000[24]
SWI: 250,000[16]
HKG: 7,500[21]

32
[56]

Adele
21
2011
Pop, Soul
7001252610000000000♠
[show]
25.3

US: 14 million[4]
JPN: 100,000[57]
UK: 4.8 million[6]
GER: 1.6 million[7]
CAN: 800,000[9]
AUS: 980,000[10]
MEX: 300,000[11]
NLD: 450,000[58]
ITA: 480,000[13]
SWE: 120,000[59]
SPA: 300,000[30]
ARG: 80,000[60]
BEL: 180,000[43]
POL: 200,000[24]
SWI: 40,000[16]
NOR: 30,000[61]
AUT: 20,000[17]
RUS: 10,000[62]
DEN: 150,000[63]
POR: 40,000[64]
FIN: 83,234[18]
IRE: 270,000[65]
GRE: 6,000[66]
HUN: 12,000[67]
NZ: 180,000[68]
CHI: 20,000[69]
VEN: 10,000[70]

31
[71]

Celine Dion
Let's Talk About Love
1997
Pop, Soft rock
7001192560000000000♠
[show]
19.3

US: 10 million[4]
JPN: 1 million[5]
UK: 1.8 million[6]
GER: 1.5 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[38]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 420,000[10]
NLD: 500,000[12]
SWE: 240,000[14]
SPA: 400,000[30]
BEL: 200,000[42]
ARG: 120,000[22]
POL: 200,000[24]
SWI: 300,000[16]
NOR: 200,000[31]
AUT: 100,000[17]
FIN: 97,744[18]
NZ: 135,000[72]
HKG: 40,000[21]
URY: 3,000[73]

31
[74]

The Beatles
1
2000
Rock
7001226020000000000♠
[show]
22.6

US: 12 million[4]
JPN: 2 million[5]
UK: 2.4 million[6]
GER: 1.65 million[7]
FRA: 600,000[38]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 700,000[10]
BRA: 250,000[29]
ITA: 50,000[13]
SWE 160,000[14]
SPA: 500,000[30]
ARG: 120,000[22]
POL: 100,000[24]
SWI: 150,000[16]
NOR: 150,000[31]
AUT: 150,000[17]
DEN: 200,000[75]
POR: 120,000[76]
FIN: 77,466[18]
NZ: 225,000[19]

31
[77]

Michael Jackson
Dangerous
1991
Rock, Funk, Pop
7001163020000000000♠
[show]
16.3

US: 7 million[4]
JPN: 400,000[5]
UK: 1.8 million[6]
GER: 2 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[38]
CAN: 600,000[9]
AUS: 700,000[10]
BRA: 100,000[29]
MEX: 600,000[11]
NLD: 300,000[12]
SWE 300,000[14]
SPA: 600,000[30]
SWI: 250,000[16]
AUT: 200,000[17]
FIN: 61,896[18]
NZ: 90,000[20]
CHI: 125,000[78]
MAL: 175,000[79]

30
[80]

Madonna
The Immaculate Collection
1990
Pop, Dance
7001203000000000000♠
[show]
19.4

US: 10 million[4]
JPN: 800,000[5]
UK: 3.6 million[6]
GER: 750,000[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 700,000[9]
AUS: 840,000[81]
BRA: 500,000[29]
NLD: 300,000[12]
SWE 50,000[14]
SPA: 300,000[30]
ARG: 180,000[22]
SWI: 50,000[16]
AUT: 50,000[17]
DEN: 50,000[82]
FIN: 92,500[18]
NZ: 105,000[19]

30
[83]

The Beatles
Abbey Road
1969
Rock
7001144350000000000♠
[show]
14.4

US: 12 million[4]
GER: 500,000[7]
FRA: 150,000[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 210,000[10]
ARG: 500,000[15]
NZ: 75,000[20]

30
[84]

Bruce Springsteen
Born in the U.S.A.
1984
Rock
7001195580000000000♠
[show]
19.6

US: 15 million[4]
UK: 900,000[6]
GER: 1 million[7]
FRA: 400,000[38]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 910,000[10]
FIN: 108,913[18]
NZ: 240,000[19]

30
[85]

Dire Straits
Brothers in Arms
1985
Rock, Pop
7001176610000000000♠
[show]
17.7

US: 9 million[4]
UK: 4.1 million[6]
GER: 500,000[7]
FRA: 1 million[38]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 1.19 million[10]
ARG: 30,000[22]
SWI: 350,000[16]
FIN: 116,784[18]
NZ: 360,000[25]
HKG: 15,000[21]

30
[86][87]

James Horner
Titanic: Music from the Motion Picture
1997
Soundtrack
7001181385000000000♠
[show]
18.1

US: 11 million[4]
JPN: 1 million[88]
UK: 900,000[6]
GER: 1.25 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 350,000[10]
NLD: 175,000[12]
SWE 160,000[14]
SPA: 400,000[30]
BEL: 150,000[42]
POL: 140,000[24]
ARG: 60,000[22]
SWI: 200,000[16]
AUT: 100,000[17]
NOR: 100,000[31]
FIN: 73,509[18]
NZ: 60,000[89]
HKG: 20,000[21]

30
[90]

Metallica
Metallica
1991
Thrash metal, Heavy metal
7001204800000000000♠
[show]
21.2

US: 16 million[4]
UK: 600,000[6]
GER: 500,000[7]
FRA: 300,000[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 840,000[10]
MEX: 600,000[11]
NLD: 200,000[12]
ITA: 100,000[13]
SWE 100,000[14]
ARG: 300,000[22]
POL: 100,000[24]
SWI: 100,000[16]
NOR: 50,000[31]
AUT: 100,000[17]
FIN: 112,856[18]
NZ: 150,000[20]

30
[91]

Nirvana
Nevermind
1991
Grunge, Alternative rock
7001167020000000000♠
[show]
16.7

US: 10 million[4]
JPN: 600,000[92]
UK: 1.2 million[6]
GER: 1 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 350,000[10]
BRA: 250,000[29]
MEX: 200,000[11]
ITA: 100,000[13]
SWE 200,000[14]
ARG: 300,000[22]
BEL: 150,000[43]
POL: 100,000[24]
SWI: 50,000[16]
AUT: 50,000[17]
FIN: 46,830[18]
NZ: 105,000[19]

30
[93]

Pink Floyd
The Wall
1979
Progressive rock
7001175650000000000♠
[show]
17.6

US: 11.5 million[4]
UK: 600,000[6]
GER: 2 million[7]
FRA: 1 million[8]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 770,000[10]
ITA: 100,000[13]
ARG: 200,000[94]
POL: 70,000[24]
SWI: 100,000[16]
NZ: 210,000[19]
HKG: 15,000[21]

30
[95]

Santana
Supernatural
1999
Rock
7001205400000000000♠
[show]
20.5

US: 15 million[4]
JPN: 200,000 [5]
UK: 600,000[6]
GER: 1 million[7]
FRA: 600,000[38]
CAN: 1 million[9]
AUS: 280,000[10]
BRA: 250,000[29]
MEX: 300,000[11]
NLD: 200,000[12]
SWE 80,000[14]
SPA: 300,000[30]
BEL: 100,000[42]
ARG: 120,000[22]
POL: 100,000[24]
SWI: 200,000[16]
AUT: 100,000[17]
FIN: 50,291[18]
NZ: 60,000[19]

30
[96]

Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction
1987
Hard rock
7001215550000000000♠
[show]
21.6

US: 18 million[4]
JPN: 200,000[5]
UK: 900,000[6]
GER: 500,000[7]
FRA: 200,000[38]
CAN: 1 million[9]
BRA: 250,000[29]
MEX: 100,000[11]
ITA: 50,000[13]
SWE 50,000[14]
ARG: 180,000[22]
SWI: 50,000[16]
AUT: 50,000[17]
FIN: 25,000[18]

30
[97][98]

text: 20–29 million copies

text:
Artist
Album
Released
Genre
Claimed sales*
Ref(s)

ABBA
Gold: Greatest Hits
1992
Pop
28
[99]

Bon Jovi
Slippery When Wet
1986
Hard rock, Glam metal
28
[100]

Mariah Carey
Music Box
1993
Pop, R&B, Rock
28
[101]

Eminem
The Eminem Show
2002
Hip Hop
27
[102][103]

Linkin Park
Hybrid Theory
2000
Nu metal, Rap metal, Alternative metal
27
[104]

Norah Jones
Come Away with Me
2002
Jazz
27
[105]

Eric Clapton
Unplugged
1992
Acoustic rock, Acoustic blues
26
[106]

Madonna
True Blue
1986
Pop
25
[107]

Bob Marley & The Wailers
Legend: The Best of Bob Marley & The Wailers
1984
Reggae
25
[108]

Carole King
Tapestry
1971
Pop
25
[109]

Phil Collins
No Jacket Required
1985
Pop, Rock
25
[110]

Queen
Greatest Hits
1981
Rock
25
[111]

Simon & Garfunkel
Bridge over Troubled Water
1970
Folk rock
25
[112]

U2
The Joshua Tree
1987
Rock
25
[113]

Britney Spears
...Baby One More Time
1999
Pop
25
[114]

Backstreet Boys
Backstreet's Back / Backstreet Boys
1997
Pop
24
[115]

Backstreet Boys
Millennium
1999
Pop
24
[115]

Spice Girls
Spice
1996
Pop
23
[116][117]

Ace of Base
Happy Nation/The Sign
1993
Pop
23
[118]

Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
1985
Pop, R&B
22
[119]

Oasis
(What's the Story) Morning Glory?
1995
Britpop, Rock
22
[120]

Eminem
The Marshall Mathers LP
2000
Rap, hip-hop
21
[121]

Madonna
Like a Virgin
1984
Pop, Dance
21
[122]

Bon Jovi
Cross Road
1994
Hard rock, Glam metal
21
[123]

Adele
25
2015
Soul, Pop, R&B
20
[124]

Boston
Boston
1976
Hard rock
20
[125]

Britney Spears
Oops!... I Did It Again
2000
Pop
20
[126]

Celine Dion
The Colour of My Love
1993
Pop
20
[127]

Def Leppard
Hysteria
1987
Pop, Hard rock
20
[128]

George Michael
Faith
1987
Pop, R&B, Funk, Soul
20
[129]

Green Day
Dookie
1994
Pop punk, Punk rock, Alternative rock
20
[130]

Lionel Richie
Can't Slow Down
1983
Pop, R&B, Soul
20
[131]

Mariah Carey
Daydream
1995
Pop, R&B
20
[132]

Michael Jackson
HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I
1995
Pop, Rock, R&B
20
[133]

Michael Jackson
Off the Wall
1979
Soul, Disco, R&B
20
[134]

Shania Twain
The Woman in Me
1995
Country, Pop
20
[135]

Supertramp
Breakfast in America
1979
Progressive rock, Art rock
20
[136]

Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
1988
Folk rock
20
[137]

Various artists
Flashdance: Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture
1983
Soundtrack
20
[138]

Whitney Houston
Whitney
1987
Pop, R&B
20
[139]

text: Timeline of the highest selling albums

text: The inclusion or exclusion of items from this list, or length of this list, is disputed. Please discuss this issue on the talk page. (July 2013)

text:
Timeline of the highest-selling album record

Year record set
Artist
Album
Record setting sales (millions)
Total sales (millions)
Ref(s)

1945
Various Artists
Oklahoma! (78 rpm album)
0.5
1.0
[140][141]

1956
Various Artists
Oklahoma! (LP album)
1.75
2.5
[142]

1956/1957
Various Artists
My Fair Lady
2
5
[143][144][145]

1960
Various Artists
South Pacific
2.25
3
[146]

1963
Vaughn Meader
The First Family
4
7.5
[147][148]

1968
Various Artists
The Sound of Music
8WW

[149]

1973
Carole King
Tapestry
10+

[150]

1975/1976
Various Artists
The Sound of Music
10–15SM-T

[151][152]

1976
Carole King
Tapestry
13.5SM-T
25
[153]

1979
Bee Gees/Various Artists
Saturday Night Fever
25–27
40
[154][155]

1984
Michael Jackson
Thriller
35
66
[156][1]

text:
WWIt is unclear whether this sales figure refers to worldwide sales or US sales.
SM-TThe exact year in which Tapestry regained the title of "best-selling album of all-time", if it ever regained it at all, is unclear. The album's 1976 sales claim is therefore only listed to be inclusive, as it is plausible that Tapestry had overtaken The Sound of Music in sales during this time period.

text: Best-selling album by year worldwide

text: The charts of the best-selling albums by year in the world are compiled by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry annually since 2001. These charts are published in their two annual reports, the Digital Music Report and the Recording Industry in Numbers.

text: Units sold include physical copies and digital downloads.

text:
Year
Album
Artist(s)
Sales
(millions)
Ref(s)

2001
Hybrid Theory
Linkin Park
8.5
[157]

2002
The Eminem Show
Eminem
13.9
[158]

2003
Come Away with Me
Norah Jones
18.0
[159][160]

2004
Confessions
Usher
12.0
[161]

2005
X&Y
Coldplay
8.3
[162]

2006
High School Musical
Various Artists
7.0
[163]

2007
High School Musical 2
6.0
[164]

2008
Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
Coldplay
6.8
[165]

2009
I Dreamed a Dream
Susan Boyle
8.3
[166]

2010
Recovery
Eminem
5.7
[167]

2011
21
Adele
18.1
[158]

2012
8.3
[168]

2013
Midnight Memories
One Direction
4.0
[169]

2014
Frozen
Various Artists
9.0
[170]

2015
25
Adele
17.4
[171]

2016
Lemonade
Beyoncé
2.5
[172]


document_title: List of constituencies of the Lok Sabha

question_text: how many members represent j&k in lok sabha

root

text: List of constituencies of the Lok Sabha

text: Delimitation of constituencies[edit]

text:
Under the Delimitation Act of 2002, the Delimitation Commission of India has redefined the list of parliamentary constituencies, their constituent assembly segments and reservation status (whether reserved for Scheduled castes (SC) candidates or Scheduled tribes (ST) candidates or unreserved). Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, 2008, which took place in May 2008, was the first state election to use newly demarcated assembly constituencies.[1]
Consequently, all assembly elections scheduled in 2008, viz. in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, NCT of Delhi, Mizoram and Rajasthan are based on newly defined assembly constituencies.[2]

tag: p

text: The size and shape of the Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies are determined, according to section 4 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, by an independent Delimitation Commission. Under a constitutional amendment of 1976,[3] delimitation was suspended until after the census of 2001. However, certain amendments to the Constitution made in 2001 and 2003 have, while putting a freeze on the total number of existing seats as allocated to various States in the House of People and the State Legislative Assemblies on the basis of 1971 census until the first census to be taken after the year 2026,[3] provided that each State shall be delimited into territorial Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies on the basis of 2001 census and the extent of such constituencies as delimited shall remain frozen until the first census to be taken after the year 2026.[3] The number of seats to be reserved for SC/ ST shall be re-worked out on the basis of 2001 census. The constituency shall be delimited in a manner that the population of each Parliamentary and Assembly Constituency in a State so far as practicable be the same throughout the State.[3]

text: List of constituencies by States/Union Territories[edit]

text:
State/Union Territory
Lok Sabha seats

Andhra Pradesh
25

Arunachal Pradesh
2

Assam
14

Bihar
40

Chhattisgarh
11

Goa
2

Gujarat
26

Haryana
10

Himachal Pradesh
4

Jammu and Kashmir
6

Jharkhand
14

Karnataka
28

Kerala
20

Madhya Pradesh
29

Maharashtra
48

Manipur
2

Meghalaya
2

Mizoram
1

Nagaland
1

Odisha
21

Punjab
13

Rajasthan
25

Sikkim
1

Tamil Nadu
39

Telangana
17

Tripura
2

Uttar Pradesh
80

Uttarakhand
5

West Bengal
42

Andaman and Nicobar Islands
1

Chandigarh
1

Dadra and Nagar Haveli
1

Daman and Diu
1

Lakshadweep
1

NCT of Delhi
7

Puducherry
1

tag: table

text: Andhra Pradesh (25)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.

Constituency Name

Reserved for
(SC/ST/None)

1
Araku
ST

2
Srikakulam
None

3
Vizianagaram
None

4
Visakhapatnam
None

5
Anakapalli
None

6
Kakinada
None

7
Amalapuram
SC

8
Rajahmundry
None

9
Narasapuram
None

10
Eluru
None

11
Machilipatnam
None

12
Vijayawada
None

13
Guntur
None

14
Narasaraopet
None

15
Bapatla
SC

16
Ongole
None

17
Nandyal
None

18
Kurnool
None

19
Anantapur
None

20
Hindupur
None

21
Kadapa
None

22
Nellore
None

23
Tirupati
SC

24
Rajampet
None

25
Chittoor
SC

text: Arunachal Pradesh (2)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Arunachal West
None

2
Arunachal East
None

text: Assam (14)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Karimganj
SC

2
Silchar
None

3
Autonomous District
ST

4
Dhubri
None

5
Kokrajhar
ST

6
Barpeta
None

7
Gauhati
None

8
Mangaldoi
None

9
Tezpur
None

10
Nowgong
None

11
Kaliabor
None

12
Jorhat
None

13
Dibrugarh
None

14
Lakhimpur
None

text: Bihar (40)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Valmiki Nagar
None

2
Paschim Champaran
None

3
Purvi Champaran
None

4
Sheohar
None

5
Sitamarhi
None

6
Madhubani
None

7
Jhanjharpur
None

8
Supaul
None

9
Araria
None

10
Kishanganj
None

11
Katihar
None

12
Purnia
None

13
Madhepura
None

14
Darbhanga
None

15
Muzaffarpur
None

16
Vaishali
None

17
Gopalganj
SC

18
Siwan
None

19
Maharajganj
None

20
Saran
None

21
Hajipur
SC

22
Ujiarpur
None

23
Samastipur
SC

24
Begusarai
None

25
Khagaria
None

26
Bhagalpur
None

27
Banka
None

28
Munger
None

29
Nalanda
None

30
Patna Sahib
None

31
Pataliputra
None

32
Arrah
None

33
Buxar
None

34
Sasaram
SC

35
Karakat
None

36
Jahanabad
None

37
Aurangabad
None

38
Gaya
SC

39
Nawada
None

40
Jamui
SC

text: Chhattisgarh (11)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Sarguja
ST

2
Raigarh
ST

3
Janjgir
SC

4
Korba
None

5
Bilaspur
None

6
Rajnandgaon
None

7
Durg
None

8
Raipur
None

9
Mahasamund
None

10
Bastar
ST

11
Kanker
ST

text: Goa (2)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
North Goa
None

2
South Goa
None

text: Gujarat (26)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Kachchh
SC

2
Banaskantha
None

3
Patan
None

4
Mahesana
None

5
Sabarkantha
None

6
Gandhinagar
None

7
Ahmedabad East
None

8
Ahmedabad West
SC

9
Surendranagar
None

10
Rajkot
None

11
Porbandar
None

12
Jamnagar
None

13
Junagadh
None

14
Amreli
None

15
Bhavnagar
None

16
Anand
None

17
Kheda
None

18
Panchmahal
None

19
Dahod
ST

20
Vadodara
None

21
Chhota Udaipur
ST

22
Bharuch
None

23
Bardoli
ST

24
Surat
None

25
Navsari
None

26
Valsad
ST

text: Haryana (10)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Ambala
SC

2
Kurukshetra
None

3
Sirsa
SC

4
Hissar
None

5
Karnal
None

6
Sonepat
None

7
Rohtak
None

8
Bhiwani–Mahendragarh
None

9
Gurgaon
None

10
Faridabad
None

text: Himachal Pradesh (4)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Kangra
None

2
Mandi
None

3
Hamirpur
None

4
Shimla
SC

text: Jammu and Kashmir (6)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Baramulla
None

2
Srinagar
None

3
Anantnag
None

4
Ladakh
None

5
Udhampur
None

6
Jammu
None

text: Jharkhand (14)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Rajmahal
ST

2
Dumka
ST

3
Godda
None

4
Chatra
None

5
Kodarma
None

6
Giridih
None

7
Dhanbad
None

8
Ranchi
None

9
Jamshedpur
None

10
Singhbhum
ST

11
Khunti
ST

12
Lohardaga
ST

13
Palamau
SC

14
Hazaribagh
None

text: Karnataka (28)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Chikkodi
None

2
Belagavi
None

3
Bagalkot
None

4
Bijapur
SC

5
Kalaburagi
SC

6
Raichur
ST

7
Bidar
None

8
Koppal
None

9
Bellary
ST

10
Haveri
None

11
Dharwad
None

12
Uttara Kannada
None

13
Davanagere
None

14
Shimoga
None

15
Udupi Chikmagalur
None

16
Hassan
None

17
Dakshina Kannada
None

18
Chitradurga
SC

19
Tumkur
None

20
Mandya
None

21
Mysore
None

22
Chamarajanagar
SC

23
Bangalore Rural
None

24
Bangalore North
None

25
Bangalore Central
None

26
Bangalore South
None

27
Chikballapur
None

28
Kolar
SC

text: Kerala (20)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Kasaragod
None

2
Kannur
None

3
Vatakara
None

4
Wayanad
None

5
Kozhikode
None

6
Malappuram
None

7
Ponnani
None

8
Palakkad
None

9
Alathur
SC

10
Thrissur
None

11
Chalakudy
None

12
Ernakulam
None

13
Idukki
None

14
Kottayam
None

15
Alappuzha
None

16
Mavelikara
SC

17
Pathanamthitta
None

18
Kollam
None

19
Attingal
None

20
Thiruvananthapuram
None

text: Madhya Pradesh (29)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Morena
None

2
Bhind
SC

3
Gwalior
None

4
Guna
None

5
Sagar
None

6
Tikamgarh
SC

7
Damoh
None

8
Khajuraho
None

9
Satna
None

10
Rewa
None

11
Sidhi
None

12
Shahdol
ST

13
Jabalpur
None

14
Mandla
ST

15
Balaghat
None

16
Chhindwara
None

17
Hoshangabad
None

18
Vidisha
None

19
Bhopal
None

20
Rajgarh
None

21
Dewas
SC

22
Ujjain
SC

23
Mandsaur
None

24
Ratlam
ST

25
Dhar
ST

26
Indore
None

27
Khargone
ST

28
Khandwa
None

29
Betul
ST

text: Maharashtra (48)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Nandurbar
ST

2
Dhule
None

3
Jalgaon
None

4
Raver
None

5
Buldhana
None

6
Akola
None

7
Amravati
SC

8
Wardha
None

9
Ramtek
SC

10
Nagpur
None

11
Bhandara–Gondiya
None

12
Gadchiroli–Chimur
ST

13
Chandrapur
None

14
Yavatmal–Washim
None

15
Hingoli
None

16
Nanded
None

17
Parbhani
None

18
Jalna
None

19
Aurangabad
None

20
Dindori
ST

21
Nashik
None

22
Palghar
ST

23
Bhiwandi
None

24
Kalyan
None

25
Thane
None

26
Mumbai North
None

27
Mumbai North West
None

28
Mumbai North East
None

29
Mumbai North Central
None

30
Mumbai South Central
None

31
Mumbai South
None

32
Raigad
None

33
Maval
None

34
Pune
None

35
Baramati
None

36
Shirur
None

37
Ahmednagar
None

38
Shirdi
SC

39
Beed
None

40
Osmanabad
None

41
Latur
SC

42
Solapur
SC

43
Madha
None

44
Sangli
None

45
Satara
None

46
Ratnagiri–Sindhudurg
None

47
Kolhapur
None

48
Hatkanangle
None

text: Manipur (2)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Inner Manipur
None

2
Outer Manipur
ST

text: Meghalaya (2)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Shillong
ST

2
Tura
ST

text: Mizoram (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Mizoram
ST

text: Nagaland (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Nagaland
None

text: Odisha (21)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Bargarh
None

2
Sundargarh
ST

3
Sambalpur
None

4
Keonjhar
ST

5
Mayurbhanj
ST

6
Balasore
None

7
Bhadrak
SC

8
Jajpur
SC

9
Dhenkanal
None

10
Bolangir
None

11
Kalahandi
None

12
Nabarangpur
ST

13
Kandhamal
None

14
Cuttack
None

15
Kendrapara
None

16
Jagatsinghpur
SC

17
Puri
None

18
Bhubaneswar
None

19
Aska
None

20
Berhampur
None

21
Koraput
ST

text: Punjab (13)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Gurdaspur
None

2
Amritsar
None

3
Khadoor Sahib
None

4
Jalandhar
SC

5
Hoshiarpur
SC

6
Anandpur Sahib
None

7
Ludhiana
None

8
Fatehgarh Sahib
SC

9
Faridkot
SC

10
Firozpur
None

11
Bathinda
None

12
Sangrur
None

13
Patiala
None

text: Rajasthan (25)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Ganganagar
SC

2
Bikaner
SC

3
Churu
None

4
Jhunjhunu
None

5
Sikar
None

6
Jaipur Rural
None

7
Jaipur
None

8
Alwar
None

9
Bharatpur
SC

10
Karauli–Dholpur
SC

11
Dausa
ST

12
Tonk–Sawai Madhopur
None

13
Ajmer
None

14
Nagaur
None

15
Pali
None

16
Jodhpur
None

17
Barmer
None

18
Jalore
None

19
Udaipur
ST

20
Banswara
ST

21
Chittorgarh
None

22
Rajsamand
None

23
Bhilwara
None

24
Kota
None

25
Jhalawar–Baran
None

text: Sikkim (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for (SC/ST/None)

1
Sikkim
None

text: Tamil Nadu (39)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for (SC/ST/None)

1
Thiruvallur
SC

2
Chennai North
None

3
Chennai South
None

4
Chennai Central
None

5
Sriperumbudur
None

6
Kancheepuram
SC

7
Arakkonam
None

8
Vellore
None

9
Krishnagiri
None

10
Dharmapuri
None

11
Tiruvannamalai
None

12
Arani
None

13
Villupuram
SC

14
Kallakurichi
None

15
Salem
None

16
Namakkal
None

17
Erode
None

18
Tiruppur
None

19
Nilgiris
SC

20
Coimbatore
None

21
Pollachi
None

22
Dindigul
None

23
Karur
None

24
Tiruchirappalli
None

25
Perambalur
None

26
Cuddalore
None

27
Chidambaram
SC

28
Mayiladuturai
None

29
Nagapattinam
SC

30
Thanjavur
None

31
Sivaganga
None

32
Madurai
None

33
Theni
None

34
Virudhunagar
None

35
Ramanathapuram
None

36
Thoothukudi
None

37
Tenkasi
SC

38
Tirunelveli
None

39
Kanyakumari
None

text: Telangana (17)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Adilabad
ST

2
Peddapalle
SC

3
Karimnagar
None

4
Nizamabad
None

5
Zahirabad
None

6
Medak
None

7
Malkajgiri
None

8
Secunderabad
None

9
Hyderabad
None

10
Chevella
None

11
Mahbubnagar
None

12
Nagarkurnool
SC

13
Nalgonda
None

14
Bhongir
None

15
Warangal
SC

16
Mahabubabad
ST

17
Khammam
None

text: Tripura (2)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Tripura West
None

2
Tripura East
ST

text: Uttar Pradesh (80)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Saharanpur
None

2
Kairana
None

3
Muzaffarnagar
None

4
Bijnor
None

5
Nagina
SC

6
Moradabad
None

7
Rampur
None

8
Sambhal
None

9
Amroha
None

10
Meerut
None

11
Baghpat
None

12
Ghaziabad
None

13
Gautam Buddha Nagar
None

14
Bulandshahr
SC

15
Aligarh
None

16
Hathras
SC

17
Mathura
None

18
Agra
SC

19
Fatehpur Sikri
None

20
Firozabad
None

21
Mainpuri
None

22
Etah
None

23
Badaun
None

24
Aonla
None

25
Bareilly
None

26
Pilibhit
None

27
Shahjahanpur
SC

28
Kheri
None

29
Dhaurahra
None

30
Sitapur
None

31
Hardoi
SC

32
Misrikh
SC

33
Unnao
None

34
Mohanlalganj
SC

35
Lucknow
None

36
Rae Bareli
None

37
Amethi
None

38
Sultanpur
None

39
Pratapgarh
None

40
Farrukhabad
None

41
Etawah
SC

42
Kannauj
None

43
Kanpur Urban
None

44
Akbarpur
None

45
Jalaun
SC

46
Jhansi
None

47
Hamirpur
None

48
Banda
None

49
Fatehpur
None

50
Kaushambi
SC

51
Phulpur
None

52
Allahabad
None

53
Barabanki
SC

54
Faizabad
None

55
Ambedkar Nagar
None

56
Bahraich
SC

57
Kaiserganj
None

58
Shrawasti
None

59
Gonda
None

60
Domariyaganj
None

61
Basti
None

62
Sant Kabir Nagar
None

63
Maharajganj
None

64
Gorakhpur
None

65
Kushi Nagar
None

66
Deoria
None

67
Bansgaon
SC

68
Lalganj
SC

69
Azamgarh
None

70
Ghosi
None

71
Salempur
None

72
Ballia
None

73
Jaunpur
None

74
Machhlishahr
SC

75
Ghazipur
None

76
Chandauli
None

77
Varanasi
None

78
Bhadohi
None

79
Mirzapur
None

80
Robertsganj
SC

text: Uttarakhand (5)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Tehri Garhwal
None

2
Garhwal
None

3
Almora
SC

4
Nainital–Udhamsingh Nagar
None

5
Haridwar
None

text: West Bengal (42)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Cooch Behar
SC

2
Alipurduars
ST

3
Jalpaiguri
SC

4
Darjeeling
None

5
Raiganj
None

6
Balurghat
None

7
Maldaha Uttar
None

8
Maldaha Dakshin
None

9
Jangipur
None

10
Baharampur
None

11
Murshidabad
None

12
Krishnanagar
None

13
Ranaghat
SC

14
Bangaon
SC

15
Barrackpur
None

16
Dum Dum
None

17
Barasat
None

18
Basirhat
None

19
Jaynagar
SC

20
Mathurapur
SC

21
Diamond Harbour
None

22
Jadavpur
None

23
Kolkata Dakshin
None

24
Kolkata Uttar
None

25
Howrah
None

26
Uluberia
None

27
Srerampur
None

28
Hooghly
None

29
Arambag
SC

30
Tamluk
None

31
Kanthi
None

32
Ghatal
None

33
Jhargram
ST

34
Medinipur
None

35
Purulia
None

36
Bankura
None

37
Bishnupur
SC

38
Bardhaman Purba
SC

39
Bardhaman–Durgapur
None

40
Asansol
None

41
Bolpur
SC

42
Birbhum
None

text: Constituencies in the Union Territories[edit]

text:
Constituencies of Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Constituencies of Chandigarh

Constituencies of Dadra and Nagar Haveli

Constituencies of Daman and Diu

Constituencies of Lakshadweep

Constituencies of National Capital Territory of Delhi

Constituencies of Puducherry

tag: ul

text: Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Andaman and Nicobar Islands
None

text: Chandigarh (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Chandigarh
None

text: Dadra and Nagar Haveli (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Dadra and Nagar Haveli
ST

text: Daman and Diu (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Daman and Diu
None

text: Lakshadweep (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Lakshadweep
ST

text: NCT of Delhi (7)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Chandni Chowk
None

2
North East Delhi
None

3
East Delhi
None

4
New Delhi
None

5
North West Delhi
SC

6
West Delhi
None

7
South Delhi
None

text: Puducherry (1)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Puducherry
None

text: Nominated (2)[edit]

text:
Constituency  No.
Constituency
Reserved for  (SC/ST/None)

1
Anglo-Indian reserved seats
None

2
None


document_title: List of Governors of Reserve Bank of India

question_text: who was the first indian governor of the reserve bank of india

text:
Governor of the Reserve Bank of India

Seal of RBI

Incumbent
Urjit Patel
since 4 September 2016

Appointer
Government of India

Inaugural holder
Osborne Smith

Formation
1 April 1935

text: The Governor of the Reserve Bank of India is the chief executive of India's central bank and the ex-officio chairperson of its Central Board of Directors. Indian Rupee currency notes, issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), bear the governor's signature. Since its establishment in 1935 by the British colonial government, the RBI has been headed by 24 governors. The term of office typically runs for 3 years.

text: The inaugural officeholder was the British banker Osborne Smith, while C. D. Deshmukh was the first Indian governor. The position is currently held by Urjit Patel, who took over from Raghuram Rajan on 4 September 2016.j

text: RBI governors[edit]

text:
No.
Name
Term of office

Began
Ended
Length

1
Osborne Smith
1 April 1935
30 June 1937
7002821000000000000♠2 years, 90 days

2
James Braid Taylor, ICS[1]
1 July 1937
17 February 1943
7003205700000000000♠5 years, 231 days

3
C. D. Deshmukh, ICS
11 August 1943
30 June 1949
7003215000000000000♠5 years, 323 days

4
Benegal Rama Rau, ICS
1 July 1949
14 January 1957
7003275400000000000♠7 years, 197 days

5
K. G. Ambegaonkar, ICS
14 January 1957
28 February 1957
7001450000000000000♠45 days

6
H. V. R. Iyengar, ICS
1 March 1957
28 February 1962
7003182500000000000♠4 years, 364 days

7
P. C. Bhattacharya
1 March 1962
30 June 1967
7003194700000000000♠5 years, 121 days

8
L. K. Jha
1 July 1967
3 May 1970
7003103700000000000♠2 years, 306 days

9
B. N. Adarkar
4 May 1970
15 June 1970
7001420000000000000♠42 days

10
S. Jagannathan
16 June 1970
19 May 1975
7003179800000000000♠4 years, 337 days

11
N. C. Sen Gupta
19 May 1975
19 August 1975
7001920000000000000♠92 days

12
K. R. Puri
20 August 1975
2 May 1977
7002621000000000000♠1 year, 255 days

13
M. Narasimham
3 May 1977
30 November 1977
7002211000000000000♠211 days

14
I. G. Patel
1 December 1977
15 September 1982
7003174900000000000♠4 years, 288 days

15
Manmohan Singh
16 September 1982
14 January 1985
7002851000000000000♠2 years, 120 days

16
Amitav Ghosh
15 January 1985
4 February 1985
7001200000000000000♠20 days

17
R. N. Malhotra, IAS
4 February 1985
22 December 1990
7003214700000000000♠5 years, 321 days

18
S. Venkitaramanan, IAS
22 December 1990
21 December 1992
7002730000000000000♠1 year, 365 days

19
C. Rangarajan
22 December 1992
21 November 1997
7003179500000000000♠4 years, 334 days

20
Bimal Jalan
22 November 1997
6 September 2003
7003211400000000000♠5 years, 288 days

21
Y. V. Reddy, IAS
6 September 2003
5 September 2008
7003182600000000000♠4 years, 365 days

22
D. Subbarao, IAS
5 September 2008
4 September 2013
7003182500000000000♠4 years, 364 days

23
Raghuram Rajan
4 September 2013
4 September 2016
7003109600000000000♠3 years, 0 days

24
Urjit Patel
4 September 2016
Incumbent
7002422000000000000♠1 year, 57 days


document_title: Charles Dickens

question_text: in what form was charles dickens first book published

question_tokens: in what form was charles dickens first book published

text: Charles Dickens

text: Early years

text: Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, at 1 Mile End Terrace (now 393 Commercial Road), Landport in Portsea Island (Portsmouth), the second of eight children of John Dickens (1785–1851) and Elizabeth Dickens (née Barrow; 1789–1863). His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam,[12] rigger to His Majesty's Navy, gentleman, and head of an established firm, to act as godfather to Charles. Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's eponymous Dombey and Son (1848).[12]

text: In January 1815 John Dickens was called back to London, and the family moved to Norfolk Street, Fitzrovia.[13] When Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness, and thence to Chatham, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he thought himself a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy".[14]

text: Charles spent time outdoors but also read voraciously, including the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, as well as Robinson Crusoe and Gil Blas. He read and reread The Arabian Nights and the Collected Farces of Elizabeth Inchbald.[15] He retained poignant memories of childhood, helped by an excellent memory of people and events, which he used in his writing.[16] His father's brief work as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office afforded him a few years of private education, first at a dame school, and then at a school run by William Giles, a dissenter, in Chatham.[17]

text: This period came to an end in June 1822, when John Dickens was recalled to Navy Pay Office headquarters at Somerset House, and the family (except from Charles, who stayed behind to finish his final term of work) moved to Camden Town in London.[19] The family had left Kent amidst rapidly mounting debts, and, living beyond his means,[20] John Dickens was forced by his creditors into the Marshalsea debtors' prison in Southwark, London in 1824. His wife and youngest children joined him there, as was the practice at the time. Charles, then 12 years old, boarded with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, at 112 College Place, Camden Town.[21] Roylance was "a reduced [impoverished] old lady, long known to our family", whom Dickens later immortalised, "with a few alterations and embellishments", as "Mrs. Pipchin" in Dombey and Son. Later, he lived in a back-attic in the house of an agent for the Insolvent Court, Archibald Russell, "a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman... with a quiet old wife" and lame son, in Lant Street in Southwark.[22] They provided the inspiration for the Garlands in The Old Curiosity Shop.[23]

text: On Sundays—with his sister Frances, free from her studies at the Royal Academy of Music—he spent the day at the Marshalsea.[24] Dickens later used the prison as a setting in Little Dorrit. To pay for his board and to help his family, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station, where he earned six shillings a week pasting labels on pots of boot blacking. The strenuous and often harsh working conditions made a lasting impression on Dickens and later influenced his fiction and essays, becoming the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigours of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor. He later wrote that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age".[25] As he recalled to John Forster (from The Life of Charles Dickens):

text: The blacking-warehouse was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist.[25]

text: When the warehouse was moved to Chandos Street in the smart, busy district of Covent Garden the boys worked in a room in which the window gave onto the street and little audiences gathered and watched them at work—in Dickens biographer Simon Callow's estimation, the public display was "a new refinement added to his misery".[26]

text: A few months after his imprisonment, John Dickens's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him £450. On the expectation of this legacy, Dickens was released from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act, Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left Marshalsea,[27] for the home of Mrs Roylance.

text: Charles's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, did not immediately support his removal from the boot-blacking warehouse. This influenced Dickens's view that a father should rule the family, and a mother find her proper sphere inside the home: "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back". His mother's failure to request his return was a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women.[28]

text: Righteous indignation stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel, David Copperfield:[29] "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!"[30]

text: Dickens was eventually sent to the Wellington House Academy in Camden Town, where he remained until March 1827, having spent about two years there. He did not consider it to be a good school: "Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr. Creakle's Establishment in David Copperfield."[30]

text: Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828. He was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers, and clerks. He went to theatres obsessively—he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every single day. His favourite actor was Charles Mathews, and Dickens learnt his monopolylogues, (farces in which Mathews played every character), by heart.[31] Then, having learned Gurney's system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons, and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years.[32][33] This education was to inform works such as Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, and especially Bleak House—whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much to enlighten the general public and served as a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to "go to law".

text: In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield. Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris.[34]

text: Journalism and early novels

text: In 1832, at age 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self-confident.[35] He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become, and yet knew he wanted fame. Drawn to the theatre—he became an early member of the Garrick[36]—he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble were to see him. Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate the comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold. Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer.[37] In 1833 he submitted his first story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical Monthly Magazine.[38] William Barrow, a brother of his mother, offered him a job on The Mirror of Parliament and he worked in the House of Commons for the first time early in 1832. He rented rooms at Furnival's Inn and worked as a political journalist, reporting on Parliamentary debates, and he travelled across Britain to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle. His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: Sketches by Boz—Boz being a family nickname he employed as a pseudonym for some years.[39][40] Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname "Moses", which he had given to his youngest brother Augustus Dickens, after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, "Moses" became "Boses"—later shortened to Boz.[40][41] Dickens's own name was considered "queer" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: "Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations." He contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career.[38] In January 1835 the Morning Chronicle launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the Chronicle's music critic, George Hogarth. Hogarth invited Dickens to contribute Street Sketches and Dickens became a regular visitor to his Fulham house, excited by Hogarth's friendship with a hero of his, Walter Scott, and enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters—Georgina, Mary, and nineteen-year-old Catherine.[42]

text: Dickens made rapid progress both professionally and socially. He began a friendship with William Harrison Ainsworth, the author of the highwayman novel Rookwood (1834), whose bachelor salon in Harrow Road had become the meeting place for a set that included Daniel Maclise, Benjamin Disraeli, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and George Cruikshank. All these became his friends and collaborators, with the exception of Disraeli, and he met his first publisher, John Macrone, at the house.[43] The success of Sketches by Boz led to a proposal from publishers Chapman and Hall for Dickens to supply text to match Robert Seymour's engraved illustrations in a monthly letterpress. Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment, and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired "Phiz" to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for the story. The resulting story became The Pickwick Papers, and though the first few episodes were not successful, the introduction of the Cockney character Sam Weller in the fourth episode (the first to be illustrated by Phiz) marked a sharp climb in its popularity.[44] The final instalment sold 40,000 copies.[38]

text: In November 1836 Dickens accepted the position of editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner.[45] In 1836 as he finished the last instalments of The Pickwick Papers, he began writing the beginning instalments of Oliver Twist—writing as many as 90 pages a month—while continuing work on Bentley's and also writing four plays, the production of which he oversaw. Oliver Twist, published in 1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories, and was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist.[46]

text: On 2 April 1836, after a one-year engagement, and between episodes two and three of The Pickwick Papers, Dickens married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1816–1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the Evening Chronicle.[47] They were married in St. Luke's Church,[48] Chelsea, London. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk in Kent the couple returned to lodgings at Furnival's Inn.[49] The first of their ten children, Charley, was born in January 1837, and a few months later the family set up home in Bloomsbury at 48 Doughty Street, London, (on which Charles had a three-year lease at £80 a year) from 25 March 1837 until December 1839.[47][50] Dickens's younger brother Frederick and Catherine's 17-year-old sister Mary, moved in with them. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837. Unusually for Dickens, as a consequence of his shock, he stopped working, and he and Kate stayed at a little farm on Hampstead Heath for a fortnight. Dickens idealised Mary- the character he fashioned after her, Rose Maylie, he found he could not now kill, as he had planned, in his fiction[51] and according to Ackroyd he drew on memories of her for his later descriptions of Little Nell and Florence Dombey.[52] His grief was so great that he was unable to meet the deadline for the June instalment of Pickwick Papers and had to cancel the Oliver Twist instalment that month as well.[46] The time in Hampstead was the occasion for a growing bond between Dickens and John Forster to develop and Forster soon became his unofficial business manager, and the first to read his work.[53]

text: His success as a novelist continued. The young Queen Victoria read both Oliver Twist and Pickwick, staying up until midnight to discuss them.[55] Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41) and, finally, his first historical novel, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty, as part of the Master Humphrey's Clock series (1840–41), were all published in monthly instalments before being made into books.[56]

text: In the midst of all his activity during this period there was discontent with his publishers and John Macrone was bought off, while Richard Bentley signed over all his rights in Oliver Twist. Other signs of a certain restlessness and discontent emerge—in Broadstairs he flirted with Eleanor Picken, the young fiancée of his solicitor's best friend, and one night grabbed her and ran with her down to the sea. He declared they were both to drown there in the "sad sea waves". She finally got free but afterwards kept her distance. In June 1841 he precipitately set out on a two-month tour of Scotland and then, in September 1841, telegraphed Forster that he had decided to go to America.[57] Master Humphrey's Clock was shut down, though Dickens was still keen on the idea of the weekly magazine, a form he liked, a liking that had begun with his childhood reading of the eighteenth-century magazines Tatler and The Spectator.

text: First visit to the United States

text: In 1842, Dickens and his wife made their first trip to the United States and Canada. At this time Georgina Hogarth, another sister of Catherine, joined the Dickens household, now living at Devonshire Terrace, Marylebone, to care for the young family they had left behind.[58] She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser, and friend until Dickens's death in 1870.[59] Dickens modeled the character of Agnes Wickfield after Georgina and Mary.[60]

text: He described his impressions in a travelogue, American Notes for General Circulation. Dickens includes in Notes a powerful condemnation of slavery, which he had attacked as early as The Pickwick Papers, correlating the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad[61] citing newspaper accounts of runaway slaves disfigured by their masters. In spite of the abolitionist sentiments gleaned from his trip to America, some modern commentators have pointed out inconsistencies in Dickens's views on racial inequality, for instance, he has been criticized for his subsequent acquiescence in Governor Eyre's harsh crackdown during the 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica and his failure to join other British progressives in condemning it.[62] From Richmond, Virginia, Dickens returned to Washington, D.C., and started a trek westward to St. Louis, Missouri. While there, he expressed a desire to see an American prairie before returning east. A group of 13 men then set out with Dickens to visit Looking Glass Prairie, a trip 30 miles into Illinois.

text: During his American visit, Dickens spent a month in New York City, giving lectures, raising the question of international copyright laws and the pirating of his work in America.[63][64] He persuaded a group of twenty-five writers, headed by Washington Irving, to sign a petition for him to take to Congress, but the press were generally hostile to this, saying that he should be grateful for his popularity and that it was mercenary to complain about his work being pirated.[65]

text: The popularity he gained caused a shift in his self-perception according to critic Kate Flint, who writes that he "found himself a cultural commodity, and its circulation had passed out his control", causing him to become interested in and delve into themes of public and personal personas in the next novels.[66] She writes that he assumed a role of "influential commentator", publicly and in his fiction, evident in his next few books.[66]

text: His trip to the U.S. ended with a trip to Canada: Niagara Falls, Toronto, Kingston and Montreal where he appeared on stage in light comedies.[67]

text: Soon after his return to England, Dickens began work on the first of his Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol, written in 1843, which was followed by The Chimes in 1844 and The Cricket on the Hearth in 1845. Of these, A Christmas Carol was most popular and, tapping into an old tradition, did much to promote a renewed enthusiasm for the joys of Christmas in Britain and America.[68] The seeds for the story became planted in Dickens's mind during a trip to Manchester to witness the conditions of the manufacturing workers there. This, along with scenes he had recently witnessed at the Field Lane Ragged School, caused Dickens to resolve to "strike a sledge hammer blow" for the poor. As the idea for the story took shape and the writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. He later wrote that as the tale unfolded he "wept and laughed, and wept again" as he "walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed."[69]

text: After living briefly in Italy (1844), Dickens travelled to Switzerland (1846), where he began work on Dombey and Son (1846–48). This and David Copperfield (1849–50) mark a significant artistic break in Dickens's career as his novels became more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early works.

text: At about this time he was made aware of a large embezzlement at the firm where his brother, Augustus, worked (John Chapman & Co.). It had been carried out by Thomas Powell, a clerk, who was on friendly terms with Dickens and who had acted as mentor to Augustus when he started work. Powell was also an author and poet and knew many of the famous writers of the day. After further fraudulent activities, Powell fled to New York and published a book called The Living Authors of England with a chapter on Charles Dickens, who was not amused by what Powell had written. One item that seemed to have annoyed him was the assertion that he had based the character of Paul Dombey (Dombey and Son), on Thomas Chapman, one of the principal partners at John Chapman & Co. Dickens immediately fired off a letter to Lewis Gaylord Clark, editor of the New York literary magazine The Knickerbocker, saying that Powell was a forger and thief. Clark published the letter in the New-York Tribune and several other papers picked up on the story. Powell started proceedings to sue these publications and Clark was arrested. Dickens, realising that he had acted in haste, contacted John Chapman & Co. to seek written confirmation of Powell's guilt. Dickens did receive a reply confirming Powell's embezzlement, but once the directors realised this information may have to be produced in court they refused to make further disclosures. Due to the difficulties of providing evidence in America to support his accusations, Dickens eventually made a private settlement with Powell out of court.[70]

text: Philanthropy

text: In May 1846 Angela Burdett Coutts, heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens about setting up a home for the redemption of fallen women of the working class. Coutts envisioned a home that would replace the punitive regimes of existing institutions with a reformative environment conducive to education and proficiency in domestic household chores. After initially resisting, Dickens eventually founded the home, named "Urania Cottage", in the Lime Grove section of Shepherds Bush, which he managed for ten years,[71] setting the house rules, reviewing the accounts and interviewing prospective residents.[72] Emigration and marriage were central to Dickens's agenda for the women on leaving Urania Cottage, from which it is estimated that about 100 women graduated between 1847 and 1859.[73]

text: Religious views

text: As a young man Dickens expressed a distaste for certain aspects of organized religion. In 1836, in a pamphlet titled Sunday Under Three Heads, he defended the people's right to pleasure, opposing a plan to prohibit games on Sundays. "Look into your churches- diminished congregations and scanty attendance. People have grown sullen and obstinate, and are becoming disgusted with the faith which condemns them to such a day as this, once in every seven. They display their feeling by staying away [from church]. Turn into the streets [on a Sunday] and mark the rigid gloom that reigns over everything around"[74]

text: Dickens honoured the figure of Christ—though some claim he may have denied his divinity.[75] Notwithstanding, Dickens has been characterized as a professing Christian.[76] His son, Henry Fielding Dickens, described Dickens as someone who "possessed deep religious convictions". In the early 1840s Dickens had shown an interest in Unitarian Christianity, and Robert Browning remarked that “Mr. Dickens is an enlightened Unitarian.”[77] Writer Gary Colledge, however, asserted that he "never strayed from his attachment to popular lay Anglicanism".[78] He also wrote a religious work called The Life of Our Lord (1849), which was a short book about the life of Jesus Christ, written with the purpose of inculcating his faith to his children and family.[79][80]

text: Dickens disapproved of Roman Catholicism and 19th-century evangelicalism, and was critical of what he saw as the hypocrisy of religious institutions and philosophies like spiritualism, all of which he considered deviations from the true spirit of Christianity.[81] Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky referred to Dickens as "that great Christian writer".[82][83]

text: Middle years

text: The Francophile Dickens often vacationed in France and in a speech delivered in Paris in 1846 in French called the French "the first people in the universe".[84] During his visit to Paris, Dickens met the French literati Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Eugène Scribe, Théophile Gautier, François-René de Chateaubriand and Eugène Sue.[84] Dickens started to write David Copperfield in 1848. It was published between 1849 and 1850. Scholars consider it as Dickens's veiled autobiography with the title character modeled after the author himself. It was Dickens's personal favourite among his own novels.

text: In late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House where he wrote Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1856).[85] It was here that he indulged in the amateur theatricals described in Forster's "Life".[86] During this period he worked closely with the novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins. In 1856, his income from writing allowed him to buy Gad's Hill Place in Higham, Kent. As a child, Dickens had walked past the house and dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, and this literary connection pleased him.[87]

text: In 1857, Dickens hired professional actresses for the play The Frozen Deep, written by him and his protégé, Wilkie Collins. Dickens fell in love with one of the actresses, Ellen Ternan, and this passion was to last the rest of his life.[88] Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18 when he made the decision, which went strongly against Victorian convention, to separate from his wife, Catherine, in 1858—divorce was still unthinkable for someone as famous as he was. When Catherine left, never to see her husband again, she took with her one child, leaving the other children to be raised by her sister Georgina who chose to stay at Gad's Hill.[59]

text: During this period, whilst pondering a project to give public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approached through a charitable appeal by Great Ormond Street Hospital, to help it survive its first major financial crisis. His 'Drooping Buds' essay in Household Words earlier on 3 April 1852 was considered by the hospital's founders to have been the catalyst for the hospital's success.[89] Dickens, whose philanthropy was well-known, was asked by his friend, the hospital's founder Charles West, to preside over the appeal, and he threw himself into the task, heart and soul.[90] Dickens's public readings secured sufficient funds for an endowment to put the hospital on a sound financial footing—one reading on 9 February 1858 alone raised £3,000.[91][92][93]

text: After separating from Catherine,[94] Dickens undertook a series of hugely popular and remunerative reading tours which, together with his journalism, were to absorb most of his creative energies for the next decade, in which he was to write only two more novels.[95] His first reading tour, lasting from April 1858 to February 1859, consisted of 129 appearances in 49 different towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland.[96] Dickens's continued fascination with the theatrical world was written into the theatre scenes in Nicholas Nickleby, but more importantly he found an outlet in public readings. In 1866, he undertook a series of public readings in England and Scotland, with more the following year in England and Ireland.

text: Major works soon followed, including A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861), which were resounding successes. During this time he was also the publisher, editor, and a major contributor to the journals Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1858–1870).[97]

text: In early September 1860, in a field behind Gad's Hill, Dickens made a bonfire of most of his correspondence—only those letters on business matters were spared. Since Ellen Ternan also destroyed all of his letters to her,[98] the extent of the affair between the two remains speculative.[99] In the 1930s, Thomas Wright recounted that Ternan had unburdened herself with a Canon Benham, and gave currency to rumours they had been lovers.[100] That the two had a son who died in infancy was alleged by Dickens's daughter, Kate Perugini, whom Gladys Storey had interviewed before her death in 1929. Storey published her account in Dickens and Daughter,[101][102] but no contemporary evidence exists. On his death, Dickens settled an annuity on Ternan which made her a financially independent woman. Claire Tomalin's book, The Invisible Woman, argues that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life. The book was subsequently turned into a play, Little Nell, by Simon Gray, and a 2013 film.

text: In the same period, Dickens furthered his interest in the paranormal, becoming one of the early members of The Ghost Club.[103]

text: In June 1862 he was offered £10,000 for a reading tour of Australia.[104] He was enthusiastic, and even planned a travel book, The Uncommercial Traveller Upside Down, but ultimately decided against the tour.[105] Two of his sons— Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens and Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens—migrated to Australia, Edward becoming a member of the Parliament of New South Wales as Member for Wilcannia 1889–94.[106][107]

text: Last years

text: On 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash. The train's first seven carriages plunged off a cast iron bridge that was under repair. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Before rescuers arrived, Dickens tended and comforted the wounded and the dying with a flask of brandy and a hat refreshed with water, and saved some lives. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for Our Mutual Friend, and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it.[108] Dickens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story, "The Signal-Man", in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He also based the story on several previous rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash of 1861. Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the inquest to avoid disclosing that he had been travelling with Ternan and her mother, which would have caused a scandal.[109]

text: Second visit to the United States

text: In the late 1850s Dickens began to contemplate[citation needed] a second visit to the United States, tempted by the money that he believed he could make by extending his reading tour there. The outbreak of the Civil War in America in 1861 delayed his plans. Over two years after the war, Dickens set sail from Liverpool on 9 November 1867 for his second American reading tour. Landing at Boston, he devoted the rest of the month to a round of dinners with such notables as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and his American publisher, James Thomas Fields. In early December, the readings began. He performed 76 readings, netting £19,000, from December 1867 to April 1868.[110] Dickens shuttled between Boston and New York, where he gave 22 readings at Steinway Hall. Although he had started to suffer from what he called the "true American catarrh", he kept to a schedule that would have challenged a much younger man, even managing to squeeze in some sleighing in Central Park.

text: During his travels, he saw a significant change in the people and the circumstances of America. His final appearance was at a banquet the American Press held in his honour at Delmonico's on 18 April, when he promised never to denounce America again. By the end of the tour, the author could hardly manage solid food, subsisting on champagne and eggs beaten in sherry. On 23 April, he boarded the Cunard liner Russia to return to Britain,[111] barely escaping a Federal Tax Lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour.[112]

text: Farewell readings

text: Between 1868 and 1869, Dickens gave a series of "farewell readings" in England, Scotland, and Ireland, beginning on 6 October. He managed, of a contracted 100 readings, to deliver 75 in the provinces, with a further 12 in London.[110] As he pressed on he was affected by giddiness and fits of paralysis. He suffered a stroke on 18 April 1869 in Chester.[113] He collapsed on 22 April 1869, at Preston in Lancashire, and on doctor's advice, the tour was cancelled.[114] After further provincial readings were cancelled, he began work on his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It was fashionable in the 1860s to 'do the slums' and, in company, Dickens visited opium dens in Shadwell, where he witnessed an elderly addict known as "Laskar Sal", who formed the model for the "Opium Sal" subsequently featured in his mystery novel, Edwin Drood.[115]

text: After Dickens had regained sufficient strength, he arranged, with medical approval, for a final series of readings to partially make up to his sponsors what they had lost due to his illness. There were to be 12 performances, running between 11 January and 15 March 1870, the last at 8:00 pm at St. James's Hall in London. Although in grave health by this time, he read A Christmas Carol and The Trial from Pickwick. On 2 May, he made his last public appearance at a Royal Academy Banquet in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, paying a special tribute on the death of his friend, the illustrator Daniel Maclise.[116]

text: Death

text: On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day, five years to the day after the Staplehurst rail crash, he died at Gad's Hill Place. Biographer Claire Tomalin has suggested Dickens was actually in Peckham when he suffered the stroke, and his mistress Ellen Ternan and her maids had him taken back to Gad's Hill so the public would not know the truth about their relationship.[118] Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner,"[119] he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world."[120] His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.[121][nb 1]

text: On Sunday, 19 June 1870, five days after Dickens was buried in the Abbey, Dean Arthur Penrhyn Stanley delivered a memorial elegy, lauding "the genial and loving humorist whom we now mourn", for showing by his own example "that even in dealing with the darkest scenes and the most degraded characters, genius could still be clean, and mirth could be innocent." Pointing to the fresh flowers that adorned the novelist's grave, Stanley assured those present that "the spot would thenceforth be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue."[122]

text: In his will, drafted more than a year before his death, Dickens left the care of his £80,000 estate to his longtime colleague John Forster and his "best and truest friend" Georgina Hogarth who, along with Dickens's two sons, also received a tax-free sum of £8,000 (about £800,000 in present terms). Although Dickens and his wife had been separated for several years at the time of his death, he provided her with an annual income of £600 and made her similar allowances in his will. He also bequeathed £19 19s to each servant in his employment at the time of his death.[123]

text: Literary style

text: Dickens favoured the style of the 18th century picaresque novels that he found in abundance on his father's shelves. According to Ackroyd, other than these, perhaps the most important literary influence on him was derived from the fables of The Arabian Nights.[124]

text: His writing style is marked by a profuse linguistic creativity.[125] Satire, flourishing in his gift for caricature, is his forte. An early reviewer compared him to Hogarth for his keen practical sense of the ludicrous side of life, though his acclaimed mastery of varieties of class idiom may in fact mirror the conventions of contemporary popular theatre.[126] Dickens worked intensively on developing arresting names for his characters that would reverberate with associations for his readers, and assist the development of motifs in the storyline, giving what one critic calls an "allegorical impetus" to the novels' meanings.[125] To cite one of numerous examples, the name Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield conjures up twin allusions to "murder" and stony coldness.[127] His literary style is also a mixture of fantasy and realism. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery—he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator"—are often popular. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats, or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy.

text: The author worked closely with his illustrators, supplying them with a summary of the work at the outset and thus ensuring that his characters and settings were exactly how he envisioned them. He briefed the illustrator on plans for each month's instalment so that work could begin before he wrote them. Marcus Stone, illustrator of Our Mutual Friend, recalled that the author was always "ready to describe down to the minutest details the personal characteristics, and ... life-history of the creations of his fancy."[128]

text: Characters

text: Dickens's biographer Claire Tomalin regards him as the greatest creator of character in English fiction after Shakespeare.[129] Dickensian characters are amongst the most memorable in English literature, especially so because of their typically whimsical names. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit, Oliver Twist, The Artful Dodger, Fagin, Bill Sikes, Pip, Miss Havisham, Sydney Carton, Charles Darnay, David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Daniel Quilp, Samuel Pickwick, Wackford Squeers, and Uriah Heep are so well known as to be part and parcel of British culture, and in some cases have passed into ordinary language: a scrooge, for example, is a miser - or someone who dislikes Christmas festivity.

text: His characters were often so memorable that they took on a life of their own outside his books. "Gamp" became a slang expression for an umbrella from the character Mrs Gamp, and "Pickwickian", "Pecksniffian", and "Gradgrind" all entered dictionaries due to Dickens's original portraits of such characters who were, respectively, quixotic, hypocritical, and vapidly factual. Many were drawn from real life: Mrs Nickleby is based on his mother, though she didn't recognise herself in the portrait,[130] just as Mr Micawber is constructed from aspects of his father's 'rhetorical exuberance':[131] Harold Skimpole in Bleak House is based on James Henry Leigh Hunt: his wife's dwarfish chiropodist recognised herself in Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield.[132][133] Perhaps Dickens's impressions on his meeting with Hans Christian Andersen informed the delineation of Uriah Heep.[134]

text: Virginia Woolf maintained that "we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens" as he produces "characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks."[135]

text: One "character" vividly drawn throughout his novels is London itself. From the coaching inns on the outskirts of the city to the lower reaches of the Thames, all aspects of the capital are described over the course of his body of work.

text: Autobiographical elements

text: Authors frequently draw their portraits of characters from people they have known in real life. David Copperfield is regarded by many as a veiled autobiography of Dickens. The scenes of interminable court cases and legal arguments in Bleak House reflect Dickens's experiences as a law clerk and court reporter, and in particular his direct experience of the law's procedural delay during 1844 when he sued publishers in Chancery for breach of copyright.[136] Dickens's father was sent to prison for debt, and this became a common theme in many of his books, with the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit resulting from Dickens's own experiences of the institution.[137] Lucy Stroughill, a childhood sweetheart, may have affected several of Dickens's portraits of girls such as Little Em'ly in David Copperfield and Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities.[138][nb 2] Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he gathered his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death, when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated. Though Skimpole brutally sends up Leigh Hunt, some critics have detected in his portrait features of Dickens's own character, which he sought to exorcise by self-parody.[139]

text: Episodic writing

text: Most of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as Master Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories affordable and accessible, and the series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. When The Old Curiosity Shop was being serialised, American fans waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, "Is little Nell dead?"[140] Part of Dickens's great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end.

text: Another important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style resulted from his exposure to the opinions of his readers and friends. His friend Forster had a significant hand in reviewing his drafts, an influence that went beyond matters of punctuation. He toned down melodramatic and sensationalist exaggerations, cut long passages (such as the episode of Quilp's drowning in The Old Curiosity Shop), and made suggestions about plot and character. It was he who suggested that Charley Bates should be redeemed in Oliver Twist. Dickens had not thought of killing Little Nell, and it was Forster who advised him to entertain this possibility as necessary to his conception of the heroine.[141]

text: Dickens's serialisation of his novels was not uncriticised by other authors. In Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Wrecker, there is a comment by Captain Nares, investigating an abandoned ship: "See! They were writing up the log," said Nares, pointing to the ink-bottle. "Caught napping, as usual. I wonder if there ever was a captain yet that lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles Dickens and his serial novels."

text: Social commentary

text: Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. In a New York address, he expressed his belief that "Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen".[142] Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime: it challenged middle class polemics about criminals, making impossible any pretence to ignorance about what poverty entailed.[143][144]

text: Literary techniques

text: Dickens is often described as using idealised characters and highly sentimental scenes to contrast with his caricatures and the ugly social truths he reveals. The story of Nell Trent in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) was received as extraordinarily moving by contemporary readers but viewed as ludicrously sentimental by Oscar Wilde. "You would need to have a heart of stone", he declared in one of his famous witticisms, "not to laugh at the death of little Nell."[145] G. K. Chesterton, stated: "It is not the death of little Nell, but the life of little Nell, that I object to", arguing that the maudlin effect of his description of her life owed much to the gregarious nature of Dickens's grief, his "despotic" use of people's feelings to move them to tears in works like this.[146]

text: The question as to whether Dickens belongs to the tradition of the sentimental novel is debatable. Valerie Purton, in her recent Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition, sees him continuing aspects of this tradition, and argues that his "sentimental scenes and characters [are] as crucial to the overall power of the novels as his darker or comic figures and scenes", and that "Dombey and Son is [ ... ] Dickens's greatest triumph in the sentimentalist tradition".[147] The Encyclopædia Britannica online comments that, despite "patches of emotional excess", such as the reported death of Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol (1843), "Dickens cannot really be termed a sentimental novelist".[148]

text: In Oliver Twist Dickens provides readers with an idealised portrait of a boy so inherently and unrealistically good that his values are never subverted by either brutal orphanages or coerced involvement in a gang of young pickpockets. While later novels also centre on idealised characters (Esther Summerson in Bleak House and Amy Dorrit in Little Dorrit), this idealism serves only to highlight Dickens's goal of poignant social commentary. Dickens's fiction, reflecting what he believed to be true of his own life, makes frequent use of coincidence, either for comic effect or to emphasise the idea of providence.[149] For example, Oliver Twist turns out to be the lost nephew of the upper-class family that rescues him from the dangers of the pickpocket group. Such coincidences are a staple of 18th-century picaresque novels, such as Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, which Dickens enjoyed reading as a youth.[150]

text: Reception

text: Dickens was the most popular novelist of his time,[151] and remains one of the best-known and most-read of English authors. His works have never gone out of print,[152] and have been adapted continually for the screen since the invention of cinema,[153] with at least 200 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on Dickens's works documented.[154] Many of his works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime, and as early as 1913, a silent film of The Pickwick Papers was made.[155] He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.[1]

text: Among fellow writers, Dickens has been both lionised and mocked. Leo Tolstoy, G. K. Chesterton, and George Orwell praised his realism, comic voice, prose fluency, and satiric caricature, as well as his passionate advocacy on behalf of children and the poor. The French writer Jules Verne called Dickens his favorite writer, writing his novels "stand alone, dwarfing all others by their amazing power and felicity of expression."[156] The Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh was inspired by Dickens's novels in several of his paintings like Vincent's Chair and in an 1889 letter to his sister stated that reading Dickens, especially A Christmas Carol, was one of the things that was keeping him from committing suicide.[157] Oscar Wilde generally disparaged his depiction of character, while admiring his gift for caricature.[158] His late contemporary William Wordsworth, by then Poet laureate, thought him a "very talkative, vulgar young person", adding he had not read a line of his work; Dickens in return thought Wordsworth "a dreadful Old Ass".[159] Henry James denied him a premier position, calling him "the greatest of superficial novelists": Dickens failed to endow his characters with psychological depth and the novels, "loose baggy monsters",[160] betrayed a "cavalier organisation".[161] Virginia Woolf had a love-hate relationship with his works, finding his novels "mesmerizing" while reproving him for his sentimentalism and a commonplace style.[162]

text: A Christmas Carol is most probably his best-known story, with frequent new adaptations. It is also the most-filmed of Dickens's stories, with many versions dating from the early years of cinema.[163] According to the historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of the observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by A Christmas Carol. Dickens catalysed the emerging Christmas as a family-centred festival of generosity, in contrast to the dwindling community-based and church-centred observations, as new middle-class expectations arose.[164] Its archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) entered into Western cultural consciousness. A prominent phrase from the tale, "Merry Christmas", was popularised following the appearance of the story.[165] The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, and his dismissive exclamation 'Bah! Humbug!' likewise gained currency as an idiom.[166] Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray called the book "a national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads it a personal kindness".[163]

text: At a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged within society. Through his journalism he campaigned on specific issues—such as sanitation and the workhouse—but his fiction probably demonstrated its greatest prowess in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and oppression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist, but flourished as a result. His most strident indictment of this condition is in Hard Times (1854), Dickens's only novel-length treatment of the industrial working class. In this work, he uses vitriol and satire to illustrate how this marginalised social stratum was termed "Hands" by the factory owners; that is, not really "people" but rather only appendages of the machines they operated. His writings inspired others, in particular journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. For example, the prison scenes in The Pickwick Papers are claimed to have been influential in having the Fleet Prison shut down. Karl Marx asserted that Dickens "issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together".[167] George Bernard Shaw even remarked that Great Expectations was more seditious than Marx's Das Kapital.[167] The exceptional popularity of Dickens's novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (Bleak House, 1853; Little Dorrit, 1857; Our Mutual Friend, 1865), not only underscored his almost preternatural ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also ensured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored. It has been argued that his technique of flooding his narratives with an 'unruly superfluity of material' that, in the gradual dénouement, yields up an unsuspected order, influenced the organisation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.[168]

text: Influence and legacy

text: Museums and festivals celebrating Dickens's life and works exist in many places with which Dickens was associated. These include the Charles Dickens Museum in London, the historic home where he wrote Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby; and the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth, the house in which he was born. The original manuscripts of many of his novels, as well as printers' proofs, first editions, and illustrations from the collection of Dickens's friend John Forster are held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.[169] Dickens's will stipulated that no memorial be erected in his honour; nonetheless, a life-size bronze statue of Dickens entitled Dickens and Little Nell, cast in 1891 by Francis Edwin Elwell, stands in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Another life-size statue of Dickens is located at Centennial Park, Sydney, Australia.[170] In 2014, a life-size statue was unveiled near his birthplace in Portsmouth on the 202nd anniversary of his birth; this was supported by the author's great-great grandsons, Ian and Gerald Dickens.[171][172]

text: Dickens was commemorated on the Series E £10 note issued by the Bank of England that circulated between 1992 and 2003. His portrait appeared on the reverse of the note accompanied by a scene from The Pickwick Papers. The Charles Dickens School is a high school in Broadstairs, Kent. A theme park, Dickens World, standing in part on the site of the former naval dockyard where Dickens's father once worked in the Navy Pay Office, opened in Chatham in 2007. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens in 2012, the Museum of London held the UK's first major exhibition on the author in 40 years.[173] In 2002, Dickens was number 41 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.[174] American literary critic Harold Bloom placed Dickens among the greatest Western Writers of all time.[175] In the UK survey The Big Read, carried out by the BBC in 2003, five of Dickens's books were named in the Top 100.[176]

text: Dickens and his publications have appeared on a number of postage stamps including: UK (1970, 1993, 2011 and 2012), Soviet Union (1962), Antigua, Barbuda, Botswana, Cameroon, Dubai, Fujairah, St Christopher, Nevis and Anguilla, St Helena, St Lucia and Turks and Caicos Islands (1970), St Vincent (1987), Nevis (2007), Alderney, Gibraltar, Jersey and Pitcairn Islands (2012), Austria (2013), Mozambique (2014).[177]

text: Notable works

text: Dickens published more than a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories, including a number of Christmas-themed stories, a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.

text:
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (Known as "The Pickwick Papers") (Monthly serial, April 1836 to November 1837)[178]
The Adventures of Oliver Twist (Monthly serial in Bentley's Miscellany, February 1837 to April 1839)
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (Monthly serial, April 1838 to October 1839)
The Old Curiosity Shop (Weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, April 1840 to November 1841)
Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (Weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, February to November 1841)
A Christmas Carol (1843)
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (Monthly serial, January 1843 to July 1844)
Dombey and Son (Monthly serial, October 1846 to April 1848)
David Copperfield (Monthly serial, May 1849 to November 1850)
Bleak House (Monthly serial, March 1852 to September 1853)
Hard Times: For These Times (Weekly serial in Household Words, 1 April 1854, to 12 August 1854)
Little Dorrit (Monthly serial, December 1855 to June 1857)
A Tale of Two Cities (Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 30 April 1859, to 26 November 1859)
Great Expectations (Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861)
Our Mutual Friend (Monthly serial, May 1864 to November 1865)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood left unfinished due to Dickens's death (Monthly serial, April 1870 to September 1870)

text: Book: Charles Dickens

text: Charles Dickens portal