In This Month: March

Dickens Publishes First Novel
In March 1836, England's most famous novelist, Charles Dickens, published his first novel The Pickwick Papers. Dickens, who was born in Portsmouth, had a harsh childhood after his father was imprisoned for debt in 1821. The young boy was set to work at a boot-blacking factory to support his family where he had to work ten-hour days – an experience he later wrote about in Great Expectations and David Copperfield.

However, by 1834 his luck had changed and he had not only become a journalist but had also started to publish a series of sketches under the pseudonym 'Boz'. Two years later he published the serialised novel The Pickwick Papers, which became a runaway success and brought him instant fame. In this picture from the novel, we see three men enjoying a drink at Bob Sawyers' bachelor party. The sketch was drawn by Dicken's principal illustrator Hablot Knight Browne, who was better known as 'Phiz'.