Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.
Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England, designed by architect Stephen Geary. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East sides. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as well as for its de facto status as a nature reserve. The Cemetery is designated Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Events from the year 1839 in art.
Daniel Maclise was an Irish history painter, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator, who worked for most of his life in London, England.
William Powell Frith was an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the Victorian era. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1853, presenting The Sleeping Model as his Diploma work. He has been described as the "greatest British painter of the social scene since Hogarth".
Richard Westall was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary events, best known for his portraits of Byron. He was also Queen Victoria's drawing master.
Hablot Knight Browne was a British artist and illustrator. Well known by his pen name, Phiz, he illustrated books by Charles Dickens, Charles Lever, Augustus Septimus Mayhew and Harrison Ainsworth.
Frank Stone was an English painter. He was born in Manchester, and was entirely self-taught.
Sir William Boxall was an English painter and museum director.
Events from the year 1870 in the United Kingdom.
Bernard Mulrenin, was an Irish painter best known for his miniatures.
Frederick Barnard was an English illustrator, caricaturist and genre painter. He is noted for his work on the novels of Charles Dickens published between 1871 and 1879 by Chapman and Hall.
The Death of Nelson is a wall painting in the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster by the Irish artist Daniel Maclise. A finished study for it, in the form of a painting, is in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, Merseyside.
Bradbury & Evans (est.1830) was a printing and publishing business founded in London by William Bradbury (1799–1869) and Frederick Mullett Evans (1804–1870).
Frederic Ouvry (1814–1881) was an English lawyer and antiquary.
Frederick Mullett Evans (1803–1870) was an English printer and publisher. He is known for his work as a partner from 1830 in Bradbury & Evans, who printed the works of a number of major novelists, as well as leading periodicals.
Lumb Stocks was a British engraver. In a long career he produced engravings from paintings by notable artists of the day.
The letters of Charles Dickens, of which more than 14,000 are known, range in date from about 1821, when Dickens was 9 years old, to 8 June 1870, the day before he died. They have been described as "invariably idiosyncratic, exuberant, vivid, and amusing…widely recognized as a significant body of work in themselves, part of the Dickens canon". They were written to family, friends, and the contributors to his literary periodicals, who included many of the leading writers of the day. Their letters to him were almost all burned by Dickens because of his horror at the thought of his private correspondence being laid open to public scrutiny. The reference edition of Dickens's letters is the 12-volume Pilgrim Edition, edited by Graham Storey et al. and published by Oxford University Press.
Charles Dickens in His Study is an oil on canvas painting by English artist William Powell Frith, created in 1859. The painting is signed and dated at the lower left, 'W P Frith fecit 1859'. It is held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London.
Portrait of William Harrison Ainsworth is a c.1834 portrait painting by the Irish artist Daniel Maclise depicting the English author William Harrison Ainsworth. Ainsworth was a popular author of historical novels and a contemporary and friend of Dickens.
