A teenage Dickens found work as a political journalist

After finding success as a novelist, Dickens started his own newspaper

Dickens made enough from "Sketches by Boz," "The Pickwick Papers," and "Oliver Twist," that he was able to work full time as a novelist. Still, he was still interested in journalism and decided to publish his own newspaper, the Daily News, in 1846. After 17 issues, he felt he no longer had time to focus on his novels and handed the operation off to a friend.

Scholars believe Dickens wrote over a million words of nonfiction

The author began writing professionally in his teens, first as a court reporter, then for many papers, penning op-eds, criticism, and other miscellany. While Dickens is often discussed as a novelist, he has a massive corpus of works situated in reality.

Dickens' earliest pieces were under the pseudonym 'Boz'

Dickens began working as a journalist in 1829, publishing his portraits of modern life under a pseudonym. In 1834, he used the pen name "Boz," a reference to his brother's childhood nickname, and eventually published a collection of his stories called "Sketches by Boz." By the 1840s, he'd ditched the pseudonym, enjoying his rarefied literary celebrity.

Dickens' first novel was a satire informed by his reporting

"The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" was a series of illustrations and accompanying stories serialized in newspapers from 1836 to 1837. Dickens drew on his previous experiences as a Parliamentary reporter to flesh out the story of Samuel Slumkey, a politician running for office. He wins the election thanks to a well-timed bribe.

Dickens' childhood job influenced his novels

After his father was imprisoned, Dickens took up work in a shoe-blacking factory. His novels often featured hardscrabble protagonists, many of them children, forced to navigate the grim realities of the Industrial Revolution. Today, stories that follow in that model are described as "Dickensian."

Dickens wrote his books as they were serialized in newspapers

Dickens, like many Victorian writers, published his novels as serials that were released piecemeal, over an extended period. Unlike most of his contemporaries, though, Dickens wrote the story as it was released, allowing him to respond to public reactions.

Despite his sometimes caustic satire, Dickens was ultimately an optimist

Michael Slater, a professor of Victorian literature at Birkbeck College, notes that Dickens' anger at Parliament and social injustice never got in the way of his optimism. "There is a constant allegiance to the lives of ordinary people and their pleasures," he said in a 2001 interview with "In Our Time."

'A Christmas Carol' was originally going to be a political pamphlet

Dickens planned to write a treatise on the day's social issues and had a particularly dry working title: "An Appeal to the People of England on behalf of the Poor Man's Child." After a week, though, he decided to rework the ideas into a fictional story, working at a quick pace so it could be released in time for Christmas. It worked: The story was published on December 19, 1843.

Charles Dickens' novels inspired a young Norman Rockwell

Rockwell is considered a narrative painter who tells stories through his portraits of everyday Americans. The interest in using images to tell stories began at a young age, when his father read Dickens aloud to him while the young Norman illustrated the books’ scenes.

Read the works of Charles Dickens

Dickens' work has long been in the public domain, meaning it's freely available to readers. Project Gutenberg's collection of Dickens' novels allows you to read classic novels like "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two Cities," as well as early works like "Sketches by Boz," at no cost.

Punch Magazine pioneered the political cartoon

The 19th-century magazine, which published writers like Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, was known for its biting satire and support for working-class issues.

Tom Wolfe wrote a humorous account of the birth of New Journalism

Wolfe explains the style came from journalists attempting to make fact-based reporting read like a novel, arguing that traditional reporting left readers “bored to tears.” Instead of emphasizing an objective point of view, Wolfe favored detailed descriptions that established complex characters, painted interesting scenes, and shared dialogue.

As a child, Twain worked as a 'printer's devil'

Twain’s father died in 1847, forcing the 12-year-old Twain to leave school to earn money for the family. He took up work in a print shop as a “printer’s devil,” or an apprentice. He became fascinated with the technology, an experience he’d pursue further when he became a journalist several years later.

Joseph Pulitzer created modern journalism

Long before there was cable news, there were newspapers, and Joseph Pulitzer was their king. A Hungarian immigrant, Pulitzer began his career as a reporter himself before buying a newspaper that he could shape with his editorial vision. Pulitzer's papers were bold, provocative, and visually striking, setting a new standard for newspapers nationwide as they moved into the 20th century.

Understanding the relationship between Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

One of Dickinson's most significant pen pals was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a minister, politician, and writer, who became a trusted creative adviser and, after her death, one of the editors of her first published volumes. Their relationship began after Dickinson sent him a letter asking, "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?"

The Dow Jones & Company began as a small news service in 1882

Founded in 1882 by Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser, Dow Jones & Company started with hand-delivered market bulletins. Today it’s a global financial news giant, best known for publishing The Wall Street Journal.

Hughes wrote for and about everyday Black Americans

Early in his career, Hughes was often disregarded by prominent white literary critics and criticized by Black intellectuals for his sometimes negative portrayal of Black life. Hughes, though, was unconcerned, saying that he wrote for the “workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters” of New York, Washington, Chicago, and other Black hubs.

The Washington Post's Janet Cooke returned her Pulitzer

When Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke published her profile of a 8-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy in 1980, it created an instant uproar. Social workers, police officers, and even the mayor of Washington, DC all jumped into action to try to get the child help, but no one could find him. Within hours of Cooke receiving a Pulitzer for the piece, everything began to unravel as it was revealed that she had fabricated not just Jimmy's story, but her own as well. She eventually returned the award.

Exploring the work of Frances Burney, one of Jane Austen's main influences

Jane Austen is often credited with pioneering the narrative technique of "free indirect discourse," in which a narrator embodies a character's style without using the first-person perspective. But this essay argues Burney is the real innovator and that Austen, a fan of Burney's, continued using the technique to more acclaim.

Reflections from Ben Giles, history's greatest stain remover

Starting out as a freelance window cleaner, the British cleaning legend started taking on jobs cleaning out people's garages and shacks. He soon realized people would pay top-dollar to have their worst messes cleaned up by someone else.

See the list of alleged communists Orwell gave to the British government

In 1949, Orwell provided a list of communist sympathizers to a British anti-communist propaganda unit, naming figures like actor Charlie Chaplin and writer John Steinbeck. When it was made public in 2003, some called Orwell a government informant, though others blamed his tuberculosis, which would take his life a year later, while others blamed his romantic interest in the woman who asked him for the names.

Novelist Charles Portis covered Elvis Presley as a young reporter

The "True Grit" and "Norwood" author spent time working as a reporter for Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal, where he covered Elvis Presley's brief military leave.

David Ogilvy once worked for the man who created the Gallup Poll

In 1938, when Ogilvy came to the United States, he started working for George Gallup’s Audience Research Institute in New Jersey. He took his learnings with him through the rest of his career, including during World War II, when Ogilvy worked with the Intelligence Service at the British Embassy in Washington.

Discussing his early life, David Attenborough describes how his TV career began by chance

Growing up on the University College, Leicester campus, where his father was principal, Attenborough uncovered specimens such as coiled shells in the rocks and limestone of the surrounding Midlands, which sparked his interest in nature. A week after not landing an interview for a radio job he had applied for, Attenborough was offered a position on "a new thing called television."

Former New Yorker editor Tina Brown coined the term “gig economy” in 2009

Although this article was written pre-pandemic, the workers interviewed in it still feel representative of the sector’s modern ethos. In the piece, the writer interviews a handful of gig workers about why, exactly, they’ve chosen to make a living off of Airbnbs or TaskRabbit gigs rather than doing something else.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.