Background information for A Tale of Two Cities by ….pptxVIP

Background information forA Tale of Two Cities (1859) by Charles DickensPinneo, 2012;Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Dickens came from a lower-middle class family, where he enjoyed a relatively enjoyable boyhood When Dickens was 12, his father and then the rest of his family was thrown in debtors prison, so without them Dickens was forced to work in a shoe polish factory, a run down building full of rats, which Dickens compared to a living grave Dickens’ experiences with poverty and hardship early in life account for his sympathy with the poor and working classes in most of his novels Dickens didn’t receive a formal education until he found a job as a law clerk at the age of 15, and his success came when he began publishing “serials,” or small portions of narratives as continuing series By 1859, when ToTC was first published, Dickens was the most popular British author of the time;1840s and 1850s London For the upper-middle and ruling class, “progress” meant an increase in tangible material and wealth – this meant more factories, more workers, more residents, larger, more organized cities for the new workers and residents, and of course new and nicer things for the upper-middle and ruling classes One factor propelling this “progress” was the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s and early 1800s But because progress had advanced so rapidly, London and other cities built too many factories and produced too many goods like textiles, and due to similar systems in America and other major European cities, the 1840s was a period in which over 1.5 million British were unemployed ;1840s and 1850s London Due to unemployment and hard financial times for the nation as well as an influx of impoverished Irish potato farmers, high food prices, homelessness, overcrowded cities, horrible working conditions in factories, and pollution of the cities and adjoining rivers became serious problems ? many people were frustrated with the wealthy ruling class Just a few years befo