The Daily News was a former prominent London daily paper of Liberal politics, established in 1846. Its first editor was Charles Dickens. By the end of the 19th century it was recognized as the leading organ of the Nonconformist Liberals. Research Daily News
Archibald Forbes was a Scottish journalist and war correspondent. He was born in 1838 and died in 1900. He received a university education at Aberdeen and served for some years in the Royal Dragoons, but gave up the army for journalism. As war correspondent of the Daily News he was with the German army in 1870 to 1871 during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, subsequently visiting Paris at the time of the Commune, India during the 1874 famine, and Spain. He accompanied the Prince of Wales in his Indian tour of 1875 to 1876, and was an eye-witness of the Servian war of 1876, and the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, going to Cyprus in 1878. He was under fire during the Afghanistancampaign of 1878 to 1879; next visited Mandalay, and accompanied Lord Chelmsford's army in Zululand, being the first to telegraph home news of the victory of Ulundi in 1880. His health now began to break down, and he devoted himself chiefly to lecturing. His chief publications were: My Experiences in the Franco-German War; Glimpses through the Cannon Smoke; Chinese Gordon; Souvenirs of Some Continents; William I of Germany; Barracks, Bivouacs, and Battles; Havelock; The Afghan Wars; Czar and Sultan; Colin Campbell, LordClyde; Memories and Studies of War and Peace; and Life of Napoleon III. Research Archibald Forbes
Charles Dickens was a 19th century English novelist whose powerful imagery brought to public attention the terrible conditions endured by the poor. He was born in 1812 at Landport, Portsmouth and died in 1870.
His father, John Dickens, was then in the employment of the Navy Pay Department, but subsequently became a newspaper reporter in London. Young Charles Dickens received a somewhat scanty education, was for a time a mere drudge in a blacking warehouse, and subsequently a clerk in an attorney's office. Having perfected himself in shorthand, however, he became a newspapercritic and reporter, was engaged on the Mirror of Parliament and the True Sun, and in 1835 on the Morning Chronicle. For some time previously he had been contributing humorous pieces to the Monthly Magazine; but at length, in 1835, appeared in the Morning Chronicle the first of that series of Sketches by Boz which brought Charles Dickens into fame. It was followed in quick succession by a pamphlet entitled Sunday under Three Heads, by Timothy Spark publsihed in 1836; the Tuggs of Barnsgate published in 1836; The Village Coquette, a comic opera published in 1836; and a farce called the Strange Gentleman published in 1836.
In the same year Chapman and Hall engaged the new writer to prepare the letterpress for a series of comic sketches on sporting subjects by Seymour, an artist who had already achieved fame, and suggested as a subject the adventures of an eccentric club. Seymourcommitted suicide soon after, and H K Browne joined Charles Dickens as illustrator, the result being the immortal Pickwick Papers.
The great characteristics of Charles Dickens' genius were now fully apparent, and his fame rose at once to the highest point it was possible for a writer of fiction to reach. A new class of characters, eccentric indeed, but vital representations of the humours and oddities of life, such as Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller and his father, Mr. Winkle, and others, were made familiar to the public. Under the name of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club this work was published in two volumes in 1837.
In the same year Charles Dickens was engaged as editor of Bentley's Magazine, to which he contributed Oliver Twist, a work which opened up that vein of philanthropic pathos and indignant satire of institutions which became a distinguishing feature of his works. Before the completion of Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby was begun, being issued complete in 1839. As the special object of Oliver Twist was to expose the conduct of workhouses, that of Nicholas Nickleby was to denounce the management of cheap boarding-schools.
Master Humphrey's Clock, issued in weekly numbers, contained among other matter two other leading tales, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge, the latter a historical tale, going back to the times of the Gordon riots. It was published complete in 1840-41. In 1841 Dickens visited America, and on his return he wrote American Notes for General Circulation published in 1842.
His next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit published in 1844, dwelt again on his American experiences. This work also added a number of typical figures - Mr. Pecksniff, Mark Tapley, Sarah Gamp, and others - to English literature. The series of Christmas Tales, in which a new element of his genius, the power of handling the wierd machinery of ghostly legend in subordination to his own peculiar humour, excited a new sensation of wonder and delight. These enumerated consecutively were: A Christmas Carol published in 1843, The Chimes published in 1844, The Cricket on the Hearth published in 1845), The Battle of Life published in 1846, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain published in 1847. The extraordinary popularity of these tales created for a time a new department in literature, that of the Sensational tale for the Christmas season.
In 1845 Charles Dickens went to Italy, and on his return the Daily News, started on the 1st of January, 1846, was intrusted to his editorial management; but, despite his early training, this was an occupation uncongenial to his mind, and in a few months the experiment was abandoned. His Pictures from Italy were published the same year. Next followed his novel of Dombey and Son published in 1848), and David Copperfield, a work which has a strong autobiographical element in it published in 1849-50.
In 1850 Charles Dickens became editor of the weekly serial Household Words, in which various original contributions from his own pen appeared. In 1853 his Bleak House came out. A Child's History of England, commenced in Household Words, was published in 1852-64. Hard Times appeared in Household Words, and was published in 1854. Little Dorrit, commenced in 1856, dealt with imprisonment for debt, the contrasts of character developed by wealth and poverty, and executive imbecility, idealized in the Circumlocution Office. In 1859, in consequence of a disagreement with his publishers, All the Year Round superseded Household Words; and in the first number of this periodical, 28th May, was begun A Tale of Two Cities. Great Expectations followed in the same paper, on the 1st of December, 1860. Both were soon. republished, and are generally considered as the poorest of Charles Dickens' works.
In All the Year Round also appeared a series of disconnected sketches, called the Uncommercial Traveller, published in 1868. Our Mutual Friend, completed in 1865, and published in the usual monthly numbers, with illustrations by Marcus Stone, was the last great serial work which Charles Dickens lived to finish. It contained some studies of characters of a breadth and depth unusual with Charles Dickens, and is distinguished among his works by its elaborate plot. The first number of his last work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was issued on the 1st of April, 1870, and only three numbers had appeared when he died somewhat suddenly, at his residence, Gad's Hill Place, near Rochester, on the 9th of June. He had considerably overtaxed his strength during his later years, more especially by his successive series of public readings from bis own works, one series being delivered in America in 1867-68. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Charles Dickens' work as a novelist is firmly based upon a wide and keen observation of men. It is true that most of his characters suffer from being created to exhibit little more than one trait or quality alone, and thus receive an air of grotesqueness and exaggeration which approaches caricature. But the single trait or quality which they embody is so truly conceived, and exhibited with such vitality and humour, as to place Charles Dickens, in spite of all that is grotesque and overstrained in his work, amongst the great artists. Research Charles Dickens
John Forster was an English writer. He was born in 1812 at Newcastle and died in 1876. While studying for the bar in London he contributed to the Examiner and other periodicals. In 1843 he was called to the bar, but his main interests remained in the field of literature. He became editor of the Daily News in 1846, and shortly afterwards of the Examiner. In 1848 he published his Life of Goldsmith. In 1856 he retired from the editorship of the Examiner, having been appointed the year previous secretary to the Lunacy Commission, of which he became in 1861 a commissioner. During this period he devoted himself to historical studies, the result of which appeared in his Arrest of the Five Members, Debates on the Grand Remonstrance, and Life of Sir John Eliot. He also published biographies of Landor and Charles Dickens, but died before completing his Life of Swift. Research John Forster
William Moy Thomas was a British author and journalist. He was born in 1828 and died in 1910. He was private secretary to Charles Wentworth Dilke; on the staff of Household Words from 1851 until 1858; was dramatic critic, and contributor to The Daily News from 1868 until1901; dramatic critic of The Academy from 1875 until 1879; and first editor of Cassell's Magazine, for which he wrote his novel, 'A Fight for Life' from 1866 until 1867. He edited the poetical works of William Collins, with memoir in 1806 ; and re-edited Lord Wharncliffe's Letters and Works of Lady Mary WortleyMontagu, 2 vols. In 1861. Research Moy Thomas
Thomas Spencer Baynes was an English philosopher and writer. He was born in 1823 at Wellington, Somerset, and died in1887. He studied under Sir William Hamilton at Edinburgh, and acted as his class assistant from 1851 to 1855. From 1857 to 1863 he was resident in London, where he acted as examiner in logic and mental philosophy in the University of London, and as assistant editor on the Daily News, In 1864 he was appointed to the chair of logic, rhetoric, and metaphysics in St Andrews University, a post he held until his death. In 1873, when he became editor of the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, his wide acquaintance with men of letters and learning assisted him greatly in the selection of suitable contributors. He translated the Port Royal Logic, and was a frequent contributor to the principal reviews and literary journals. Research Thomas Baynes
William Black was a Scottish novelist. He was born in 1841 at Glasgow and died in 1898. He first studied art, but eventually became connected with the Glasgow press. In 1864 he went to London, and in the following year joined the staff of the Morning Star, for which he was special correspondent during the Franco-Austrian war of 1866. His first novel, Love or Marriage, 1867, was only moderately successful, but his In Silk Attire, Kilmeny, the Monarch of Mincing Lane, and especially A Daughter of Heth (1871), gained him an increasingly wide circle of readers. For a few years he was assistant-editor of the Daily News. Other works: The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton (1872), A Princess of Thule (1873), The Maid of Killeena, etc. (1874), Three Feathers (1875), Madcap Violet (1876), Green Pastures and Piccadilly (1877), Macleod of Dare (1878), White Wings (1880), Sunrise (1881), The Beautiful Wretch (1882), Shandon Bells (1883), Judith Shakespeare (1884), White Heather (1885), The Strange Adventures of a House-boat (1888), In Far Lochaber (1889), The New Prince Fortunatus (1890), etc. Research William Black
The Golden Gloves is a famous American amateur boxing match. It was started in 1928 as an inter- cities competition between Chicago and New York, sponsored by the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News. Winners received a gold medal and a pair of miniature golden gloves. Research Golden Gloves
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Abbreviations
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