June 9, 1870: Charles Dickens Dies

June 9, 1870: Charles Dickens dies from the effects of a stroke at his home in Higham, Kent, England. He was 58 years old.

He was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on the South Coast of England. His father was put into a debtors' prison, and Charles left school and went to work at age 12, getting a harsh education in poverty in a world without a welfare state or, as America would one day put it, a New Deal.

But he began writing as soon as he could. In 1836, his novel The Pickwick Papers was serialized, and became a publishing phenomenon. Over the next few years, and throughout his life, Dickens became known for his satire against the ruling classes and his characters' triumphs over poverty. His lecture tours, including of America in 1842 and 1867, helped spread his fame.

He wasn't always easy to read. He got paid by the word, and thus often bulked up his novels with unnecessary passages. And including what came to be known as "cliffhanger" endings worked well for serialization, as the movies would find out in the next century, but not so well for a modern reader.

Among his most familiar stories: The Adventures of Oliver Twist was published from 1837 to 1839; The Old Curiosity Shop in 1840 and 1841; The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account) in 1849 and 1850; A Tale of Two Cities in 1859; Great Expectations in 1860 and 1861; and Our Mutual Friend in 1864 and 1865.

He has been best remembered for his 1843 novella A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost-story of Christmas, in which a miserly London moneylender named Ebenezer Scrooge hates the poor, and has no sympathy for anyone. He especially hates Christmas, and "Scrooge" came to mean anyone who was mean and/or stingy at Christmastime. His expression, "Bah! Humbug!" entered the lexicon for anyone not feeling the Christmas spirit.

Scrooge is visited by ghosts, who show him his past, the present of those with whom he reluctantly associates, and a future in which he dies unmourned and his money does him no more good. He is scared into deciding to stop being evil, and becomes generous. People ate up this story of a rich man scared into becoming good, and A Christmas Carol  was turned into a play still staged all over the world, and several hit movies.

Sadly, Dickens was often Scrooge-like toward his own family. His wife, the former Catherine Hogarth, gave him 10 children, but he treated her poorly, and left her in 1858, taking up with Ellen Ternan, an actress 24 years younger than Kate (and thus 27 years younger than Charles). 

At the time of his death, his novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood was being serialized, but he had only written 6 of the planned 12 installments. Various adaptations have attempted to solve the mystery, including a 1985 Broadway musical titled Drood, written by Rupert Holmes, he of "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)." Holmes came up with the idea that the audience decides by vote which of the characters is the murderer. In other words, it could be a different killer every night.

Kate Dickens died in 1879. Ellen Ternan eventually married, had children, and died in 1914. Of his children: Charles Dickens Jr. became the editor of a magazine his father founded, and wrote histories of the city of London (not to be confused with "The City of London") and its River Thames. Mary Dickens wrote a biography of her father. Kate Perugini became a painter and married another.

Dora died in infancy in 1851. Walter Dickens died of an aneurysm while serving in India with the British Army in 1863. He was only 23 years old. Another son, Sydney Dickens, also died of illness while serving in the British Army, on a ship returning from India, in 1872, just 25. 

Francis Dickens moved to Canada and served with what became known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Alfred Dickens moved to Australia and managed a train station. Edward Dickens also moved to Australia, and served in the New South Wales legislature. Henry Fielding Dickens became a prominent lawyer, and was the last survivor of the 10 Dickens children, living until 1933. There are many descendants of Charles Dickens alive today.

Dickens has never been portrayed in the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History. But in an episode for Christmas 2013, Ebenezer Scrooge was played by Zach Sherwin. The "three spirits" were played by "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as J.P. Morgan, as "Christmas Past" (even though he would still have been in Scrooge's future); DeStorm Power as Kanye West, as "Christmas Present"; and "Nice" Peter Shukoff, who played both a pre-President Donald Trump in the Jacob Marley role and the Grim Reaper, as "Christmas Yet to Come."

*

June 9, 1870 was a Thursday. Believe it or not, there was a score on this historic day. Baseball's 1st openly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, went to Boston, and beat the Tri-Mountain Base Ball Club, 22-0. The next day, they beat Fairmount in Worcester, Massachusetts. Three days after that, they beat the Mutual of New York Base Ball Club in Brooklyn, running their all-time record to 81-0. But the day after that, they were finally beaten by the Brooklyn Atlantics.