he child nickname of one of
his younger brothers. This was his beginning. He was soon on the road to
a comfortable fortune, and when at length _Pickwick Papers_ appeared,
Dickens's fame was assured. This was his first long story. It became,
almost at once, the most popular book of its day, perhaps, indeed, the
most popular book ever published in England. Soon after the appearance
of its first chapters, Dickens married Miss Catherine Hogarth, daughter
of the editor of one of the London newspapers, who had helped him in his
career.

Many have tried to explain the marvelous popularity of _Pickwick
Papers_. Certainly its honest fun, its merriment, its quaintness, good
humor and charity appealed to every reader. More than all, it made
people acquainted with a new company of characters, none of whom had
ever existed, or could ever exist, and yet whose manners and appearance
were pictured so really that they seemed to be actual persons whom one
might meet and laugh with anywhere.

With such a success, and the money it brought him, Dickens had leisure
to begin the wonderful series of stories which endeared him to the whole
English-speaking world, and made him the most famous author of his day.
_Oliver Twist_ came first, and it was followed by _Nicholas Nickleby_
and _The Old Curiosity Shop_.

In the first two of these stories one may see most clearly the principle
that underlay almost all of Dickens's work. He was never content merely
to tell an interesting story. He wrote with a purpose. In _Oliver Twist_
that purpose was, first, to better the poorhouse system, and second, to
show that even in the lowest and wickedest paths of life (the life
wherein lived Fagin with his pupils in crime and Bill Sikes the brutal
burglar) there could yet be found, as in the case of poor Nancy, real
kindness and sacrifice. In _Nicholas Nickleby_ the purpose was to show
what terrible wrongs were done to children in country schools, numbers
of which at that time were managed by men almost as cruel and inhuman as
was Squeers in the story. It is good to learn that, as a result of this
novel, an end was made of many such boys' schools. True artist as he
was, Dickens seldom wrote without having in his mind the thought of
showing some defect in the law, or some wrong condition of affairs which
might be righted. No one could read _Pickwick Papers_ or _Little Dorrit_
without realizing how much wrong and misery was caused by the law which
made it possib