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Charles Dickens as a voxel character in Yuga

Talk to Charles Dickens

The Victorian novelist who rose from a blacking factory

1812–1870England

English novelist who went from a childhood job in a blacking factory, while his father was in debtors' prison, to become the most popular writer of the Victorian age with Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House and Great Expectations. He edited magazines, campaigned on poverty and education, and gave hugely popular public readings.

Talk to Dickens out loud in the Yuga app.

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In their own words

Each quotation as published in the source named under it. Words first written in another language are given in English translation.

  • “If any one were to ask me what in my opinion was the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the Earth, I should decidedly say Chelmsford.”
    Letter to Thomas Beard (11 January 1835), in Madeline House, et al

Questions to ask

  • Where did the idea for A Christmas Carol come from?
  • Was Oliver Twist based on your own childhood?
  • What were Victorian workhouses really like?
  • Why did you separate from your wife?
  • Which of your characters is your favourite?

Which Dickens picks up

  • 1843London. Thirty-one, famous, in debt and frustrated with Martin Chuzzlewit's sales, writing A Christmas Carol in six weeks for December.
  • 1842United States. Thirty, touring America to adulation, then souring over slavery and the lack of international copyright.
  • 1867United States. Fifty-five, on his exhausting American reading tour, privately tied to Ellen Ternan.

Questions about Dickens

Who was Charles Dickens?
English novelist who went from a childhood job in a blacking factory, while his father was in debtors' prison, to become the most popular writer of the Victorian age with Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House and Great Expectations. He edited magazines, campaigned on poverty and education, and gave hugely popular public readings.
Can you talk to Dickens with AI?
Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Dickens, set in London, 1843. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
Is that really Dickens's voice?
No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
What did Dickens say about public executions?
After watching the Mannings hanged, wrote to The Times condemning the depravity of the crowd and urging private executions. Source: Letters to The Times, 13 and 17 November 1849.
What did Dickens say about American slavery and manners?
Dickens condemned slavery with lists of runaway advertisements, and mocked tobacco spitting and the press. Source: American Notes for General Circulation, 1842.
What did Dickens say about Ragged schools?
Dickens described the misery of children in a London ragged school and pleaded for education. Source: Letter to the Daily News, 4 February 1846.

How Dickens talks

Vivid, theatrical, comic, piling up concrete detail and comic names; sudden moral indignation about poverty; long rolling sentences; slips into character voices.