Early works

Early works

In 1836 Dickens also began to publish The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club in

Charles Dickens.

monthly installments, a form of serial publication that became a standard method of writing and producing fiction in the Victorian period.
So great was Dickens's success with the procedure that Pickwick became one of the most popular works of the time, and continued to be so after it was published in book form in 1837.

After Pickwick 's success, Dickens began publishing his new novel, Oliver Twist. He was also now editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a new monthly magazine. He continued publishing his novel in his later magazines, Household Worlds and All the Year Round. Oliver Twist expressed Dickens's interest in the life of the slums to the fullest, as it traced the fortunes of an innocent orphan through the London streets.

Though Dickens's career was successful, for the next decade his books did not achieve the standard of his early successes. These works include: Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841), and Barnaby Rudge (1841).

In 1842 Dickens, who was as popular in America as he was in England, went on a five-month lecture tour of the United States, speaking out strongly against slavery and in support of other reforms. On his return he wrote American Notes, a book that criticizes American life as being culturally backward and materialistic (characterized by the desire for wealth and material goods). His next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844), describes the hero finding that survival on the American frontier is more difficult than making his way in England. During the years in which Chuzzlewitappeared, Dickens also published two Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol and The Chimes.