The success of Pickwick Papers made Dickens very popular. He suddenly found himself at twenty-fourthe most famous novelist of his day. Busy as his social life was, he worked on two novels at the same time-
Oliver Twist and Pickwick Papers. He was particularly proud of Pickwick Papers, which was a huge success
and was regarded as a comic (喜剧) masterpiece (杰作). "If I were to live a hundred years and write novels
in each, I should never be so proud of any of them as I am proud of Pickwick Papers," he said.
It has been said of Dickens that he grasped (抓住) the imagination of" his readers because his imagination
grasped himself. The people in his works were so real that they could make him laugh or cry. When writing
Oliver Twist he said that he could not rest until Fagin, the wrongdoer (做坏事的人), had been hanged.
Dickens" marriage to Catherine Hagarth, with whom he had nine children, ended unhappily in 1858. He
started to travel about giving readings of his works. His interest in theater gave his novels the qualities that
made them suitable for reading aloud on the stage. A tiring trip to the United States affected his health. On June
9th, 1870, when he was working on a new novel, he died. Dickens had always wanted to die of working.