lionel trilling, great critics of the record is exhausting and that's true. dickens filled his life with parties and good work and his work with the writing and edited a weekly magazine and performed the buck. it's amazing that one man could have done what he did. >> host: how did he live and how well known was he during his lifetime? >> guest: he certainly burned himself out i think doing all that he did. he was born into a poor family. in fact, his maternal grandfather had to flee the country for the navy pay office and would have gone to prison. so he had a not very promising background but he was a very bright little boy and he had almost no education. he became a reporter and began to write sketches of london life and gave them to the newspapers and he sold them to newspapers. they were very popular and they said why not make them into two volumes and publish them and get an illustrator. a great artist, 1886 they were published and they were a huge worth reading if he would like to know what he was like in the 30's and another publisher's office and said