Charles Dickens
查爾斯·狄更斯
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth.
查爾斯·狄更斯于1812年2月7日出生在樸茨茅斯。
Finances were a constant concern for his family. The expenses of having a large family were too much for his father's salary.
經濟問題一直是他家的隐憂，他父親的工資支撐不了一大家子的開銷。
Charles' education was unplanned, but he supplemented（彌補） it with constant reading, particularly of the eighteenth-century novels in his father's small library.
查爾斯上學是有一天沒一天的，但他一直以讀書來彌補，經常在他父親的小圖書館裡閱讀十八世紀的小說。
He was poorly clothed, ill-fed, forced to live in the cheapest place.
他衣衫褴褛，食不果腹，被迫住在最簡陋的房子裡。
At age 12, Charles was removed from school and sent to work at a factory to help support the family.
查爾斯十二歲時辍了學，去一家工廠打工，幫助維持家庭的生計。
Charles was deeply marked by these experiences.
查爾斯深受這些經曆的影響。
This childhood poverty, although unknown to his readers until after his death, would be a heavy influence on Dickens' later views on social reform（改革） and the world he would create through his fiction.
這種童年的貧困，雖然在他死後才為讀者所知，但卻對狄更斯後來的社會改革觀點和他通過小說創造的世界産生了重大影響。
He knew those kinds of feelings. He was lost at that time when he worked hopelessly in the factory. That period was so bitter to the sensitive boy.
他深知那些糟糕的感受。在工廠打工的日子裡，看不到前途希望，這個時期他迷茫過。當時這個敏感的孩子太痛苦了。
Luckily the situation improved within a year. Charles was released from his duties at the factory.
幸運的是，情況在一年之内有了好轉，查爾斯解除了在工廠的工作。
He worked for a time as a junior clerk（初級文員） in a lawyer's office. After that, he worked as a reporter in the law courts, and later in parliament（議會）, for London newspapers.
他曾在律師事務所當過一段時間的初級職員。之後，他在法院當記者，後來又在議會做倫敦報社的記者。
His career as a writer of fiction began in 1833 with short stories and essays in periodicals, and in 1837 his comic（喜劇） novel The Pickwick Papers made him the most popular author at his time in England.
他于1833年開始寫小說，在期刊上發表短篇小說和散文。1837年，他發表了喜劇小說《匹克威克報》，這使他成為當時英國最受歡迎的作家。
He was an acute（敏銳的） observer of people and their places because he was attracted by life and conditions in the mid-nineteenth century London.
因為他對十九世紀中期倫敦的生活環境很感興趣，他能敏銳地觀察到人和事。
He wrote 19 novels all his life and in many of them, Dickens gave a realistic picture of all classes of England society, showing deep sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, exposing the injustice and inhumanity of the bourgeoisie（資産階級）.
狄更斯一生寫了十九部小說。他的許多小說都生動地刻畫了英國社會的各個階層，表達了對窮人和不幸者的深切同情，揭露了資産階級的不公正和不人道。
Many of his novels, like Olive Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, drew attention to the unsatisfactory social conditions that existed in England over 100 years ago.
他的許多小說，比如《霧都孤兒》、《大衛·科波菲爾》、《尼古拉斯·尼克貝》、《遠大前程》、《雙城記》都揭露了一百多年前發生在英國社會的不平等現象。
Dickens criticized capitalist（資本主義） society and he wished to see improvement in the living conditions of the poor. However, he failed to find any effective means to achieve that end.
狄更斯批評資本主義社會，他希望窮人生活條件能得到改善。然而，他始終沒有找到實作這個目标的有效辦法。