In 1812, the year Charles Dickens was born, there were 66 novels published in Britain. People had been writing novels for a century - most experts date the first novel to Robinson Crusoe in 1719 - but nobody wanted to do it professionally. The steam-powered printing press was still in its early stages; the literacy rate in England was under 50%. Many works of fiction appeared without the names of the authors, often with something like "By a lady." Novels, for the most part, were looked upon as silly, immoral or just plain bad.
1812年，查尔斯·狄更斯出生这一年，英国已经出版了66部小说。一个世纪以来，人们一直在写小说——大多数专家将第一部小说追溯到1719年的鲁滨逊·克鲁索——但没有人愿意职业写作。蒸汽动力印刷机仍处于早期阶段；英国的识字率不到50%。许多小说作品出现时没有作者的名字，通常署名为“一位女士”。大多数情况下，小说被视为愚蠢、不道德或纯粹糟糕。
In 1870, when Dickens died, the world mourned him as its first professional writer and publisher, famous and beloved, who had led an explosion in both the publication of novels and their readership and whose characters - from Oliver Twist to Tiny Tim - were held up as moral touchstones. Today Dickens' greatness is unchallenged. Removing him from the pantheon of English literature would make about as much sense as the Louvre selling off the Mona Lisa.
1870年，狄更斯去世，全世界都为他哀悼，因为他是世界上第一位职业作家和出版商，著名而受人喜爱，他在小说出版和读者数量方面都取得了巨大的成功，他的人物——从《雾都孤儿》到《小提姆》——被视为道德的试金石。今天，狄更斯的伟大是无可争议的。将他从英国文学的万神殿中除名的意义与卢浮宫出售《蒙娜丽莎》一样。
How did Dickens get to the top? For all the feelings readers attach to stories, literature is a numbers game, and the test of time is extremely difficult to pass. Some 60, 000 novels were published during the Victorian age, from 1837 to1901; today a casual reader might be able to name a half-dozen of them. It's partly true that Dickens' style of writing attracted audiences from all walks of life. It's partly that his writings rode a wave of social, political and scientific progress. But it's also that he rewrote the culture of literature and put himself at the center. No one will ever know what mix of talent, ambition, energy and luck made Dickens such a distinguished writer. But as the 200th anniversary of his birth approaches, it is possible - and important for our own culture-to understand how he made himself a lasting one.
狄更斯是如何登上顶峰的？对于读者对故事的所有情感而言，文学是一个数字游戏，时间的考验极难通过。在维多利亚时代，从1837年到1901年，大约有60000部小说出版；今天，一个普通的读者可能能说出其中的六个。狄更斯的写作风格吸引了各行各业的读者，这在一定程度上是正确的。这部分是因为他的作品推动了社会、政治和科学进步的浪潮。但他也改写了文学文化，把自己放在中心位置。没有人会知道狄更斯是什么样的天赋、雄心、精力和运气的混合体使他成为如此杰出的作家。但随着他诞辰200周年的临近，我们自己的文化有可能——也很重要——理解他是如何使自己成为一个持久的人的。
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