Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens, one of eight children, was born in 1812 to John and Elizabeth Dickens. John Dickens (described by Charles as “a jovial opportunist with no money sense”) was a clerk in the Navy pay office, whose relative success led to Charles being able to attend school from the age of nine, something quite uncommon for a non upper class child of the time. This good fortune was not to last for the Dickens family though. In 1824 John Dickens was imprisoned for being unable to pay a series of fines, and as was the norm during the period, his family were imprisoned along with him. The twelve year old Charles escaped this fate but was sent instead to work in a blacking factory (where boot blacking was made) to help support his family. Charles worked in the factory for three years before being able to return to school and the misery that he experienced at the factory was fictionalised later in his novels Great Expectations and David Copperfield.

Dickens began his writing career as a journalist, with his first article being published in 1833. He became a prolific parliamentary journalist before accepting the job of Editor on the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany in 1836. He also married Catherine Thomson Hogarth in 1836, and the couple went on to have ten children.

Much of Dickens’ work appeared in periodicals in ‘serial’ form, with one chapter or section of each novel being characterised by a ‘cliffhanger’ style, with many chapters ending in a predicament for one of its characters which is then resolved in the next installment.

Dickens became a prominent philanthropist later on, founding a home in London for ‘fallen women’ and buying his parents a cottage in Devon.

Charles Dickens wrote a huge number of novels, an autobiography and several plays and edited many periodicals throughout his lifetime and is one of the world’s most popluar writers.