Charles John Huffman Dickens was born on 7 February, 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England,son of Elizabeth ne Barrow difficulties throughout

his life. When Dickens father was transferred to Chatham in Kent County, the family settled into the genteel surroundings of a larger home.Dickens was a voracious reader. Household expenses were rising and in 1824, John Dickens was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea Prison. All of the family went with him except for Charles who, at the age of twelve, was sent off to work at Warrens Shoe Blacking Factory to help support the family, pasting labels on boxes. He lived in a boarding house in Camden Town and walked to work every day and visited his father on Sundays. It was one of the pivotal points in Dickens education from the University of Hard Knocks and would stay with him forever. The idyllic days of his childhood were over and he was rudely introduced to the world of the working poor, where child labour was rampant and few if any adults spared a kind word for many abandoned or orphaned children. The appalling working conditions, long hours and poor pay typical of the time were harsh. In 1827 the Dickens were evicted from their home in Somers Town for unpaid rent dues and Charles had to leave school. He obtained a job as a clerk in the law firm. He soon learned shorthand and became a court reporter for the Doctors Commons. He spent much of his spare time reading in the British Museums library and studying acting. In 1830 he met and fell in love with Maria Beadnell, though her father sent her to finishing school in Paris a few years later. In 1833, his first story of many, A Dinner at Poplar Walk was published in the Monthly Magazine. He also had some sketches published in the Morning Chronicle which in 1834 he began reporting for and adopted the pseudonym Boz. At this time Dickens moved out on his own to live as a bachelor at Furnivals Inn, Holborn. and John Dickens. John was a congenial man, hospitable and generous to a fault which caused him financial

Dickens first book, a collection of stories titled Sketches by Boz was published in 1836, a fruitful year for him. He married Catherine Hogarth, daughter of the editor of the Evening Chronicle on 2 April, 1836, at St. Lukes in Chelsea. A year later they moved into 48 Doughty Street, London, now a museum. The couple would have ten children: Charles Culliford Boz (b.1837), Mary (Mamie) (1838-1838), Kate Macready (b.1839), Walter Landor (b.1841), Francis (Frank) Jeffrey (b.1844), Alfred Tennyson (b.1845), Sydney Smith (b.1847), Henry Fielding (b.1849), Dora Annie (1850-1851), Edward Bulwer Lytton (b.1852).

Also in the same year, 1836, Dickens became editor for Bentleys Miscellany of which Pickwick Papers (1836-1837) was first serialised. Most of his novels were first serialised in monthly magazines as was a common practice of the time.

Oliver Twist between 1837 and 1839 was followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), Barnaby Rudge (1841).

Dickens series of five Christmas Books were soon to follow;

A Christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), The Haunted Man (1848).

After the death of Catherines sister Mary in 1837 the couple holidayed in various parts of England.. Further travels to the United States and Canada in 1842 led to his controversial

American Notes (1842). Martin Chuzzlewit was first serialised in 1843.

The next year the Dickens traveled through Italy and settled in Genoa for a year of which his

Pictures From Italy (1846) was written. Dombey and Son (1846) was his next publication, David Copperfield (1849).

In 1850 he started his own weekly journal Household Words which would be in circulation for the next nine years. From 1851 to 1860 the Dickens lived at Tavistock He wrote, directed, and acted in many productions at home with his children and friends, often donating the money raised from ticket sales to those in need. He collaborated with Wilkie Collins on the drama

No Thoroughfare (1867). Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1855-1857).

In 1856 Dickens purchased Gads Hill, his last place of residence near Rochester in Kent County. He continued in the theatre as well, acting in Wilkie Collins

The Frozen Deep in 1857 with actress Ellen Ternan (1839-1914) playing opposite
him. The two fell in love and Dickens would leave Catherine a year later. By now Dickens was widely read in Europe and in 1858 he set off on a tour of public readings. A year later he founded his second weekly journal All the Year

Round, the same year

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Great Expectations (1860-1861) Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865).

In 1865, traveling back from Paris with Ellen and her mother, they were involved in the disastrous Staplehurst train crash, of which Dickens sustained minor injuries, but never fully recovered from the post-traumatic shock of it. Two years later he traveled to America for a reading tour. His farewell readings took place in Londons St. James Hall. Charles Dickens died from a cerebral hemorrhage on 9 June 1870 at his home, Gads Hill. He is buried in Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey, London, his tomb inscribed thus: He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of Englands greatest writers is lost to the world. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish historian and author, upon hearing of his death said:

The good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly, noble Dickensevery inch of him an honest man. Unfinished at his death, The Mystery of Edwin Drood was published in
1870.