Charles John Huffman Dickens was born in Portsmouth on Feb. 7,1812. He moved with his family to London when he was about 2 years old. Many events and people in his books were based on events and people in his life. He was the son of a clerk who was imprisoned for debt. Even when his father was free, there was not enough money to support the family adequately. So Charles was taken out of school at the age of 12 to go to work in a factory pasting labels on bottles. He only had the job for a few months, but the shock affected him deeply. The images of prison life and of mistreated or lost children appeared in many of his novels.
Charles attended school off and on until the age of 15 when he left for good. He loved reading and was influenced by some of the early English writers like William Shakespeare. But most of his knowledge that he used as an author came from what he observed around him. He was a keen observer of life and had a great understanding of human nature, particularly of young people.
ckens became a newspaper reporter in the late 1820's. He covered debates in Parliament and wrote feature articles of the ever changing London scene. Dickens' first publication was done under the pseudonym Boz in 1836. It consisted of articles he wrote for the "Monthly Magazine" and the "Evening Chronicle." These articles surveyed manners and conditions of the time.
Dickens won his first literary fame with "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club." The book describes the humorous adventures of a group of slightly eccentric characters in London and the English countryside. He founded and edited two highly successful weekly magazines. As a public figure, he was constantly in the news. He was recognized and honored wherever he went. He was famous in America as well as Britian.
Dickens was considered by many to be England's greatest novelist and a comic genius. He was a passionate humanitarian and radical. Throughout his life he attacked snobbery, privilege, injustice, and cruelty.
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