Charles Dickens
1812–1870 2 entries
Biography
Charles Dickens was an English novelist, the most popular writer of the Victorian age. Born in Portsmouth in 1812, he was twelve when his father was imprisoned for debt, and he had to leave school to work in a factory pasting labels on pots of boot blacking, an experience he never forgot. He became a court reporter and a journalist, and in 1836 The Pickwick Papers, published in monthly parts, made him famous almost overnight.
In novels such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities he created unforgettable characters and exposed poverty, child labour and the injustice of the law. A Christmas Carol, with the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, helped to shape the way Christmas is celebrated. He edited magazines, campaigned for social reform and gave hugely popular readings of his works in Britain and America. He died in 1870 at his home near Rochester, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
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