Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was one of the great figures in English literature and has maintained his popularity to the present day because of his breadth of appeal. Many of the characters he created have since passed into a sort of modern mythology while many of his quotations have become part of everyday language. His works have been translated into practically every language and his novels have been adapted to plays, films, musicals, and so on.

Charles Dickens was one of the most popular writers of his day as well. His unique blend of humour, pathos and humanitarianism resounds throughout all his works, and made him wildly popular in his time. Over the years he has received his fair share of praise, and today he is generally regarded as a serious literary artist as well as a social analyst. His depiction of Victorian society as being industrialized, greedy, and self important has earned his a seat among the great morally and socially responsible writers of history.

Charles Dickens was born at Portsea on February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and his mother was of middle class origin. Dickens's earliest years were happy ones. He was considered a delicate and imaginative boy, and spent much of his time wandering along the country of the Thames and Medway estuaries. Indeed, this countryside was later to become the setting of many scenes in his novels. He read Shakespeare, the Arabian Nights, and many 18th Century novels he had found in his attic. At school he was a quick learner and easily distinguished himself.

In 1822 the Dickens family relocated to London after his father was transferred there. Charles had been left in Chatham to finish his school term and later joined his family. When he arrived he found them living in poverty. His father had run into financial difficulty, and now there was to be no more schooling for Charles, only household chores. Now he roamed the London streets, instead of the Thames and Medway estuaries. In February 1824 his father was arrested for debts and taken to Marshalsea prison. Twelve year old Charles was now sent to work in a blacking warehouse for a wage of six shillings a week to support himself, as the rest of the