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Birth
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth. The city is located in Hampshire, England and is about 70 miles southwest of London.
Charles was the second of eight children. His father, John Dickens, was a naval clerk who dreamed of striking it rich. Charles' mother, Elizabeth Barrow, aspired to be a teacher and school director. -
The move to Camden Town
Despite his parents’ best efforts, the family remained poor. Nevertheless, they were happy in the early days. In 1816, they moved to Chatham, Kent, where young Dickens and his siblings were free to roam the countryside and explore the old castle at Rochester.
In 1822, the Dickens family moved to Camden Town, a poor neighborhood in London. -
Charles’s father went to prison for debt
His father, who had a difficult time managing money and was constantly in debt, was imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtor's prison in 1824. Because of this, Charles was withdrawn from school and forced to work in a warehouse that handled 'blacking' or shoe polish to help support the family.
He felt abandoned and betrayed by the adults who were supposed to take care of him. These sentiments would later become a recurring theme in his writing. -
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Dickens Enters the Workforce
In May of 1827 Dickens left Wellington House Academy and entered the workforce as a law clerk at the firm of Ellis and Blackmore. His duties included keeping the petty cash fund, delivering documents, running errands and other sundry tasks.
In 1829 he changed careers and became a court stenographer.
In 1831 he became a shorthand reporter with the Mirror of Parliament. -
The first publications
In 1833, Dickens submitted his first story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical Monthly Magazine.
He began contributing stories and descriptive essays to magazines and newspapers; these attracted attention and were reprinted as Sketches by “Boz” (February 1836). -
Marriage
In 1834 Dickens met Catherine Hogarth, the woman who would become his wife. They became engaged in 1835 and were married in April of 1836. In January of 1837 the first of their ten children was born. -
'Oliver Twist'
Oliver Twist, Dickens first novel, follows the life of an orphan living in the streets. The book was inspired by how Dickens felt as an impoverished child forced to get by on his wits and earn his own keep.
As publisher of a magazine called Bentley’s Miscellany, Dickens began publishing Oliver Twist in installments between February 1837 and April 1838, with the full book edition published in November 1838. -
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Travels to the United States and Italy
In 1842, Dickens and his wife, Catherine, embarked on a five-month lecture tour of the United States. Dickens spoke of his opposition to slavery and expressed his support for additional reform.
Upon their return, Dickens wrote "American Notes for General Circulation", a sarcastic travelogue criticizing American culture and materialism.
Dickens also spent significant time in Italy, resulting in his 1846 travelogue "Pictures from Italy". -
Gad's Hill Place
In 1856 his popularity had allowed him to buy Gad's Hill Place, an estate he had admired since childhood. -
"Great Expectations"
"Great Expectations" is widely considered Dickens’ greatest literary accomplishment.The story, Dickens’ second to be narrated in the first person, focuses on the lifelong journey of moral development for the novel’s protagonist, an orphan named Pip. With extreme imagery and colorful characters, the well-received novel’s themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and good versus evil. -
Death
After suffering a stroke, Dickens died at age 58 on June 9, 1870, at Gad’s Hill Place.Five years earlier, Dickens had been in a train accident and never fully recovered. Despite his fragile condition, he continued to tour until shortly before his death.
Dickens was buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey, with thousands of mourners gathering at the beloved author’s gravesite.