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Birth
Dickens was born in Portsmouth, his father (John Dickens) was a naval pay clerk and his mother (Elizabeth Barrow) was a teacher -
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Childhood
He had a very difficult childhood, firstly he attended a dame school, and then a school run by William Giles, a dissenter, in Chatham. However his father, after spending too much money, was imprisoned for debt into the Marshalsea debtors' prison in Southwark, London in 1824 alongside with his mother and her youngest child, when Charles was only twelve.
He left the school and he was put in a factory to settle the family debt. -
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The law experience
After his father was released he finished the school and found work at the age of 15 as a law clerk, a junior office with potential to become a lawyer. However he didn't like law as a profession and he quit the job. -
The passion for journalism
At the age of 20 he came a very successful shorthand reporter for a newspaper in the House of Commons (named Posthoumos Papers of the Pickwick Club). He reported parliamentary debate and travelling britain by stagecoach to cover election campaigns.
He became very famous in England also for his humoristic and satirical qualities -
The beginning of his career as a novelist
In 1836, after married Caterine Hogarth, he stareted a full-time carreer as a novelist along with the journalist career -
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Dickens's successful novels
during the period between 1837 and 1861 he wrote an immense number of masterpiece, starting of Oliver Twist in 1838, David Copperfield in 1850, Little Dorrit 1857 etc., up to his last story dating back to 1870 The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished). -
The hate against the USA
Charles Dickens visited the USA in 1842 and he wrote his American Notes to advocate international copyright and the abolition of slavery. The thesis of Dickens was complained by all americans politicians and literary, and Dickens write Martin Chuzzlewit that is a parody of the USA's slavery -
Death
Charles Dickens died of an ictus on June 9, 1870 and he was buried in Westminster Abbey
