charles dickens biography summary

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was a British author who penned the beloved classics Oliver Twist , A Christmas Carol , David Copperfield , and Great Expectations .

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• Who Was Charles Dickens?

Charles Dickens was a British author, journalist, editor, illustrator, and social commentator who wrote the beloved classics Oliver Twist , A Christmas Carol , and Great Expectations . His books were first published in monthly serial installments, which became a lucrative source of income following a childhood of abject poverty. Dickens wrote 15 novels in total, including Nicholas Nickleby , David Copperfield , and A Tale of Two Cities . His writing provided a stark portrait of poor and working class people in the Victorian era that helped to bring about social change. Dickens died in June 1870 at age 58 and is remembered as one of the most important and influential writers of the 19 th century.

Quick Facts

Early life and education, life as a journalist, editor, and illustrator, personal life: wife and children, charles dickens’ books: 'oliver twist,' 'great expectations,' and more, travels to the united states, 'a christmas carol' and other works, pop culture adaptations.

FULL NAME: Charles John Huffam Dickens BORN: February 7, 1812 DIED: June 9, 1870 BIRTHPLACE: Portsmouth, England SPOUSE: Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1836-1870) CHILDREN: Charles Jr., Mary, Kate, Walter, Francis, Alfred, Sydney, Henry, Dora, and Edward ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth on the southern coast of England. He was the second of eight children born to John Dickens, a naval clerk who dreamed of striking it rich, and Elizabeth Barrow, who aspired to be a teacher and school director. Despite his parents’ best efforts, the family remained poor but nevertheless 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. Dickens was a sickly child and prone to spasms, which prevented him from playing sports. He compensated by reading avidly, including such books as Robinson Crusoe, Tom Jones , Peregrine Pickle , and The Arabian Nights , according to The World of Charles Dickens by Fido Martin.

In 1822, the Dickens family moved to Camden Town, a poor neighborhood in London. By then, the family’s financial situation had grown dire, as Charles’ father had a dangerous habit of living beyond the family’s means. Eventually, John was sent to prison for debt in 1824, when Charles was just 12 years old. He boarded with a sympathetic family friend named Elizabeth Roylance, who later inspired the character Mrs. Pipchin in Dickens’ 1847 novel Dombey and Son , according to Dickens: A Biography by Fred Kaplan.

Following his father’s imprisonment, Dickens was forced to leave school to work at a boot-blacking factory alongside the River Thames. At the run-down, rodent-ridden factory, Dickens earned 6 shillings a week labeling pots of “blacking,” a substance used to clean fireplaces. It was the best he could do to help support his family, and the strenuous working conditions heavily influenced his future writing and his views on treatment of the poor and working class.

Much to his relief, Dickens was permitted to go back to school when his father received a family inheritance and used it to pay off his debts. He attended the Wellington House Academy in Camden Town, where he encountered what he called “haphazard, desultory teaching [and] poor discipline,” according to The World of Charles Dickens by Angus Wilson. The school’s sadistic headmaster was later the inspiration for the character Mr. Creakle in Dickens’ semi-autobiographical novel David Copperfield .

When Dickens was 15, his education was pulled out from under him once again. In 1827, he had to drop out of school and work as an office boy to contribute to his family’s income. However, as it turned out, the job became a launching point for his writing career. Within a year of being hired, Dickens began freelance reporting at the law courts of London. Just a few years later, he was reporting for two major London newspapers.

In 1833, he began submitting sketches to various magazines and newspapers under the pseudonym “Boz,” which was a family nickname. His first published story was “A Dinner at Poplar Walk,” which ran in London’s Monthly Magazine in 1833. Seeing his writing in print made his eyes “overflow with joy and pride,” according to Dickens: A Biography . In 1836, his clippings were published in his first book, Sketches by Boz.

Dickens later edited magazines including Household Words and All the Year Round , the latter of which he founded. In both, he promoted and originally published some of his own work such as Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities .

Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, soon after the publication of his first book, Sketches by Boz . She was the daughter of George Hogarth, the editor of the Evening Chronicle . Dickens and Hogarth went on to have 10 children between 1837 and 1852, according to biographer Fred Kaplan. Among them were magazine editor Charles Dickens Jr., painter Kate Dickens Perugini, barrister Henry Fielding Dickens, and Edward Dickens, who entered into politics after immigrating to the Australia.

In 1851, Dickens suffered two devastating losses: the deaths of his infant daughter, Dora, and his father, John. He also separated from his wife in 1858. Dickens slandered Catherine publicly and struck up an intimate relationship with a young actor named Ellen “Nelly” Ternan. Sources differ on whether the two started seeing each other before or after Dickens’ marital separation. It is also believed that he went to great lengths to erase any documentation alluding to Ternan’s presence in his life. These major losses and challenges seeped into Dickens’ writing in his “dark novel” period.

Best known for his fiction writing, Dickens wrote a total of 15 novels between 1836 and 1870. His first was The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club , and his last was The Mystery of Edwin Drood , which went unfinished due to his death.

Dickens’ books were originally published in monthly serial installments that sold for 1 shilling each. The affordable price meant everyday citizens could follow along, though wealthier readers, such as Queen Victoria , were also among Dickens’ fans. Once complete, the stories were published again in novel form.

Dickens’ books provided a stark portrait of poor and working class people in the Victorian era that helped to bring about social change. In the 1850s, following the death of his father and infant daughter, as well as his separation from his wife, Dickens’ novels began to express a darkened worldview. His so-called dark novels are Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1857). They feature more complicated, thematically grim plots and more complex characters, though Dickens didn’t stray from his typical societal commentary.

Read more about each of Charles Dickens’ novels below:

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club

Serial Publication: April 1836 to November 1837 Novel Publication: 1837

In 1836, the same year his first book of illustrations released, Dickens started publishing The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club . His series, originally written as captions for artist Robert Seymour’s humorous sports-themed illustrations, took the form of monthly serial installments. It was wildly popular with readers, and Dickens’ captions proved even more popular than the illustrations they were meant to accompany.

Oliver Twist

Serial Publication: February 1837 to March 1839 Novel Publication: November 1838

While still working on The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club , Dickens began Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progress , which would prove to be one of his most popular novels. The book follows the life of an orphan living in the streets of London, where he must get by on his wits and falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the dastardly Fagin.

Oliver Twist unromantically portrayed the mistreatment of London orphans, and the slums and poverty described in the novel made for biting social satire. Although very different from the humorous tone of the Pickwick Papers , Oliver Twist was extremely well-received in both England and America, and dedicated readers eagerly anticipated each next monthly installment, according to the biography Charles Dickens by Harold & Miriam Maltz. Even the young Queen Victoria was an avid reader of  Oliver Twist , describing it as “excessively interesting.”

Nicholas Nickleby

Serial Publication: April 1838 to October 1839 Novel Publication: 1839

As Dickens was still finishing Oliver Twist , he again began writing his follow-up work in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby . It tells the story of the title character, who must support his mother and sister following the loss of their comfortable lifestyle when his father dies and the family loses all of their money.

The Old Curiosity Shop

Serial Publication: April 1840 to February 1841 Novel Publication: 1841

Taking a few months between projects this time, Dickens’ next serial was The Old Curiosity Shop . Protagonist Nell Trent lives with her grandfather, whose gambling costs them the titular shop. The pair struggles to survive after into hiding to avoid a money lender.

Barnaby Rudge

Serial Publication: February to November 1841 Novel Publication: 1841

Right on the heels of The Old Curiosity Shop came Barnaby Rudge . The historical fiction novel, Dickens’ first, follows Barnaby and depicts the chaos of mob violence. The author originated the idea years prior but is thought to have temporarily abandoned it due to a dispute with his publisher.

Martin Chuzzlewit

Serial Publication: January 1843 to July 1844 Novel Publication: 1844

After his first American tour, Dickens wrote The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit . The story is about a man’s struggle to survive on the ruthless American frontier.

Dombey and Son

Serial Publication: October 1846 to April 1848 Novel Publication: 1848

After an uncharacteristic break, Dickens returned with Dombey and Son , which centers on the theme of how business tactics affect a family’s personal finances. Published as a novel in 1848, it takes a dark view of England and is considered pivotal to Dickens’ body of work in that it set the tone for his future novels.

David Copperfield

Serial Publication: May 1849 to November 1850 Novel Publication: November 1850

Dickens wrote his most autobiographical novel to date with David Copperfield by tapping into his own personal experiences in his difficult childhood and his work as a journalist. The book follows the life of its title character from his impoverished childhood to his maturity and success as a novelist. It was the first work of its kind: No one had ever written a novel that simply followed a character through his everyday life.

David Copperfield is considered one of Dickens’ masterpieces, and it was his personal favorite of his works; he wrote in the book’s preface, “Like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield.” It also helped define the public’s expectations of a Dickensian novel. In The Life of Charles Dickens , biographer John Forster wrote “Dickens never stood so high in reputation as at the completion of Copperfield ,” and biographer Fred Kaplan called the novel “an exploration of himself through his art more direct, more honest, more resolute than in his earlier fiction.”

Bleak House

Serial Publication: 1852 to 1853 Novel Publication: 1853

His next work, Bleak House , dealt with the hypocrisy of British society. The first of his “dark novels,” it was considered his most complex novel yet. Drawing upon his brief experiences as a law clerk and court reporter, the novel is built around a long-running legal case involving several conflicting wills and was described by biographer Fido Martin as “England’s greatest satire on the law’s incompetence and delays.” Dickens’ satire was so effective that it  helped support  a successful movement toward legal reform in the 1870s.

Serial Publication: April to August 1854 Novel Publication: 1854

Dickens followed Bleak House with Hard Times , which takes place in an industrial town at the peak of economic expansion. Hard Times focuses on the shortcomings of employers as well as those who seek change.

Little Dorrit

Serial Publication: December 1855 and June 1857 Novel Publication: 1857

Another novel from Dickens’ darker period is Little Dorrit , a fictional study of how human values conflict with the world’s brutality.

A Tale of Two Cities

Serial Publication: April to November 1959 Novel Publication: 1859

Coming out of his “dark novel” period, Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities in the periodical he founded, All the Year Round . The historical novel takes place during the French Revolution in Paris and London. Its themes focus on the need for sacrifice, the struggle between the evils inherent in oppression and revolution, and the possibility of resurrection and rebirth.

A Tale of Two Cities was a tremendous success and remains Dickens’ best-known work of historical fiction. Biographer Fido Martin called the novel “pure Dickens, but essentially a Dickens we have never seen before. This is a Dickens who has at last captured in prose fiction the stage heroics he adored.”

Great Expectations

Serial Publication: December 1860 to August 1861 Novel Publication: October 1861

Many people consider Great Expectations Dickens’ greatest literary accomplishment. The story—Dickens’ second that’s 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 touches on wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and good versus evil. The novel was a financial success and received nearly universal acclaim, with readers responding positively to the novel’s themes of love, morality, social mobility, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.

Our Mutual Friend

Serial Publication: May 1864 to November 1865 Novel Publication: 1865

In June 1865, Dickens was a passenger on a train that plunged off a bridge in Kent, according to biographer Fred Kaplan. He tended to the wounded and even saved the lives of some passengers before assistance arrived, and he was able to retrieve his unfinished manuscript for his next novel, Our Mutual Friend , from the wreckage. That book, a satire about wealth and the Victorian working class, wasn’t received as well as Dickens’ other works, with some finding the plot too complex and disorganized.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Serial Publication: April 1870 Novel Publication: 1870

Dickins’ final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood , began its monthly serialized publication in April 1870. However, Dickens died less than two months later, leaving the novel unfinished. Only six of a planned 12 installments of his final work were completed at the time of his death, according to biographer Fido Martin.

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. His lectures, which began in Virginia and ended in Missouri, were so widely attended that ticket scalpers gathered outside his events. Biographer J.B. Priestley wrote that during the tour, Dickens enjoyed “the greatest welcome that probably any visitor to America has ever had.”

“They flock around me as if I were an idol,” bragged Dickens, a known show-off. Although he enjoyed the attention at first, he eventually resented the invasion of privacy. He was also annoyed by what he viewed as Americans’ gregariousness and crude habits, as he later expressed in American Notes for General Circulation (1842). The sarcastic travelogue, which Dickens’ penned upon his return to England, criticized American culture and materialism.

After his criticism of the American people during his first tour, Dickens later launched a second U.S. tour from 1867 to 1868, where he hoped to set things right with the public and made charismatic speeches promising to praise the United States in reprints of American Notes for General Circulation and Martin Chuzzlewit , his 1844 novel set in the American frontier.

On December 19, 1843, Dickens published A Christmas Carol , one of his most timeless and beloved works. The book features the famous protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge, a curmudgeonly old miser who—with the help of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come—finds the holiday spirit. Dickens penned the book in just six weeks, beginning in October and finishing just in time for Christmas celebrations. Like his earlier works, it was intended as a social criticism, to bring attention to the hardships faced by England’s poorer classes.

The book was a roaring success, selling more than 6,000 copies upon publication. Readers in England and America were touched by the book’s empathetic emotional depth; one American entrepreneur reportedly gave his employees an extra day’s holiday after reading it. Despite its incredible success, the high production costs and Dickens’ disagreements with the publisher meant he received relatively few profits for A Christmas Carol , according to Kaplan, which were further reduced when Dickens was forced to take legal action against the publishers for making illegal copies.

A Christmas Carol was Dickens’ most popular book in the United States, selling more than two million copies in the century after its first publication there, according to Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin. It is also one of Dickens’ most adapted works, and Ebenezer Scrooge has been portrayed by such actors as Michael Caine, Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart, Tim Curry, and Jim Carrey .

Dickens published several other Christmas novellas following A Christmas Carol , including The Chimes (1844) The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man and the Ghost ’s Bargain (1848). In 1867, he wrote a stage play titled No Thoroughfare .

On June 8, 1870, Dickens had a stroke at his home in Kent, England, after a day of writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood . He died the next day at age 58.

At the time, Edwin Drood had begun its serial publication; it was never finished. Only half of the planned installments of his final novel were completed at the time of Dickens’ death, according to Fido.

Dickens was buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey , with thousands of mourners gathering at the beloved author’s gravesite.

When 48 Doughty Street in London—which was Dickens’ home from 1837 to 1839—was threatened with demolition, it was saved by the Dickens Fellowship and renovated, becoming the Dickens House Museum . Open since 1925, it appears like a middle-class Victorian home exactly as Dickens lived in it, and it houses a significant collection related to Dickens and his works.

Many of Dickens’ major works have been adapted for movies and stage plays, with some, like A Christmas Carol , repackaged in various forms over the years. Reginald Owen portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in one of the earliest Hollywood adaptations of the novella in 1938, while Albert Finney played the character alongside Alec Guinness as Marley’s ghost in the 1970 film Scrooge .

Some adaptations have taken unique approaches to the source material. Michael Caine portrayed Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), with members of the Muppets playing other characters from the story, and Gonzo the Great portraying Dickens as a narrator. Bill Murray played a version of Scrooge in a modern-day comedic take on the classic story. Several animated versions of A Christmas Carol have also been adapted, with Jim Carrey playing Scrooge in a 2009 computer-generated film that used motion-capture animation to create the character.

Several more of Dickens’ works have been similarly adapted. Famed director David Lean made celebrated adaptations of both Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). The latter novel was also adapted into a successful 1960 stage musical called Oliver! , and a 1968 movie version—directed by Carol Reed—of that same musical won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Director.

More recently, The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019) put a comedic spin on Dickens’ personal favorite of his own works, with Dev Patel performing the title role. Barbara Kingsolver also adapted the novel in her Pulitzer Prize winner Demon Copperhead (2022).

• The English are, as far as I know, the hardest worked people on whom the sun shines. Be content if in their wretched intervals of leisure they read for amusement and do no worse.
• I write because I can’t help it.
• Literature cannot be too faithful to the people, cannot too ardently advocate the cause of their advancement, happiness, and prosperity.
• An author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him forever.
• Nobody has done more harm in this single generation than everybody can mend in 10 generations.
• If I were soured [on writing], I should still try to sweeten the lives and fancies of others; but I am not—not at all.
• Well, the work is hard, the climate is hard, the life is hard: but so far the gain is enormous.
• Who that has ever reflected on the enormous and vast amount of leave-taking there is in life can ever have doubted the existence of another?
• I never knew what it was to feel disgust and contempt, till I traveled in America.
• My great ambition is to live in the hearts and homes of home-loving people and to be connected with the truth of the truthful English life.

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Biography of Charles Dickens, English Novelist

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Charles Dickens (February 7, 1812–June 9, 1870) was a popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and to this day he remains a giant in British literature. Dickens wrote numerous books that are now considered classics, including "David Copperfield," "Oliver Twist," "A Tale of Two Cities," and "Great Expectations." Much of his work was inspired by the difficulties he faced in childhood as well as social and economic problems in Victorian Britain.

Fast Facts: Charles Dickens

• Known For : Dickens was the popular author of "Oliver Twist," "A Christmas Carol," and other classics.
• Born : February 7, 1812 in Portsea, England
• Parents : Elizabeth and John Dickens
• Died : June 9, 1870 in Higham, England
• Published Works : Oliver Twist (1839), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1850), Hard Times (1854), Great Expectations (1861)
• Spouse : Catherine Hogarth (m. 1836–1870)
• Children : 10

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsea, England. His father had a job working as a pay clerk for the British Navy, and the Dickens family, by the standards of the day, should have enjoyed a comfortable life. But his father's spending habits got them into constant financial difficulties. When Charles was 12, his father was sent to debtors' prison, and Charles was forced to take a job in a factory that made shoe polish known as blacking.

Life in the blacking factory for the bright 12-year-old was an ordeal. He felt humiliated and ashamed, and the year or so he spent sticking labels on jars would be a profound influence on his life. When his father managed to get out of debtors' prison, Charles was able to resume his sporadic schooling. However, he was forced to take a job as an office boy at the age of 15.

By his late teens, he had learned stenography and landed a job as a reporter in the London courts. By the early 1830s , he was reporting for two London newspapers.

Early Career

Dickens aspired to break away from newspapers and become an independent writer, and he began writing sketches of life in London. In 1833 he began submitting them to a magazine, The Monthly . He would later recall how he submitted his first manuscript, which he said was "dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street."

When the sketch he'd written, titled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," appeared in print, Dickens was overjoyed. The sketch appeared with no byline, but soon he began publishing items under the pen name "Boz."

The witty and insightful articles Dickens wrote became popular, and he was eventually given the chance to collect them in a book. "Sketches by Boz" first appeared in early 1836, when Dickens had just turned 24. Buoyed by the success of his first book, he married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a newspaper editor. He settled into a new life as a family man and an author.

Rise to Fame

"Sketches by Boz" was so popular that the publisher commissioned a sequel, which appeared in 1837. Dickens was also approached to write the text to accompany a set of illustrations, and that project turned into his first novel, "The Pickwick Papers," which was published in installments from 1836 to 1837. This book was followed by "Oliver Twist," which appeared in 1839.

Dickens became amazingly productive. "Nicholas Nickleby" was written in 1839, and "The Old Curiosity Shop" in 1841. In addition to these novels, Dickens was turning out a steady stream of articles for magazines. His work was incredibly popular. Dickens was able to create remarkable characters, and his writing often combined comic touches with tragic elements. His empathy for working people and for those caught in unfortunate circumstances made readers feel a bond with him.

As his novels appeared in serial form, the reading public was often gripped with anticipation. The popularity of Dickens spread to America, and there were stories told about how Americans would greet British ships at the docks in New York to find out what had happened next in Dickens' latest novel.

Visit to America

Capitalizing on his international fame, Dickens visited the United States in 1842 when he was 30 years old. The American public was eager to greet him, and he was treated to banquets and celebrations during his travels.

In New England, Dickens visited the factories of Lowell, Massachusetts, and in New York City he was taken to the see the Five Points , the notorious and dangerous slum on the Lower East Side. There was talk of him visiting the South, but as he was horrified by the idea of enslavement he never went south of Virginia.

Upon returning to England, Dickens wrote an account of his American travels which offended many Americans.

'A Christmas Carol'

In 1842, Dickens wrote another novel, "Barnaby Rudge." The following year, while writing the novel "Martin Chuzzlewit," Dickens visited the industrial city of Manchester, England. He addressed a gathering of workers, and later he took a long walk and began to think about writing a Christmas book that would be a protest against the profound economic inequality he saw in Victorian England. Dickens published " A Christmas Carol " in December 1843, and it became one of his most enduring works.

Dickens traveled around Europe during the mid-1840s. After returning to England, he published five new novels: "Dombey and Son," "David Copperfield," "Bleak House," "Hard Times," and "Little Dorrit."

By the late 1850s , Dickens was spending more time giving public readings. His income was enormous, but so were his expenses, and he often feared he would be plunged back into the sort of poverty he had known as a child.

Charles Dickens, in middle age, appeared to be on top of the world. He was able to travel as he wished, and he spent summers in Italy. In the late 1850s, he purchased a mansion, Gad's Hill, which he had first seen and admired as a child.

Despite his worldly success, though, Dickens was beset by problems. He and his wife had a large family of 10 children, but the marriage was often troubled. In 1858, a personal crisis turned into a public scandal when Dickens left his wife and apparently began a secretive affair with actress Ellen "Nelly" Ternan, who was only 19 years old. Rumors about his private life spread. Against the advice of friends, Dickens wrote a letter defending himself, which was printed in newspapers in New York and London.

For the last 10 years of his life, Dickens was often estranged from his children, and his relationships with old friends suffered.

Though he hadn't enjoyed his tour of America in 1842, Dickens returned in late 1867. He was again welcomed warmly, and large crowds flocked to his public appearances. He toured the East Coast of the United States for five months.

He returned to England exhausted, yet continued to embark on more reading tours. Though his health was failing, the tours were lucrative, and he pushed himself to keep appearing onstage.

Dickens planned a new novel for publication in serial form. "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" began appearing in April 1870. On June 8, 1870, Dickens spent the afternoon working on the novel before suffering a stroke at dinner. He died the next day.

The funeral for Dickens was modest, and praised, according to a New York Times article, as being in keeping with the "democratic spirit of the age." Dickens was accorded a high honor, however, as he was buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey, near other literary figures such as Geoffrey Chaucer , Edmund Spenser , and Dr. Samuel Johnson.

The importance of Charles Dickens in English literature remains enormous. His books have never gone out of print, and they are widely read to this day. As the works lend themselves to dramatic interpretation, numerous plays, television programs, and feature films based on them continue to appear.

• Kaplan, Fred. "Dickens: a Biography." Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
• Tomalin, Claire. "Charles Dickens: a Life." Penguin Press, 2012.
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Charles Dickens Biography

Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) was a Victorian author whose novels include A Christmas Carol , Oliver Twist , and Great Expectations .

This short biography tells about his work and little-known aspects of his life.

Table of Contents

The Childhood of Charles Dickens 1812 – 1824

Dickens enters the workforce 1827 – 1831, marriage and fame 1833 – 1854, the later years 1856 – 1870.

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.

Birthplace of Charles Dickens located in Portsmouth, England

His father, John Dickens was a clerk in a payroll office of the navy.  John Dickens was the inspiration for the character of Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield .

John Dickens, the father of Charles Dickens

His mother, Elizabeth (Barrow) Dickens inspired the characters of Mrs. Nickleby in Nicholas Nickleby and Mrs. Micawber in David Copperfield .

Elizabeth Dickens, the mother of Charles Dickens

Charles was the second of the couple’s eight children.

Finances were a constant concern for the family.  John and Elizabeth were an outgoing, social couple.  The costs of entertaining along with the expenses of having a large family were too much for John’s salary. When Charles was just four months old the family moved to a smaller home to cut costs.

Despite the family’s financial struggles, young Charles dreamed of becoming a gentleman.  In 1824, when he was 12, it looked like his dreams would never come true.

That year, the family sent Charles to work in a blacking or shoe-polish factory. Charles was deeply marked by these experiences. He rarely spoke of that time of his life.

Illustration by Fred Bernard of young Charles Dickens at work in a shoe-blacking factory. (from the 1892 edition of Forster’s Life of Dickens)

Happily, John Dickens was able to come to an agreement with his creditors within a few months of his imprisonment. Shortly after that, he ended his son’s employment at the blacking factory and enrolled him in Wellington House Academy instead.

Learn more about the childhood of Charles Dickens including the influence of Mary Weller and the betrayal by his mother.

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. To qualify for that position Dickens had to learn the Gurney system of shorthand writing.

Example of Gurney Shorthand

In 1831 he became a shorthand reporter with the Mirror of Parliament.  The publication gave accounts of the activity in the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

During this time Dickens considered becoming an actor. He was so serious about the matter that he arranged for an audition at the Lyceum Theater. However, he was ill on the day of his audition and could not go.

In December 1833 Charles Dickens’s first literary effort was published. It was a sketch or essay entitled A Dinner at Poplar Walk . Other sketches soon followed.

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.

Learn more about the children of Charles Dickens . The eldest went bankrupt and was later hired by his father. “Chickenstalker” joined the Canadian Mounted Police. The youngest became a Member of Parliament in New South Wales.

The Pickwick Papers   was the first novel of Charles Dickens.  It was published in monthly installments from March of 1836 until November 1837.

Charles Dickens was the author of 15 novels. He also wrote short stories, essays, articles and novellas. See a list of work by Charles Dickens .

In June of 1837 something happened that only occurred once in Dickens’s career.  He missed a deadline.  He was writing two serialized novels at once, The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist .  However in June of 1837 there was no Pickwick .  There was no Oliver Twist .  Instead there was a funeral.

At that time, Dickens’s sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth was living with Charles and Catherine.  Mary was a favorite with the couple and was like a little sister to Charles.  On the evening of May 6th Mary went with the couple to the St. James Theatre.  Everything seemed fine. The group returned late in the evening and Mary retired for the night.  Shortly after that Dickens heard a cry from Mary’s room.  She was ill.  Despite her doctor’s care Mary passed away in Dickens’s arms the next day.

Dickens would relive this sad incident in his life while writing The Old Curiosity Shop .  He was traumatized by the death of Little Nell in that novel.  Dickens wrote to a friend about Little Nell’s death, “Old wounds bleed afresh when I think of this sad story.”

Nicholas Nickleby ,  the third novel of Charles Dickens, was published in installments starting in 1838.  One of Dickens’s goals in writing Nicholas Nickleby was to expose the ugly truth about Yorkshire boarding schools.

In 1841 Charles and Catherine traveled to Scotland and Barnaby Rudge was published.

Charles Dickens’s sister-in-law Georgina Hogarth in later years

Charles and Catherine traveled to America in 1842.  While on tour Dickens often spoke of the need for an international copyright agreement . The lack of such an agreement enabled his books to be published in the United States without his permission and without any royalties being paid.

The United States left quite an impression on Dickens, a very unfavorable impression.

Dickens was horrified by slavery, appalled by the common use of spitting tobacco and indignant about his treatment by the press.

 His feelings came out in American Notes and later in Martin Chuzzlewit .

As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and sickening.  In all the public places of America, this filthy custom is recognised.  In the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit incessantly. ~ American Notes by Charles Dickens

Sketch of Charles Dickens in 1842 (Small image on the bottom left is his sister, Fanny)

In 1842 Catherine’s sister, Georgina, came to live with the couple. Georgina helped with the children and the house. She remained part of the Dickens household until the death of her brother-in-law.

In September of 1843 Dickens visited the Field Lane Ragged School. In a letter to his friend, Miss Coutts, he described what he saw at the school:

 I have very seldom seen, in all the strange and dreadful things I have seen in London and elsewhere anything so shocking as the dire neglect of soul and body exhibited in these children.  And although I know; and am as sure as it is possible for one to be of anything which has not happened; that in the prodigious misery and ignorance of the swarming masses of mankind in England, the seeds of its certain ruin are sown.

In October of that year Dickens began work on A Christmas Carol .  It was published on December 19, 1843.

Publication of Dombey and Son began in 1846.  It was Dickens’s seventh novel.

1851 was a difficult year.  John Dickens, the father of Charles Dickens, died in March.  Catherine Dickens suffered a nervous collapse.  Later Dora Dickens , the youngest daughter of Charles and Catherine, died when she was only eight months old.  

There were also bright spots in 1851. It was the year that Dickens moved into Tavistock House.  It was there that he wrote Bleak House , H ard Times and Little Dorrit .

Dickens bought Gad’s Hill Place in 1856.  He would own the home for the rest of his life.

The above photo shows Dickens at Gad’s Hill in 1862. The back row from left to right is; H.F. Chorley, Kate Dickens, Mamie Dickens and Charles Dickens. Seated are C.A. Collins and Georgina Hogarth.

In 1857 Dickens met the woman who was to be his companion until his death, Ellen Ternan.

Dickens had already become disenchanted with his wife. He wrote to a friend, “Poor Catherine and I are not made for each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too—and much more so.”

Meeting Ellen stressed the differences between the marriage Dickens had and the relationship that he wanted. Later in 1857 Charles and Catherine took separate bedrooms. In 1858 they legally separated.

In 1858 Charles Dickens began giving professional readings.  The readings were a combination of oratory and passionate acting.  They were very popular and Dickens continued to give them throughout his life.

“Charles Dickens as he appears when reading.” Illustration in Harper’s Weekly, December 1867.

Charles Dickens founded the weekly publication  All the Year Round.   The first issue was printed in April of 1859.  Dickens served as editor and publisher.  One feature of the publication was its serialization of novels.  The first novel serialized in  All the Year Round  was  A Tale of Two Cities .

Publication of Great Expectations began in 1860.  It was also serialized in  All the Year Round.

In June of 1865 Charles Dickens had a brush with death.  Dickens, Ellen Ternan and her mother were involved in the Staplehurst railway accident .  The train’s first seven carriages went off a bridge that was being repaired. 

Dickens was uninjured and helped people that were hurt in the accident.  When help finally arrived and the accident scene was being evacuated Dickens remembered something. He made his way back into the wrecked train one last time to retrieve the latest installment of Our Mutual Friend , the novel he was writing at the time.

It would be the last novel he ever completed.

Dickens returned to America in 1867 for an extensive reading tour. 

In 1869 Dickens’s doctor advised him against giving further public readings. The events were popular, but the strain to his system was too great.

In October of 1869, at Gad’s Hill Place, Dickens began work on The Mystery of Edwin Drood . He would never finish it.

Dickens arranged a farewell tour and gave his last reading in March of 1870. It is thought that the effects of the readings was one of the factors leading to his death.

On June 9, 1870 Dickens died at Gad’s Hill Place.