Biography of Charles Dickens

Biography of Charles Dickens.

By Estela Mary Rojas Saldivar.

“CPA” INSTITUTO IES LA ROSALEDA.

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffman Dickens was born on 7 of February in 1812 in Landport, Portsmouth, England.

His father was John Dickens (1786–1851), Charles’s father was clerk, and his mother was Elizabeth Barrow (1789–1863). In 1814, his family left to London, in Somerset House, Norfolk Street. When the future writer was five years old, the family left to Chatham, Kent.

His mother was middle class and his father always had debts.

When Charles Dickens was nine years old, he didn’t go to school. After, he went to school in Rome Lane; he studied culture in William Giles’s school, and graduated in Oxford.

In 1823, he moved with his family to London, Bayham Street, Camden Town. It was a poor place.

His life changed when his father was reported for unpaid debts and was led to prison of Marshalsea.

Charles was taken to a home in Little College Street, and he went to visit his father in prison every Sunday.

When Charles dickens was twelve years old he began to work and thus began his working life. He worked ten hours a day in Warren's boot-blacking factory, a shoe polish factory, near the railway station Charing Cross in London.

In May 1827, Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis & Blackmore and after he worked like court stenographer.

In 1834 he was hired in Morning Chronicle and he worked like political journalist. That 2nd April 1836 he married Catherine Thompson Hogarth (1816–1879) and he lived in Bloomsbury. They had ten children: Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (1837-1896), Mary Dickens (1838-1896), Kate Macready Dickens (1839-1929), Walter Landor Dickens (1841-1863), Francis Jeffrey Dickens (1844-1886), Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens (1845-1912), Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (1847-1872), Henry Fielding Dickens (1849-1933), Dora Annie Dickens (1850-1851) y Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens (1852-1902).

In 1836 he worked in Bentley's Miscellany until 1839.

In 1842, he travelled with wife to the United American states.

In 1856, he bought Gad’s Hill Place in Hingham.

In 1858, Charles Dickens separates from his wife, because he has fallen in love with a young actress, Ellen Tern.

In 1867, he returned for the second time to North America.

In May 1868, Charles comes back to his country, but he continued writing.

On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home, after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. The next day, on 9 June, and five years to the day after the Staplehurst crash, he died at Gad's Hill Place never having regained consciousness.

Novels

• The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837) • The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1839) • The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839) • The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) • Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty (1841) • The Christmas books: o A Christmas Carol (1843) o The Chimes (1844) o The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) o The Battle of Life (1846) o The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848) • The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844)

• Dombey and Son (1848) • David Copperfield (1850) • Bleak House (1853) • Hard Times: For These Times (1854) • Little Dorrit (1857) • A Tale of Two Cities (1859) • Great Expectations (1861) • Our Mutual Friend (1865) • The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870.)