Author: Charles Dickens

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Author: Charles Dickens

Reported by: BEMAR G. PALTINGCA

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About the Author

• in full Charles John Huffam Dickens, (born February 7, 1812, 

Portsmouth, Hampshire, England—died June 9, 1870, Gad’s Hill, 

near Chatham, Kent) 

• English novelist and a social critic, generally considered the 

greatest of the Victorian era (works as The Pickwick Papers, Oliver 

Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, 

Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our 

Mutual Friend) and recognized as a literary genius. 

• Dickens left Portsmouth in infancy. His happiest childhood years 

were spent in Chatham (1817–22), an area to which he often 

reverted in his fiction.

• His origins were middle class; his father, a clerk in the navy pay 

office, was well paid.

• In 1824 the family reached bottom. He withdrawn from school and 

was now set to manual work in a factory, and his father went to 

prison for debt.

• He became a clerk in a solicitor’s office, then a shorthand reporter 

in the law courts and finally, a parliamentary and newspaper 

reporter.

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About the Author

• He edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five 

novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles.

• Dickens nearly became a professional actor in 1832. In 1833 he 

began contributing stories and descriptive essays to magazines 

and newspapers.

• In 1836, his literary success began with serial publication of The