by Anne Penny

Created on: July 20, 2009

As a young child, Charles Dickens was taken by his father to look at a house called Gad's Hill Place, in Kent. They were a poor family and such a house was seen as something to aspire towards. Charles never forgot and forty years later he bought Gad's Hill. By then he was a celebrated author of many great novels and a wealthy man.

Dickens was born in 1812 in Hampshire, where his father worked as a clerk in the naval pay office. John Dickens earned a reasonable salary but was never able to manage his finances successfully. In 1824 he ended up in Marshalsea debtor's prison and later in his life when his son became famous, John even stooped so low as to forge Charles' signature to obtain money.

Charles was close to his older sister, Fanny, and they both received some early education in a "dame school" and later, when the family had moved to Chatham, he was placed in a school run by William Giles. However in 1824 the 12 year old Charles was sent to work for a few shillings a week in a blacking factory. John Dickens was then in prison and, as was common then, the whole family moved in alongside him, so the young Charles would have breakfast in the prison before setting off to walk the three miles to his work. The boy felt as if he had been thrown away and wrote later of "the secret agony of my soul" at that hopeless period of his young life which lasted for almost a year.

Family fortunes rose and Charles was again enrolled in school, the Wellington House Academy, where he was able to stay for two years until once more his father suffered financial failure. At the age of fifteen, Charles Dickens was ready to enter the world and began work as a junior clerk in a law firm. The Law was to appear in many of his novels, notably "Bleak House". At this time Dickens set out to learn shorthand in order to become a reporter in the press gallery of the House of Commons.

The first love of his life for Dickens was Maria Beadnell, an attachment that lasted for some years before she finally rejected him, a spurning that may have urged him into writing, though the early short stories of 1833-1834 are all-but forgotten. More importantly, Dickens made the acquaintance of the Hogarth family and, in 1835, he became engaged to Catherine, the eldest daughter. "The Pickwick Papers" was conceived at this time and published in monthly parts in 1836 and, with the prospect of financial reward on the way, Dickens and Catherine were married.

In January 1838 Catherine gave birth to the Dickens'

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>