Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) was the second of eight children born to a clerk in the Naval Pay Office, Portsmouth, UK.
His father suffered from financial difficulties throughout Dickens' childhood, and his experiences as a child worker in a blacking factory, and the family's problems with debt, were to colour much of his later work.
In his early twenties Dickens began work as a journalist reporting parliamentary debates, and his essays won much public acclaim which led on to success writing serialised fiction.
Throughout his writing career, Dickens was a relentless social commentator, no less so in his novels, whose tragi-comic nature and memorable characters help make them among the best loved works in English literature.
In addition to many essays and short stories, he wrote fourteen completed novels, all of which can be found on this web site.
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