Charles Dickens was a nineteenth-century novelist who was and still is very popular. He was born in Landport, a region of Portsmouth, on February 7, 1812 (Kyle 1).
Charles Dickens was the son of John Dickens and Elizabeth Barrow. John
Dickens was a minor government official who worked in the Navy Pay Office. Through
his work there, he met Elizabeth and eventually married her. By 1821, when Charles was
four months old, John Dickens could no longer afford the rent on his house. John
Dickens loved to entertain his friends with drinks and conversation. Throughout his life,
he was very short of money and in debt. He often had to borrow money to pay off the
debt and borrow more money to pay off the people he borrowed the money from. Later
on, John Dickens was transferred again to work in the naval dockyard at Chatman. It was
here that Charles Dickens' earliest and clearest memories were formed (Mankowitz
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Charles Dickens, a former resident of Lant Street.
Copy of a Photograph of Charles Dickens9-14).
Charles' education included being taught at home by his mother, attending a
Dame School at Chatman for a short time, and Wellington Academy in London. He was
further educated by reading widely in the British Museum (Huffam).
In late 1822, John was needed back at the London office, so they had to move to
London. This gave Charles opportunities to walk around the town with his father and
take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the area. This gave him early inspiration that he
would use later on in his life when he started to write (Mankowitz 13-14).
James Lamert, the owner of a boot-blacking factory, saw the conditions that the
Dickens family was going through. He offered Charles a job there and he was paid six
shillings a week which was reasonable at that time. Soon, he was...