Charles John Huffam Dickens 

February 1812 , Portsmouth– 9 June 1870, Higham

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An English novelist, journalist, short story writer, performer, play writer and social critic. He is often referred to as literary genius. He wrote 15 novels, 5 novellas and many short stories, often addressing social issues like poverty, inequality, and child labour making many social reforms. He has created some of the best-known fictional characters and influenced the way we celebrate Christmas, even now.

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Dickens comes from a working family. His father was sent to prison when he was a child so he was forced to leave school early and started working in a factory to earn money for his family. His job was to stick labels on shoe polish jars. His experience later inspired his work: “Oliver Twist” and “Hard Times”.

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When he worked as a reporter  at The Morning Chronicle newspaper in Fleet Street, he met the daughter of his boss Catherine Hogarth, who was originally from Scotland. They had ten children together. Catherine was a writer herself and a famous cook, under a pen name, Lady Maria Clutterbuck, she even wrote a recipe book  called "What Shall We have For Dinner" . Many of their children took interest in arts, writing and politics. Their divorce was very public and gave her a bad name afterwards because Charles accused her of being insane and tried to get her locked up in an asylum.  Some people say that when he had to work as a child he hated it very much and blamed his mother for his experience and from then on he developed hatred, trust issues and disrespect for women.

 

 He had a pet rave called Grip who appeared in his novel “Barnaby Rudge”. Some of his work were published in weekly instalments in magazines and his readers were able to write to the magazine to give feedback and gave suggestions on how to continue them.

He believed in paranormal activities, such as time travel and haunted houses and said that he has met ghosts himself in his home. This could have inspired his well-loved novel , A Christmas Carol that has been adapted to movies several times throughout the years and performed on stage as well. He was a strange mind and had interest in hypnosis and became obsessed with the thoughts of "Nancy’s murder".

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He died in Higham, Kent but his grave lays in the Westminster Abbey with the following description:

“To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England’s most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England’s greatest writers is lost to the world”.