Charles Dickens
Early Life
Famed
British author Charles Dickens was born Charles John Huffam Dickens on
February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, on the southern coast of England. He
was the second of eight children. His father, John Dickens, was a naval
clerk who dreamed of striking it rich. Charles Dickens’ mother,
Elizabeth Barrow, aspired to be a teacher and school director. Despite
his parents’ best efforts, the family remained poor. Nevertheless, they
were happy in the early days. In 1816, they moved to Chatham, Kent,
where young Charles and his siblings were free to roam the countryside
and explore the old castle at Rochester.
In 1822, the Dickens
family moved to Camden Town, a poor neighborhood in London. By then the
family’s financial situation had grown dire, as John Dickens had a
dangerous habit of living beyond the family’s means. Eventually, John
was sent to prison for debt in 1824, when Charles was just 12 years old.Following
his father’s imprisonment, Charles Dickens was forced to leave school
to work at a boot-blacking factory alongside the River Thames. At the
rundown, rodent-ridden factory, Dickens earned six shillings a week
labeling pots of “blacking,” a substance used to clean fireplaces. It
was the best he could do to help support his family. Looking back on the
experience, Dickens saw it as the moment he said goodbye to his
youthful innocence, stating that he wondered “how [he] could be so
easily cast away at such a young age.” He felt abandoned and betrayed by
the adults who were supposed to take care of him. These sentiments
would later become a recurring theme in his writing.Much to his
relief, Dickens was permitted to go back to school when his father
received a family inheritance and used it to pay off his debts. But when
Dickens was 15, his education was pulled out from under him once again.
In 1827, he had to drop out of school and work as an office boy to
contribute to his family’s income. As it turned out, the job became an
early launching point for his writing career.
Within a year of
being hired, Dickens began freelance reporting at the law courts of
London. Just a few years later, he was reporting for two major London
newspapers. In 1833, he began submitting sketches to various magazines
and newspapers under the pseudonym “Boz.” In 1836, his clippings were
published in his first book, Sketches by Boz. Dickens’ first
success caught the eye of Catherine Hogarth, whom he soon married.
Catherine would grace Charles with a brood of 10 children before the
couple separated in 1858.
