Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and journalist who created some of literature's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Born in Portsmouth, he left school at twelve to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was imprisoned for debt, later beginning his career as a journalist before writing fifteen novels, five novellas and hundreds of short stories. His literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, and his best-known works, including A Christmas Carol (1843), Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, remain widely read and adapted today; the term Dickensian describes conditions or characters reminiscent of his writing.