Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are still widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of
Elizabeth Dickens their eight children, was born in 1812. As a young boy he was taught to read by his mother, and later also a little Latin, awakening, as Charles later told his friend and biographer John Forster "his first desire for knowledge and his earliest passion for reading". According to Mary Weller, the Dickenses' servant when they were living in Chatham, Elizabeth Dickens was "a dear, good mother and a fine woman". By 1812 her husband had fallen heavily into debt and Elizabeth, like Mrs Micawber in "David Copperfield", tried to help his financial situation by setting up a school called