Charles Dickens Research Paper

The Early life of Charles John Huffam Dickens, he was born on February 7, 1812, at Port sea (later part of Portsmouth) on the southern coast of England, to John and Elizabeth Dickens. Charles was the second born of eight children. His father was a pay clerk in the navy office. Because of financial difficulties, the family moved about until they settled in Camden Town, a poor neighborhood in London, England. At the age of twelve Charles worked with working-class men and boys in a factory that handled "blacking," or shoe polish. While his father was in debtor's prison, the rest of the family moved to live near the prison, leaving Charles to live alone. This experience of lonely hardship was the most significant event of his life it colored his

Since him and his family were not finically stable his parent required him to work in place of going to school. Charles returned to school when his father received an inheritance and was able to repay his debts. But at age fifteen, he was again forced leave school and work as an office boy. He had to work hard to compensate for his lack of education. His first job was working as a clerk in a solicitor’s office. After studying, he became a reporter for the Morning Chronicle, covering Parliamentary debates. He also drew caricatures and portraits, and his Sketches by Boz were published in the Evening Chronicle and Monthly Magazine in 1836 and 1837. Sketches by Boz came to the attention of publishers Chapman and Hall, who published The Pickwick Papers between

A short time later he sorted through, re-read, and burnt many personal letters, and also re-read David Copperfield, perhaps the most overtly autobiographical of all his novels. It is impossible to read Great Expectations without sensing Dickens's presence in the book, without being aware that in portraying and judging Pip he is giving us a glimpse of a younger self (Cite). In it he explores and perhaps exorcises the sense of guilt and shame that had haunted him all his life, as he rose from humble beginnings to success and wealth and fame; and chronicles his own at first ambivalent and then cynical response to the Victorian emphasis on gentility (Cite). Dickens once wrote, “I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations.'' (Charles Dickens, Great