Charles Dickens

English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870) left an indelible mark on the literary community and public alike, having introduced the world to Oliver Twist, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, The Personal History of David Copperfield, and A Christmas Carol. Dickens is known for creating characters whose lives reflected the ordeals of his own life. When Dickens was 12, his father was sent to debtor’s prison, and Dickens went to work in a warehouse putting shoe polish labels on bottles. Dickens’s feeling of abandonment later shaped the characters of his novels, many of whom were orphans.

Early in his writing career, Dickens wrote under the pen name “Boz,” producing such works as The Village Coquettes: A Comic Opera in Two Acts, Sketches by Boz, and
Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy's Progress.

Dickens’s other works include The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, Pictures from Italy, The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home, Hard Times: For These Times, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations.

When Dickens died in 1870 at age 58, he was interred in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. Dickens, however, had wanted to be buried next to sister-in-law. Dickens’s books are still in print today.