Charles Dickens

critic. He created some of the world's most memorable fictional

characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented fame, and by the twentieth century his literary genius was broadly acknowledged by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to be widely popular.

his hair hundreds of times a day, constantly rearranged the

furniture and was obsessed with looking in the mirror.

had to be aligned north to south because of his

obsession with magnetic fields and the belief it improved his writing.

as well as his own.

Doctors are still astonished how accurate his descriptions of epilepsy

are in his books.

day. In 1841 when the Old Curiosity Shop was serialized

6000 people descended on New York docks when the final installment arrived all shouting `does little Nell live`? to the sailors.

to try and cure his wife and children of any

ailments.

Christian Anderson stayed with him he gave him a BIG

hint that he had outstayed his welcome by attaching a note to his mirror which said `Hans Anderson slept in this room for 5 weeks which seemed to the family, like AGES`.

designed like a bookcase filled with fake books.

sparkler of Albion` (Albion being an archaic name for England).

It was a pun on Shakespeare's reference to himself as the Bard of Avon.

debtors prison .

of reproduction as he resented his wife for giving him

10 children and this resentment was a factor in their separation in1858.

being in prison and to help provide for his family

he was forced to leave school and Take his first job in a blacking (shoe polish) factory applying the labels to the bottles. Throughout his life he would never discuss this experience .

named Ellen Ternan and this continued until his death. It

was kept very secret and as a result there is little written literature on it.

he could indulge his love of the stage and performing

.

them died in Dickens`s arms after a short illness. She

would later be immortalized as Little Nell.

early member of The Ghost Club.

the train he was traveling in with Ellen and her

mother crashed in Staplehurst. He spent time after the crash helping tend to the dying and injured and although physically unharmed he mentally never recovered.

his home from a massive stroke leaving his last work

The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished. He was 58.

life, all of his books have characters and stories from

his own past interwoven in them.