About the Author : Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens had an easy going childhood when he lived in London. It was when most of his family was sent to debtors prison that he had to face the cruelties of life as a child factory worker as a way to pay for his family's freedom. His life in the shoe making factory did have an impact on his life as many of his books relate to the hardships and injustices that young/orphaned children had to go through in the time period of his life. He eventually was able to free his family and later attend the Wellington House Academy. As an adult, Dickens went into the journalism and editorial career and became a successful writer with his monthly publications. He married Catherine Thomson Hogarth and had ten children. in most of his books, he used life experiences like the death of his sister in law in his arms as an inspiration for the death of Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop and his experience in a train wreck in the story the Signal Man. On June 8, 1870, Dickens suffered a stroke and died the next day never having regained consciousness.