Charles John Huffam Dickens - Quick facts
Born at 1, Mile End Terrace, Portsmouth. (now 393 Old Commercial Road)
In his childhood, his father was imprisoned for debt and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory to help support the family.
He is buried at Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, London.
Early in his career, he became a noted shorthand reporter of Parliamentary debates in the House of Commons.
Dickens believed in spontaneous human combustion (SHC). One of his characters, Krook, dies from SHC in his novel Bleak House.
Charles was arrested for debt in 1823. The experience stayed with him as many of the characters in his novels were also arrested for debt.
Dickens was an Obsessive-Compulsive, he was preoccupied with looking in the mirror and combing his hair - he did it hundreds of times a day.
Dickens often referred to himself as "the Sparkler of Albion," favorably comparing himself to Shakespeare's nickname, "the Bard of Avon."
Dickens was a devotee of mesmerism, a system of healing through hypnotism. He practiced it on his hypochondriac wife and his children, and claimed to have healed several friends and associates.
Charles Dickens Works -
Sketches by Boz (1836)
Pickwick Papers (serialized monthly 1836-37)
Oliver Twist (serialized monthly 1837-39)
Nicholas Nickleby (serialized monthly 1838-39)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood - unfinished (serialized monthly 1870)
American Notes (1843)
Pictures from Italy (1846)
The Life of Our Lord (1846)
A Child's History of England (serialized weekly 1851-53)
Reprinted Pieces (1858)
The Uncommercial Traveller (1861)
A Christmas Carol (1843)
The Chimes (1844)
The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
The Battle of Life (1846)
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848)
Master Humphrey's Clock (1840-41)
Household Words (1850-59)
All the Year Round (1859-70)
The Old Curiosity Shop (serialized weekly 1840-41)
Barnaby Rudge (serialized weekly 1841)
Martin Chuzzlewit (serialized monthly 1843-44)
Dombey and Son (serialized monthly 1846-48)
David Copperfield (serialized monthly 1849-50)
Bleak House (serialized monthly 1852-53)
Hard Times (serialized weekly 1854)
Little Dorrit (serialized monthly 1855-57)
A Tale of Two Cities (serialized weekly 1859)
Great Expectations (serialized weekly 1860-61)
Our Mutual Friend (serialized monthly 1864-65)
