3. Childhood
• born on February 7, 1812
• grew up in Chatham, east of London
• lived there until he was ten
• had a happy childhood
• liked to read and pretend to be the
heroes in his story books
• older sister named Fanny
• went to a respectable school
4. Charles’ Mother and Father
Charles’
Mother – Father –
Elizabeth John
Dickens Dickens
5. Childhood
• father (John Dickens) worked hard but
was always in debt
• had to move family of eight to London
• Charles couldn’t go to school anymore
because the family couldn’t afford it
• stayed home and help with the house
and children
• sold belongings to buy food
9. Childhood
• father was arrested for debt and sent
to Marshalsea Prison
• the whole family was there except for
Charles
• he lived alone in a boarding house
• wandered the city at night; felt lonely
• this experience affected him deeply
11. Childhood
• father received an inheritance
• paid off his debts
• was released from prison
• Charles was finally allowed to leave
the factory and go back to school
15. Young Adulthood
• fell in love with Maria Beadnell, a
banker’s daughter
• did anything to gain her affection
• Maria’s parents didn’t approve of
Charles
• sent Maria to Paris
• Charles was heartbroken
20. Young Adulthood
• submitted his first story to the Monthly
Magazine
• the magazine published his first story “A
Dinner at Poplar Walk”
• he started to write more stories for them
• took the pen name Boz
• published his first book – Sketches by
Boz
22. Young Adulthood
• Dickens married Catherine Hogarth
• they did not have a happy marriage
• they lived together for over twenty-two
years; stayed married until Dickens’
death
24. Young Adulthood
• at age 25, Charles became extremely
popular with the publication of The
Pickwick Papers
• people were crazy about him and his
stories
26. Nell Lucy Manette Agnes Heep
from from from
The Old A Tale of Two David
Curiosity Shop Cities Copperfield
27. Young Adulthood
• Catherine’s sister, Mary, came to live
with them
• Charles had strong feelings for her
• when she died, he was very upset
• based many of his sympathetic female
story characters on her
29. Young Adulthood
• Charles wrote the book Oliver Twist
• showed people the darker side of life in
London – the poverty, illness, and
dangerous living and working conditions
• his writing influenced people and society
• laws to help the poor and to provide
schools were passed
39. Older Man
• he liked Boston
• disliked spitting
• resented that people were publishing his
stories without paying him
• despised slavery
• became very disappointed with the U.S.
43. Older Man
• Dickens loved to throw big parties
• would do magic tricks for his guests
• loved entertaining at Christmas
• wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843
• became his most popular work
48. Older Man
• he began to do dramatic public readings
of his work
• decided to go back to the U.S. even
though he was ill
• the people were still excited to see him
• he liked the U.S. much better this time—
slavery had been abolished; the towns
were more civilized
51. Older Man
• he had a stroke which weakened him
• stopped doing public performances
• retired to Gad’s Hill to write and get his
health back
• was working on a new novel
• had a massive stroke
• died on June 9, 1870
• age fifty-eight
53. Notebook Entry #30
1) Write the following sentence: In the biography
Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great
Expectations by Diane Stanley and Peter
Vennema, we learn that Charles Dickens was a
very ______(insert character trait word here)
man.
2) Now, without giving specific details or facts,
write a paragraph that summarizes your
impressions and generalizations about what kind
of man Dickens was based on what you learned in
the book. How would you introduce his life?
