# Charles Dickens

By [yinzi12](https://paragraph.com/@yinzi12) · 2022-05-18

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**Charles John Huffam Dickens** [FRSA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society_of_Arts) ([/ˈdɪkɪnz/](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English); 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the [Victorian era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era).His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.

Born in [Portsmouth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth), Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when [his father](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dickens) was incarcerated in a [debtors' prison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison). After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five [novellas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novellas), hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed [readings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_reading) extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social reforms.

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*Originally published on [yinzi12](https://paragraph.com/@yinzi12/charles-dickens)*