Dickens in 1842

Dickens in 1852

Dickens in 1861

Dickens in 1867

Gads Hill Place

Learn about Charles Dickens' home, Gads Hill Place

As a child Charles Dickens would walk with his father by Gads Hill Place, a large impressive mansion outside Rochester. His father told him that with perseverance and hard work he could live in such a house (Forster, 1899, v. 1, p. 6).

Thirty-six years later, in 1856, Dickens bought it (Ackroyd, 1990, p. 760).

A Defining Episode in Charles Dickens' Life

When Charles Dickens was 12 years old his father, John Dickens, was imprisoned for debt. Young Charles was sent to work in a boot-blacking factory to help support the family.

This fact is essential to knowing and understanding Dickens. The experience seemed to put a stain on the clever, sensitive boy and colored everything he would later accomplish. He revealed the story of the blacking factory to no one, other than obliquely through his fiction, except his friend and future biographer John Forster, who shared it with the world after Dickens' death (Forster, 1899, v. 1, p. 22-39).

Overview of Charles Dickens’ life, work, and family

Full Name: Charles John Huffam Dickens (early alias: Boz)

Date of Birth: Friday, February 7, 1812

Place of Birth: No. 1 Mile End Terrace, Landport, Portsmouth England

Charles Dickens' Parents: Father-John Dickens (1785-1851)
Mother-Elizabeth Dickens (1789-1863)

Education: Approx. one year at William Giles' school in Chatham, Kent (age 9-11); nearly three years Wellington House Academy in London (age 13-15); beyond this, largely self-educated.

First Published Story:
A Dinner at Poplar Walk published in Monthly Magazine (December 1833)

Marriage: Catherine (Hogarth) Dickens (1815-1879) Married April 2, 1836 in St. Luke's Church, Chelsea. Separated 1858.

Dickens' Children

Charles Culliford (Charley) Dickens (1837-1896)

Mary (Mamie) Dickens (1838-1896)

Kate Macready (Katie) Dickens (1839-1929)

Walter Savage Landor Dickens (1841-1863)

Francis Jeffrey (Frank) Dickens (1844-1886)

Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens (1845-1912)

Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (1847-1872)

Henry Fielding (Harry) Dickens (1849-1933)

Dora Annie Dickens (1850-1851)

Edward Bulwer Lytton (Plorn) Dickens (1852-1902)

Date of Death: Thursday, June 9, 1870 (stroke)

Place of Burial: Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, London

Charles Dickens' Major Works

Sketches by Boz (1836)

Pickwick Papers (serialized monthly 1836-37)

Oliver Twist (serialized monthly 1837-39)

Nicholas Nickleby (serialized monthly 1838-39)

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)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood - unfinished (serialized monthly 1870)

Charles Dickens' Minor Works

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)

Charles Dickens' Christmas Books

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)

Charles Dickens' Weekly Magazines

Master Humphrey's Clock (1840-41)

Household Words (1850-59)

All the Year Round (1859-70)