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1812
Charles John Huffam Dickens is born on 7 February to John and Elizabeth Dickens |
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1824
Dickens’ father goes to prison for bad debt and Charles has to begin work at a factory to provide for his family |
1827
Charles leaves the factory aged 16, after learning shorthand, to start work for an attorney reporting on law cases |
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1833
Charles’s writing is first published. His work, A Dinner at Poplar Walk, appeared in a monthly publication. He also became a parliamentary journalist for The Morning Chronicle |
1836
He marries Catherine Hogarth and within the same month came the publication of his highly successful first novel The Pickwick Papers
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1838
Charles produces his second novel, Oliver Twist, which is now one of the most widely published tales and has been the subject of many television and film reproductions |
1843
Charles produces his novella A Christmas Carol |
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1851
Alongside his novels, Dickens was also a theatre enthusiast and wrote and performed plays which were, in this year, performed before Queen Victoria |
1856
Charles settles in Kent and produces some great works of literature including Great Expectations |
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1857
Charles meets Ellen Ternan who is working on producing one of his plays and they begin a romantic relationship |
1858
Charles becomes estranged from his wife and their 10 children as he travels the world with companions Augustus Egg and Wilkie Collins – who inspired Dickens’ unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood |
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1870
Charles dies of a stroke and is now buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Cathedral |
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