Real Name: Charles John Huffam Dickens D.O.B: 7 February 1812 Landport, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England Death: 9 June 1870 (aged 58) Gad's Hill Place, Higham, Kent, England

Charles Dickens was the 2 nd of 8 children to John Dickens (1785– 1851) and Elizabeth Dickens (1789– 1863.) After his birth his family moved to Norfolk Street, Bloomsbury. yhistory/famouspeople/charles_dicken s/

In late November, 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House, where he wrote Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1856). During this period he worked closely with a novelist and a playwright, Wilkie Collins. In 1857, Dickens hired a professional actresses for the play, The Frozen Deep, which he and his protégé, Wilkie Collins had written.

9 th June 1865: While returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan, Dickens was involved in a rail crash. The first seven carriages of the train plunged off a cast ironbridge that was under repair. The only first class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling in.

8 th June 1870: Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work at Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day, 9 th June, he died at Gad's Hill Place. Last Words: “On the ground” in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he must lie down.

He worked in a shoe polish factory and was a freelance reporter. But his favourite one is his paying job, (an author.)

Britain in 1800 had changed little in centuries. It was a rural country. For most of the people, the world was restricted to their village - where their family had probably lived for generations. But all that was about to change though the steam engine was first invented in 1769 by James Watt.