ABSTRACT
Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812. He spent a happy childhood at Chatham, where his father was a clerk, at the age of twelve; Dickens forced to fend for himself, working for six shillings a week in a blacking factory. The misery of these months reflected in the early part of David Copperfield. He returned to school after his father's release; then, aged fifteen, entered a solicitor's office as an under clerk. Entry into newspaper publishing led to a series of contributions to the Evening Chronicle and Monthly Magazine, which developed into his earliest work, Sketches by 'Boz'. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club appeared in episodes from April 1836 onwards, and published in book form in the following year. The series achieved success with introduction of Sam Weller into the story, so that, by the end of the year, Dickens had earned two thousand pounds.
