Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. When he was twelve his father was sent to a debtors' prison, and the boy was put to work in a factory pasting labels on pots of boot-blacking. He never forgot it, and the poor children of London fill his books.
His novels came out in monthly parts, and readers waited for each one. Oliver Twist (1838) was his second, followed by A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield and Great Expectations. He died in 1870 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
