Charles was born at Landport, in Portsea, England, February 7, 1812, He was the second of eight children. Dickens's father was employed as a minor civil servant in the Naval Pay Office, a job that required the family to move a number of times. Dickens’ family spent many of Charles's early years fairly pleasantly in Chatham but made their final move to a miserable part of London. Charles's father lived beyond his means, and floundered financially. Dickens’ mother was a lady of energy and culture, and from her the Dickens received the rudiments of Latin.

Before Charles was 12, the boy had read the contents of the paternal library, which consisted of "Roderick Random," "Peregrine Pickle," "Humphrey Clinker," "Tom Jones," "The Vicar of Wakefield," "Don Quixote," "Gil Blas," "Robinson Crusoe," "The Arabian Knights," "Mrs. Inchbald's Farees," and "Tales of the Genii." He was an attentive student and so far absorbed what he read as to live the life of his favorite characters. In that early period of his life, he tried to imitate what he read,

wrote a tragedy founded upon one of the "Tales of the Genii," and acquired great fame among his associates as a story teller.

In 1836 also appeared the first number of "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club." These "Papers" were the outgrowth of a suggestion from the publishers, Messrs Edward Chapman and William Hall. These gentlemen, together with the Robert Seymour, one of England's most popular comic artists., had agreed to issue a monthly serial to be illustrated. Dickens' "Sketches" having attracted their attention, they proposed to him that he should write a series of articles descriptive of the adventures of a Nimrod Club, the members of which should go out shooting, fishing, and so forth, and get themselves into difficulties through their want of dexterity. Their plan was for Dickens to write 20 monthly installments which they would sell for one shilling each. Dickens's friends warned that such a publication mode might cheapen his reputation. Up until then, serials were used largely for inexpensive reprints of classics or trivial nonfiction. Dickens found just the opposite of these predictions. The "Pickwick Papers" went off slowly till the fifth number, when Sam Weller was introduced. With this number the sales improved. Seeing the merit of Dickens' writings Mr. Bentley contracted with him to edit a monthly magazine and to write a serial story for it, and also to write two other tales at an early date. But the "Pickwick Papers" were progressing and in a very few weeks the author stood at the very pinnacle of fame. Serial was enormously well received both critically and popularly, and made Dickens a celebrity at the age of 24. The first run sold 400 copies; the last run sold 40,000 copies. Sam Weller's sayings were catchwords in the streets and the household wherever the English language was spoken. All of Dickens's future novels would appear in serial installments, setting a new Victorian trend in publishing.

Dickens' life as an author commenced in 1834. He sent to the "Old Monthly Magazine" a series of nine sketches under the title of "A Dinner at Poplar;" and later he was engaged to write some for an evening off-shoot of the "Morning Chronicle." In the above he wrote under the name of "Boz," a name which he adopted from the nickname of one of his brothers. These sketches were ultimately collected in two books, Sketches by Boz and Sketches by Boz II. These sketches provide much of the subject matter that would later appear in Dickens's fiction. In 1836 the first series of "Sketches by Boz" was collected and published in two volumes. So popular did the "Sketches" at once become, that the first edition was exhausted in a few months. These sketches showed Dickens' rich humor.

Some topics in this essay:
Sketches Boz, Victorian England, British Press, Morning Chronicle, Nimrod Club, Pickwick Papers, Tales Genii, Ellen Ternan, Dickens Dickens, Sam Weller's, sketches boz, pickwick papers, morning chronicle, oliver twist, mystery edwin drood, public readings, monthly magazine, tales genii, charles 12, humphrey's clock, master humphrey's clock, run sold,