Charles Dickens

Gads Hill Place, his main residence, has another literary connection. It is built on Gad's Hill, which was used as the setting of a scene in the theatrical play "Henry IV, Part 1" (c. 1597) by William Shakespeare (I). In the scene, character Sir John Falstaff commits highway robbery on Gad's Hill, robbing the king's exchequer (treasury). Also on Gad's Hill, Falstaff is in turn ambushed and robbed by a disguised Prince Hal (Henry V).

As a child he was interested in literature and spent much of his free time reading. His favorite writers were Daniel Defoe (c. 1660-1731), Alain-René Lesage (1668-1747), Henry Fielding (1707-1754), Tobias Smollett (1721-71) and Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821). Most of them were writing picaresque novels, a genre that features roguish heroes of low social class who have to survive by their wits in a corrupt society. These writers are considered to have had an influence on his own work.

Ellen Ternan, his mistress, came from an acting family. Her father Thomas Lawless Ternan was a professional actor, and her mother Frances Eleanor Jarman (c. 1803-73) was an internationally-famous actress. Her older sister was Frances Eleanor Trollope (married name), who performed as an actress before starting a career as a novelist. Her other sister, Maria Ternan, was also an actress, but later took up a career as a journalist.

Charles Dickens' father was a clerk at the Naval Pay Office, and because of this the family had to move from place to place: Plymouth, London, Chatham. It was a large family and despite hard work, his father couldn't earn enough money. In 1823 he was arrested for debt and Charles had to start working in a factory, labeling bottles for six shillings a week. The economy eventually improved and Charles was able to go back to school. After leaving school, he started to work in a solicitor's office. He learned shorthand and started as a reporter working for the Morning Chronicle in courts of law and the House of Commons.

In the 1830s he used the pen name "Boz" and even published the work "Sketches by Boz" (1836). However, he became more famous when using his real name.

In 1836 his first novel was published, "The Pickwick Papers".

It was a success and was followed by more novels: "Oliver Twist" (1837), "Nicholas Nickleby" (1838-39) and "Barnaby Rudge" (1841). He traveled to America later that year and aroused the hostility of the American press by supporting the abolitionist (anti-slavery) movement.

His novel "Oliver Twist" (1838) is considered the first novel with a child protagonist of the Victorian era.

He and long-time mistress Ellen Ternan (1839-1914) had a great age difference. He was 45 years old when the affair started, while she was 18. He was old enough to be her father, and Ternan was in fact younger than some of Dickens' own children.

In the late 1840s he Dickens had legal problems with fellow writer and former friend Thomas Powell (1809-87). Powell had fled the UK following a scandal involving forgery, embezzlement and fraud. He settled in the US and started publishing works concerning the personal and professional lives of 38 British writers, including Dickens. Dickens tried to publicly expose Powell as a criminal and Powell in turn accused him of slander and defamation. The case was settled out of court.

Owned a pet raven named Grip. He introduced the loquacious raven into his serialized mystery novel "Barnaby Rudge" (1841). Edgar Allan Poe, who would later meet Dickens when he traveled to America, reviewed "Barnaby Rudge" and commented on the use of the talking raven, saying the bird should have loomed larger in the plot. Literary experts surmise that the talking raven of "Barnaby Rudge" inspired Poe's most famous poem, "The Raven", published in 1845. After Grip died in 1841, Dickens had the bird mounted. It now resides at the Free Library on Logan Circle in Philadelphia, PA.

Visited America in 1842, where he was greatly acclaimed.

Wrote four more novellas with a Christmas theme after the great success of "A Christmas Carol", which was published in 1843: "The Chimes," "The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life" and "The Haunted Man.".

In 1846 wealthy heiress Angela Burdett Coutts founded the Urania Cottage, a home for the redemption of "fallen women". The women in question would be educated and trained to become domestic servants and wives. Coutts chose Dickens to serve as the director of the Cottage. He administrated the facility from 1847-59, successfully training about 100 "fallen women".

He was a devout Christian, though he only wrote one overtly religious work, "The Life of Our Lord" (1849). It was a short biography of Jesus Christ. However, he also criticized aspects of organized religion, and viewed religious hypocrisy as contradictory to the true spirit of Christianity.

In the 1850s he started a fund-raising campaign to rescue the Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children's hospital, from closing. It was a great success, with Dickens securing over 3,000 pounds for the hospital.

In 1856 he was able to buy Gads Hill Place, a mansion in in Higham, Kent. As a child he had admired this mansion and dreamed of owning it. His father told him that if he worked hard enough, one day he would own it. By the 1850s he was finally wealthy enough to fulfill his childhood dream. He continued living and writing in this mansion until his death in 1870. He died in its dining room.

In 1857 he fell in love with actress Ellen Ternan (1839-1914). She became his mistress, and in 1858 he divorced his wife to settle with Ternan. The relationship lasted until his death in 1870, though they never married. He kept this relationship secret from the public, fearing that it would ruin his reputation, since in conservative Victorian Britain it was considered a scandal to divorce your wife.

In 1858 he divorced his wife Catherine, who had borne him ten children.

From 1860-63 he found himself responsible for the care of his elderly mother Elizabeth Culliford Dickens, who had gone senile. He found her deteriorating condition to be rather troublesome and compared her to a "female Hamlet". She died in 1863.

In 1862 he was offered 10,000 pounds to go on a reading tour of Australia. He was enthusiastic and even planned to write a book about his experiences there, but eventually turned down the offer. He was 50 years old and feared the consequences of a long journey by sea.

From 1867-68 he went on a reading tour in the US, performing 76 readings and earning 19,000 pounds. He reportedly wanted to tour the US earlier in the decade, but the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65) there caused it to be postponed.

In 1869 he was still performing in reading tours. In April of that year he suffered a stroke and the rest of the tour had to be canceled. In 1870 he felt he had recovered enough and went on a new tour, attempting to make a comeback. He only gave 12 performances, from January to March of the year. In June he suffered a second stroke. He never recovered, falling unconscious and dying the next day.

He was in a train accident near Staplehurst in which ten died and 49 were injured, although he came through unscathed. He was reading through the manuscript of "Our Mutual Friend" when the accident occurred, and wrote a postscript which he added to that book about the accident. He died on 9 June 1870, exactly five years after the accident.

The only known statue of him is located in Philadelphia, PA. His will forbade a statue of any kind, and when one was made by admirers the family refused it. It is located in Clark Park at 43rd St. and Chester Ave. in the city's University City section. He is seen posing with a character from one of his stories, "Little Nell".

Is said to have been inspired to create possibly his most famous character Ebenezer Scrooge by 18th-century MP John Elwes. At one point Elwes was worth 800,000 pounds (about $100 million in 2010 money). Despite being set for life, he refused to spend a penny on luxuries like candles, a fireplace, or a roof for his bedroom (to the horror of relatives visiting when it rained). He even refused to buy clothes regularly and often wore ones that had been discarded by the homeless. Unlike Scrooge, Elwes was known for being extremely generous with his money, often loaning it to friends and never asking for it back unless they volunteered it.

His play, "Great Expectations" at the Strawdog Theatre Ensemble in Chicago, IL, was nominated for a 2014 Joseph Jefferson Non-Equity Award for Play Production.