The Charlesauthor Dickens Life. Charles Dickens (1812 1870) was born in Portsmouth on February 7th to John and Elizabeth. He was the second child of eight. His early years were hard because his father had financial problems. The family moved to London in 1824. At the age of 12, Charles schooling ended and he was sent to work in Warren s Blacking Factory because his father was imprisoned for debt. The entire family, apart from Charles, were sent to Marshalsea, a prison for debtors. Here Charles went to visit them on Sundays. When John was released, he saved his son from work, and Charles returned to school; but he never forgot this experience. His father s inability to manage money continued all his life and Charles modelled Mr Micawber, a character from his most autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, on his father. At 15, Charles went to work as a clerk in the offices of Ellis and Blackmore, who were lawyers1. Everybody liked him there because of his good nature and his ability to imitate people. From this experience he probably learnt about the absurd nature of the legal system, a frequent theme in his writing. In the same period, Charles became a Parliamentary reporter. He went to work for the Mirror of Parliament, a periodical that belonged to his uncle, John Henry Barrow (his father also worked there at this time). Charles worked hard as a journalist in Parliament, and became sensitive2 to the problems of people, particularly of the weakest. He was critical of laws that were not just3, as we see in his novels. Oliver Twist is the first English novel with a child as its central character and is also Dickens attack on the Poor Law4 and the workhouse system. 1. lawyer: advocate, legal advisor. 2. sensitive: able to understand what other people need. 3. just: right, fair. 4. Poor Law: set of rules passed by Parliament (from the 16th to the 19th century) to solve the problems of the poor. In 1834 they forced poor people without a home to live in workhouses where life was unpleasant and inhuman. Families were separated because women and men lived in different areas. 4