Charles Dickens
Born	Charles John Huffam Dickens 7 February 1812 Landport, Portsmouth, England
Died	9 June 1870 (aged 58) Gad's Hill Place, Higham, Kent, England, United Kingdom
Cause of death	Stroke
Resting place	Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey
Nationality	British
Other names	Boz
Citizenship	UK
Occupation	Writer
Years active	1833–1870
Notable works	Sketches by Boz, The Old Curiosity Shop,Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, Martin Chuzzlewit, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Hard Times, Our Mutual Friend, The Pickwick Papers
Spouse	Catherine Thomson Hogarth
Children	Charles, Mary, Kate, Walter, Francis, Alfred,Sydney, Henry, Dora, and Edward
Parents	John Dickens Elizabeth Barrow
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Charles John Huffam Dickens (pronounced /ˈtʃɑrlz ˈdɪkɪnz/; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was the most popular British novelist of the Victorian era, and he remains popular, responsible for some of English literature's most iconic characters.^[1]

Many of his novels, with their recurrent concern for social reform, first appeared in magazines in serialised form, a popular format at the time. Unlike other authors who completed entire novels before serialisation, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated bycliffhangers to keep the public looking forward to the next instalment.^[2] The continuing popularity of his novels and short stories is such that they have never gone out of print.^[3]

His work has been praised for its mastery of prose and unique personalities by writers such as George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton, though others, such as Henry Jamesand Virginia Woolf, criticised him for sentimentality and implausibility.^[4]