At the age of 12 he put labels on jars of blacking in a dirty London factory, at 24 he published The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club and became the most famous novelist of his time. Despite this incredible rise, Charles Dickens (1812–1870) would never forget the “hard times” of his youth and would fight injustice throughout his life. He was a symbol and at the same time an exposer of the Victorian era - a complex man, strong and vulnerable, modest and proud, a revolutionary horrified by violence, a popular writer of unparalleled courage. A tireless worker, he left behind a huge legacy, which mixed grotesque and tragedy, ridicule and bias, fantasy and scientific research. He is a Novelist with a capital “N”, translating reality. as G. K. Chesterton wrote, into “clumps of fluid, complex substance called Dickens.”

[Adapted for AlReader]