Rupert Godsal paints the major events in the life and times of Charles Dickens, who died 150 years ago on 9 June, 1870.
1812
Born in Portsmouth on February 7
1824
The young Charles has to leave school because his father (as was Mr Micawber) is imprisoned in Marshalsea for debt; works in a blacking factory for three years
1827
Starts job as clerk to an attorney
1830
Falls in love with Maria Beadnell, but her parents disapprove
1832
Misses an important audition at Covent Garden due to a cold
1833
Starts as journalist at The Mirror of Parliament and The True Sun; becomes Parliamentary journalist for the Morning Chronicle; publishes sketches under pseudonym ‘Boz’
1836
Marries Catherine Hogarth, whose father is his sketch editor; publishes the first chapters of The Pickwick Papers
1837
Charles, the first of 10 children, is born; family moves to 48, Doughty Street, Bloomsbury; starts publishing Oliver Twist
The 1948 film version of Oliver Twist, directed by David Lean, with John Howard Davies as Oliver Twist.
1838
Visits schools in Yorkshire as research for Nicholas Nickleby
1840
Starts publishing The Old Curiosity Shop
1841
Barnaby Rudge is published
1842
Travels to America; starts Martin Chuzzlewit
1843
A Christmas Carol is published
1846
Starts Dombey and Son
1847
Founds a home for fallen women
1849
Starts David Copperfield
1851
Daughter Dora dies at eight months
1852
Starts Bleak House
1854
Hard Times is serialised in Household Words
1855
Starts Little Dorrit
1856
Works with Wilkie Collins on a play, The Frozen Deep; buys Gad’s Hill Place in Kent, a property he had admired as a child
1857
Falls in love with 18-year-old actress Ellen Ternan, who is in The Frozen Deep cast
1858
Estranged from Catherine
1859
Publishes A Tale of Two Cities
1860
Mysteriously burns 20 years’ worth of papers in a bonfire at Gad’s Hill Place; starts Great Expectations
1863
Starts Our Mutual Friend
1864
Son Walter dies in India
1865
Travels back from Paris by rail, but the train derails at Staplehurst, Kent, on June 9. Tends the wounded and dying
1867
Second reading tour of America; dines with the likes of Emerson and Longfellow
1869
After a series of collapses, is ordered by doctor to stop his reading tour; starts writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood (but never finishes)
1870
Resumes reading tour, but dies aged 58 on June 9 from a stroke and is buried in Westminster Abbey
The perennial fascination with snow at Christmas, and how it’s all down to Charles Dickens and the Little Ice Age
Snow at Christmas is a rare sight across most of Britain, yet it’s indelibly intertwined in the collective imagination. Felicity
Curious Questions: Why do we say ‘Merry Christmas’ instead of ‘Happy Christmas’?
Have you ever stopped to wonder why we say 'Merry Christmas' when for every other occasion we use the word
