At non ingenio quaesitum nomen ab aevo
Excidit; ingenio stat sine morte decus.
PROPERTIUS: 3.2.23

Charles Dickens, famous English novelist, was born at Landsport, in Portsea, February 7, 1812, and died at Gadshill, June 9, 1870. He was married April 2, 1836, to Catherine Hogarth, and after having had ten children, was separated from her in April, 1858. Dickens' first book, "Sketches by Boz," appeared in 1833, but his fame began with the publication of the "Pickwick Papers," in 1836-37.

REFERENCES: See biographies by Forster (3 volumes) and an abbreviation of this by George Gissing. There are also biographies by Chesterton, Dolby, Fitzgerald, Hanaford, Langton, Leacock, Mackenzie, Marzials, Perkins, Sala, Wagenknecht, and many others. For recent lights on the separation of Dickens and his wife, see Gladys Story, Dickens and Daughter, London, 1939. See also a novel based on his life by C. E. Bechhofer-Roberts, This Side Idolatry, Indianapolis, 1928.

Fireside Library. No. 105
Waverley Library (quarto). No. 229