Life
He was born in Portsmouth in 1812. At the age of twelve the father was improsined for debts and he was forced to work in a factory. He was a journalist and he bacame famous with the pubblication of The Pickwick papers. He dead in 1870.

 
Works
Oliver Twist, Hard Times, David Copperfield. Great Expectations, Dombey and Son, Black House, A Christmas Carol

 
Themes
Critic to the society of the time, social injustices. political incompetence, poverty and suffering of the great mass, exploitations in the factories, childhood, violence, cowardice.

 
Setting
the most typical scenery is London represented in a variety of settings from the countryside to the provincial towns to the industrial areas.

 
Characters and plot
Dickens created lively unforgettable characters, from the lower and the middle class.

 
Style
He used a vivid language combining the pathetic with the comic. Another characteristic is humor.

 
Critic
At first the critics tended to consider him a comic writer but contemporary critics see his works as combining social realism and
symbolism.

 
Reputation
His the most popular English novelist. the only writer who may be compared to Shakespeare in the creation of a fictitious World