Charles Dickens was one of the most popular English writers of all time. He created some of the world’s most well-known fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. Born in Portsmouth, England, on 7 February 1812, Dickens was the second of eight children. He was forced to leave school after his father’s imprisonment, to work at a boot-blacking factory. His early childhood experiences were much like those depicted in his novel—David Copperfield. He felt abandoned and betrayed by the adults who were supposed to take care of him. These sentiments later became a recurring theme in his writings. In 1865, Dickens was involved in a train accident and never fully recovered. On June 9, 1870, Dickens suffered a stroke and, at the age of 58, died at Gad’s Hill Place, his country home in Kent, England, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.