Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English author who achieved tremendous popularity during his lifetime and whose fiction, some of the most memorable and enduring of the Victorian era, is still beloved today. His compelling storytelling, vivid, often eccentric, characters and immersive descriptions of everyday life were lent depth by a profound compassion for victims of injustice and enhanced by sharp plotting that often used suspense and cliffhangers to ensure his readers were held rapt. People and details from his own, often hardscrabble, youth gave life to novels like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and others.
