| YEAR | EVENTS OF DICKENS'S LIFE |
| 1812 | February 7 - Charles Dickens born in Landport, a suburb of Portsmouth, England, the son of John and Elizabeth |
| 1814 | Dickens family moves to London. |
| 1816 | Charles begins schooling, although he can already read very well. |
| 1824 | February 2 - John Dickens arrested for extensive debt, Charles is pulled from school and is forced to labor at a May 28 - John Dickens released from prison and at his insistence, Charles is returned to school. |
| 1827 | At the age of fifteen, Charles gets a job as a clerk in a lawyer's office. |
| 1829 | Charles becomes a reporter for a local paper, the Doctor's Commons Courts. |
| 1830 | Dickens falls in love with Maria Beadnell. |
| 1831 | Dickens reports on parliamentary proceedings in the House of Commons during arguments over the Reform Bill, which has meant to guarantee more rights to the working classes. |
| 1833 | Dickens is denied engagement by Maria Beadnell. Dickens publishes his first fiction, "Dinner at Poplar Walk", in the Monthly Magazine. |
| 1834 | Working as a newspaper reporter, Dickens introduces the pseudonym "Boz". John Dickens is again arrested for debt, and Charles aids in his release. |
| 1835 | Dickens becomes engaged to Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a friend. |
| 1836 | March 30 - First chapter of Dickens's Pickwick Papers appears in newspapers as a serial story. April 2 - Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth married. Dickens meets John Foster, who becomes his best friend and first biographer. |
| 1837 | Dickens begins Oliver Twist as another serial in Bentley's Miscellany, a newspaper of which he is now editor. Charles, the first of ten children, is born. Last chapter of Pickwick Papers published. |
| 1839 | Dickens resigns as newspaper editor. Oliver Twist completed in April. |
| 1842 | Dickens tours the United States and Canada to promote international copywrite laws and the movement against slavery. Upon return to England, he publishes the American Notes, creating much anger in America for its less-than-flattering portrayal of the country. |
| 1844 | Dickens family tours Italy. December - Dickens's A Christmas Carol is published three weeks before Christmas. It is wildly successful, |
| 1845 | Dickens begins his own amateur theatrical company, a group that would, from then on, occupy much of his time and from which he would draw much inspiration. |
| 1847 | Dickens returns to England from two year tour of France and other parts of Europe. |
| 1849 | Dickens's autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, begins appearing as a serial in papers. |
| 1853 | Dickens begins the first of many public readings of his own novels in London. |
| 1856 | Dickens, in collaboration with Wilkie Collins, writes the play The Frozen Deep, a tale of self sacrificing love which was of great influence to his later works such as A Tale of Two Cities. |
| 1857 | Dickens's theatrical company performs The Frozen Deep before the Queen. Dickens falls in love with Ellen Ternan, a new actress in the theater group. |
| 1858 | Dickens begins first public readings for pay in London. Dickens divorces Catherine after a difficult marriage. This is coupled with the loss of several of his best friends through arguments. |
| 1859 | Dickens founds new weekly paper, All the Year Round, and uses it to publish weekly chapters of A Tale of Two Cities. |
| 1860 | Dickens's strange behavior leads him to purchase Gad's Hall, a large house he admired as a child, and to burn several of his personal letters. Great Expectations begins to appear in All the Year Round. |
| 1861 | Public readings by Dickens become more frequent. Great Expectations is completed in August. |
| 1863 | Dickens travels to Paris for a tour of public readings there. |
| 1865 | Dickens health begins to fail, and he is shaken by a railway accident. |
| 1866 | Dickens begins a public reading tour of the British Isles. |
| 1867 | Dickens embarks on a reading tour in America, returning in 1868. |
| 1869 | Dickens's readings are canceled when he shows signs of a mild stroke. He retires to Gad's Hall to write his last work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. |
| 1870 | Dickens performs his last public reading in London. June 8 - Dickens suffers a stroke at Gad'a Hall after a full day's work on The Mystery of Edwin Drood. June 9 - Charles Dickens dies at Gad's Hall. June 14 - Dickens is buried in the poets corner at Westminster Abby before a crowd of thousands, despite his September - The final chapter of his unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood is published. |
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