Charles Dickens, the author of Great Expectations is considered to be one of the greatest English novelists. He was born in February 1812 in Landport, Portsmouth. In 1824, his father John Dickens was imprisoned for debt and twelve year old Charles was removed from school and sent to work at a boot-blacking factory earning six shillings a week. I think that this childhood poverty and feelings of abandonment influenced Dickens later views and the ways he wrote. His first story was `A Dinner at Piplar Walk' and it was published in a monthly magazine in December 1833. He married Catherine Hogwarth in 1936 and they separated in 1858. He had ten children, six boys and four girls. During his lifetime he...