NOTE.


That I should have to acknowledge a fairly heavy debt to Forster's
"Life of Charles Dickens," and "The Letters of Charles Dickens,"
edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter, is almost a
matter of course; for these are books from which every present and
future biographer of Dickens must perforce borrow in a more or less
degree. My work, too, has been much lightened by Mr. Kitton's
excellent "Dickensiana."




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.
PAGE

The lottery of education; Charles Dickens born February 7,
1812; his pathetic feeling towards his own childhood;
happy days at Chatham; family troubles; similarity between
little Charles and David Copperfield; John Dickens
taken to the Marshalsea; his character; Charles employed
in blacking business; over-sensitive in after years about
this episode in his career; isolation; is brought back into