Part one of term paper
There is something about Charles Dickens' imaginative power that defies explanation in purely biographical terms. Nevertheless, his biography shows the source of that power and is the best place to begin to define it. The second child of John and Elizabeth Dickens, Charles was born on February 7, 1812, near Portsmouth on England's south coast ...

Part two of term paper
... and rather inept in practical matters. Dickens later used his father as the basis for Mr. Micawber and portrayed is mother as Mrs. Nickleby in A Tale of Two Cities. After a transfer to London in 1814, the family moved to Chatham, near Rochester, three years later. Dickens was about five at the time, and for the next five years his life was pleasant. Taught to read by his mother, he devoured his fathers' small collection of classics, which included Shakespeare, Cervantes, Defoe, Smollet, Fie ...