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Two days after his twelfth birthday, Charles Dickens starts a job labeling jars of shoe polish in a factory.
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Despite a desperate attempt on behalf of his family to raise the money to keep him out of jail, John Dickens is committed to a debtor's prison for his failure to repay a debt of 40 pounds. The Dickens family pawns everything they own, Elizabeth Dickens and the four youngest children move in to John's prison cell. Charles takes a room at a boarding house, using his income from the boot-black factory to pay his room and board.
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After earning a small inheritance, John Dickens is able to negotiate with his creditors and secure his release from jail. The family moves into the boarding house where Charles had been living.
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Charles enrolls at Wellington House Academy.
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Another round of financial troubles forces Charles and his elder sister Fanny to withdraw from school. Soon after, the Dickens family is evicted from their London home.
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Charles takes a job as a law clerk to bolster the family's income. He also starts spending time around London's theater – excuse us, theatre – district.
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Dickens leaves his job at a law office to work as a freelance reporter. Over the next few years, he writes for several London newspapers.
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Dickens falls in love with a young woman named Maria Beadnell. Her well-to-do parents disapprove of the relationship and send her to school in Paris to keep her away from Dickens.
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Dickens, by now a major theater buff, stars in and also stage-manages three amateur plays. His three-year romance with Maria Beadnell ends a month later.
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Dickens' first piece of writing, the short story "A Dinner at Poplar Walk," appears anonymously in Old Monthly Magazine. He publishes several more stories in the magazine over the next several months.
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Noticing his talent for writing, Dickens's editor at the Morning Chronicle newspaper encourages him to write more observational pieces. He publishes the first of his "Street Sketches," vignettes of life in London.