Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, near Portsmouth, the eldest son of a navy clerk. Although he received little formal education, he spent many hours in his father's library, reading imaginative works such as the Arabian Nights and the novels of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Miguel de Cervantes. Dickens's father was poor, lived beyond his means, and was sent to debtors prison. Young Dickens had to work in a shoe-blacking factory, work that he despised. He never forgot the humiliation of his father's imprisonment and the misery of child labour. ...