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Charles was the second of eight children‚ the son of John Dickens‚ who earned only a moderate income. The family drifted from one poor home in London to another‚ each shabbier than the last. John and his family ended up in the Marshalsea Prison for debt. Meanwhile young Charles worked in a ramshackle warehouse‚ lived in a garret‚ visited his family in prison on Sundays‚ and felt that his life was shattered before it had begun. Then a timely inheritance restored the family to something like comfortable means‚ and Charles had a few quiet years at a private school. He always had a great love for his father‚ but his mother‚ unsympathetic and unconscious of his genius‚ meant less to him; she begrudged his leaving work to go to school. A few years of secondary school was Dickens’ only basic education. His real education came from his reading and observation and daily experience. Except for the English novels of the 18th century‚ he knew little of great literature. Of history and foreign politics‚ he knew practically nothing. His novels all deal with his own day and environment‚ except for his two historical novels A Tale of Two Cities and Barnaby Rudge and these were set in the recent past of the French Revolution and the Gordon Riots.