Charles John Huffam Dickens ( 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic who is generally regarded

as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period and the creator of some of the world's most memorable fictional characters.

As a child he used to read novels of Tobias

Smollett and Henry Fielding.

Google Doodle in celebration

of Dickens’ 200 birthday anniversary

He was fascinated by the idea of a hidden aristocratic lineage, such as that discovered the title character of Oliver Twist. It is thought that he was so ashamed of his