Born 1812.—Died 1870.—George III.—George IV.—William IV.—Victoria.

This fertile and most popular novelist was educated for the law, and then became a reporter to the Morning Chronicle newspaper, in which he published a series of sketches, now known as Sketches by Boz. The Pickwick Papers came next, and these were succeeded by Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Budge, and a number of other fictions, in which vice is always painted in its true colours, and the advantage of truthfulness, straightforward dealing, and kindliness brought out in strong and clear characters. He died at the age of fifty-eight, and was privately buried in Westminster Abbey in 1870.