Dickens’ father was imprisoned for debt and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory to help support the family.
2. Dickens’ story The Signal Man is partly derived from personal experience. In 1865 Dickens was involved in the famed Staplehurst rail crash in which seven train carriages toppled off a bridge that was under repair. Dickens narrowly avoided catastrophe as his own car was the first to be spared once the train finally stopped, however the incident scarred him mentally.
3. In 1846 Dickens co-founded Urania Cottage, a home for the redemption of “fallen” women where accepted candidates could learn skills, often domestic, and re-integrate into society.
4. Dickens was keenly interested in the paranormal, and has even been linked to the famous paranormal investigation group “The Ghost Club” of London.
5. Dickens kept a pet raven named Grip, which he had stuffed when it died in 1841.