Charles Dickens
Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Letters of Charles Dickens
In 1878 it was announced that a collection of Dickens's letters would be edited by his sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth. In collaboration with Dickens's eldest daughter Mary she duly produced "The Letters of Charles Dickens" in three volumes, which were published by Chapman & Hall between 1880 and 1882. A second edition in two volumes followed in 1882, and a third in one volume, published by Macmillan, in 1893. Altogether they included roughly a thousand letters, many were heavily cut for reasons of taste, and some were created by cut-and-pasting together extracts from several different letters in a way which was considered unacceptable even by late-Victorian standards.