After being removed from the factory, Dickens spent the next three years attending the Wellington House Academy, where he won a Latin prize. At the age of fifteen, he left school and began working as a solicitor's clerk at the law firm of Ellis and Blackmore. He eventually became a shorthand reporter in the Doctors' Commons law courts and then a parliamentary and news reporter for the Morning Chronicle newspaper. His years of observing the legal system gave him a familiarity and contempt for the law and politics, which his books echo.
After an unsuccessful courtship of Maria Beadnell, a banker's daughter whose parents viewed Dickens' family and prospects as inadequate, Dickens turned his attentions to Catherine Hogarth, daughter of journalist George Hogarth. Dickens and Catherine married on April 2, 1836, and eventually had ten children: Charles, Mary, Kate, Walter, Francis, Alfred, Sydney, Henry, Dora, and Edward.
Domestically, Dickens eventually became estranged from his wife. The couple separated in 1858, and Dickens began a relationship with actress Ellen Ternan that would last for the rest of his life. In March 1870, exhausted by his hectic schedule of readings and appearances, Dickens gave his last public reading, stating, "From these garish lights I vanish now for evermore."Three months later, on June 9, 1870, Dickens died at age fifty-eight from a stroke and was buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. He remains one of England's most popular authors, and readers throughout the world continue to enjoy his books and stories.
