An unsettled childhood inspired classic novels

Fear of poverty after his father’s bankruptcy motivated the great writer’s prodigious output, says Rose Martin

HAPPINESS writes white, so the saying goes, and if an unhappy childhood is the precursor to greatness, then Charles Dickens was the catalyst for his future success.

It’s not so much that he was abused, orphaned, starved or sold into slavery, like his characters, it’s more that his trust in adults was annihilated by his feckless, profligate father and unsupportive mother.