<P> Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn, as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828 . He was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers, and clerks . He went to theatres obsessively--he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every single day . His favourite actor was Charles Mathews, and Dickens learnt his monopolylogues, (farces in which Mathews played every character), by heart . Then, having learned Gurney's system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter . A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons, and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years . This education was to inform works such as Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, and especially Bleak House--whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much to enlighten the general public and served as a vehicle for dissemination of Dickens's own views regarding, particularly, the heavy burden on the poor who were forced by circumstances to "go to law". </P> <P> In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield . Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris . </P> <P> In 1832, at age 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self - confident . He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become, and yet knew he wanted fame . Drawn to the theatre--he became an early member of the Garrick--he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble were to see him . Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate the comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold . Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer . In 1833 he submitted his first story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical Monthly Magazine . William Barrow, a brother of his mother, offered him a job on The Mirror of Parliament and he worked in the House of Commons for the first time early in 1832 . He rented rooms at Furnival's Inn and worked as a political journalist, reporting on Parliamentary debates, and he travelled across Britain to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle . His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: Sketches by Boz--Boz being a family nickname he employed as a pseudonym for some years . Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname "Moses", which he had given to his youngest brother Augustus Dickens, after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield . When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, "Moses" became "Boses"--later shortened to Boz . Dickens's own name was considered "queer" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: "Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations ." He contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career . In January 1835 the Morning Chronicle launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the Chronicle's music critic, George Hogarth . Hogarth invited Dickens to contribute Street Sketches and Dickens became a regular visitor to his Fulham house, excited by Hogarth's friendship with a hero of his, Walter Scott, and enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters--Georgina, Mary, and nineteen - year - old Catherine . </P> <P> Dickens made rapid progress both professionally and socially . He began a friendship with William Harrison Ainsworth, the author of the highwayman novel Rookwood (1834), whose bachelor salon in Harrow Road had become the meeting place for a set that included Daniel Maclise, Benjamin Disraeli, Edward Bulwer - Lytton, and George Cruikshank . All these became his friends and collaborators, with the exception of Disraeli, and he met his first publisher, John Macrone, at the house . The success of Sketches by Boz led to a proposal from publishers Chapman and Hall for Dickens to supply text to match Robert Seymour's engraved illustrations in a monthly letterpress . Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment, and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired "Phiz" to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for the story . The resulting story became The Pickwick Papers, and though the first few episodes were not successful, the introduction of the Cockney character Sam Weller in the fourth episode (the first to be illustrated by Phiz) marked a sharp climb in its popularity . The final instalment sold 40,000 copies . </P>

When did charles dickens start his writing career