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I don't know about the screaming liberal part; maybe he was. However, I do know he could've been in this situation himself, but was very lucky. His dad went to debtors' prison, and his mother went to live with him. He stayed out and got a job when he was a very young child. He had to work to help his parents.

But he was lucky in the sense that he had an uncle who worked in a blacking factory, where they made stuff to put on shoes, (I think that's what it was). His uncle looked out for him, and kept him from dangerous and unsavory situations. Soon his folks got out.

He grew up and of course, became an author. But the youthful experience of his family living in bitter conditions, and him having to work when he shouldn't have had to, taught him about people around him. Many of his characters were drawn from people he worked and lived among. Many of them weren't very pretty! But he put them in his stories too!

Your knowledge about Charles Dockens is cursory at best.

His father was a flagrant desolute where mony was concerned and a man who thought that he was far above the station, life had given and quite like the character of Micawber,in " DAVID COPPERFIELD "; which was a Ramon a clef, though one of more fiction than truth. Charles had made up the fictions, in his teens and by the time he wrote that book, believed the fiction to be truth.

Charlie was 12, when his father was hauled off to debters' prison and had been out of school for almost two years.But, the Navy continued to pay his salary. So, the family wasn't destitute at all; John just didn't pay his debts, incured more than he could pay and the family lived way beyond their means. And, BTW, his father was in debtor's prison for only ONE month! John's mother died, whilst he was in prison, and after her will was the equivilant of today's probate, he inherited 450 Pounds Sterling, which, in 1824 was a HUGE amount of money.

Because he got out of prison, by declaring what we, today, would call bankruptcy, he was forced to resign ( there was a law about this ), but was given a pension of 1/2 his salary for life.

Charles's job, at the blacking factory ( which FYI was NOT shoe polish at all, but stove blackind and NOT gotten him by an Uncle, nor anyother realative ! ) was pasting labels onto jars. He had been doing various different jobs prior to this; that's what boys, not in school did; they worked ! That job, BTW. lasted for a few montsh only and he then went back to school.

Yes, some of the characters, in Dinkens' books were based on people he had known/seen, but far more were based on the peopel in Henry Mayhew's books : " MAYHEW'S LONDON " and " LONDOBN'S UNDERWORLD "; nonfiction books about London and the populace.

Charles was the worst sort of LIBERAL...a " romantic " Liberal. He was squooshy, a bleeding heart, favored Gladstone over Disraeli, and it wasn't his " poor " childhood that made him so.

You're confusing fiction with fact; Charlie's conceptions of reality, placed in his books, with reality. If you need a book list, to help you learn the truth about Dickens ( one of my favorite authors, though I abhor his politics and sentimentality ), I'll be more than happy to supply one.