he remembered,to London,and lodged for a time near the Middlesex hospital.The country of the novelist's childhood, however,was the kingdom of Kent,where the family was established in proximity to the dockyard at Chatham from 1816 to 1821.He looked upon himself in later years as a man of Kent,and his capital abode as that in Ordnance Terrace,or 18 St Mary's Place,Chatham,amid surroundings classified in Mr Pickwick's notes as "appearing"to be soldiers,sailors,Jews. chalk,shrimps,officers and dockyard men.He fell into a family the general tendency of which was to go down in the world,during one of its easier periods (John Dickens was now fifth clerk on f250 a year),and he always regarded himself as belonging by right to a comfortable,genteel,lower middleclass stratum of society.His mother taught him to read;to his father he appeared very early in the light of a young prodigy,and by him Charles was made to sit on a tall chair and warble popular ballads,or even to tell stories and anecdotes for the benefit of fellow-clerks in the office. II.Death On8 June 1870,Dickens suffered another stroke at his home, 10 after a full day's work on Edwin Drood.He never regainedhe remembered, to London, and lodged for a time near the Middlesex hospital. The country of the novelist’s childhood, however, was the kingdom of Kent, where the family was established in proximity to the dockyard at Chatham from 1816 to 1821. He looked upon himself in later years as a man of Kent, and his capital abode as that in Ordnance Terrace, or 18 St Mary’s Place, Chatham, amid surroundings classified in Mr Pickwick’s notes as “ appearing “to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers and dockyard men. He fell into a family the general tendency of which was to go down in the world, during one of its easier periods (John Dickens was now fifth clerk on £250 a year), and he always regarded himself as belonging by right to a comfortable, genteel, lower middleclass stratum of society. His mother taught him to read; to his father he appeared very early in the light of a young prodigy, and by him Charles was made to sit on a tall chair and warble popular ballads, or even to tell stories and anecdotes for the benefit of fellow-clerks in the office. II. Death On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home, after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained 10’