Great Expectations - Context Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and spent the first nine years of his life living in Kent, a marshy region by the sea in the west of England. Dickens' father John was a kind and likable man, but he was incompetent with money and piled up tremendous debts throughout his life. When Dickens was nine, his family moved to London; when he was twelve, his father was arrested and taken to debtors' prison. Dickens' mother moved his seven brothers and sisters into prison with their father, but arranged for Charles to live alone outside the prison, working with other children at a nightmarish job in a blacking warehouse,