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He went all over the country getting news, writting up stories, meeting people and using his eyes. In 1833 Dickens had a number of papers published under the title Sketches by Boz, but it was in 1836 that he rose to fame as suddenly and as unmistaked as Scott had done. The and as unmistakably as Scott had done. The circumstances were rather strange. A firm of publishers, Chapman & Hall, had a number of pictures by a humorous artist, Seymour, and they wanted to get some short articles to illustrate them so that pictures and articles could appear together in a magazine in fortnightly parts. Someone suggested that the young newspaper reporter, Charles Dickens, might do the job. It was a job after his own heart. He accepted the offer, but asked for a rather freer hand in the writing than had been originally planned. He was allowed to have his way - and so Pickwick Papers came in to being. For the first fortnightly part of Pickwick Papers the published printed 400 copies, but such was its popularity that for Part Fifteen more than 40,000 copies had to be printed. At one stride Dickens had become the most popular living novelist and he held that position intil his death. The rest can be told in a few words. It is a story of work, and work without rest. He poured out novel after novel - Oliver Twist , Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield (perhaps the greatest work of all), A Tale of Two Cities - these are but a few of the more famous. At the same time he was editing newspapers and magazines, visiting America, Italy, Switzerland, Paris; giving readings from his books to huge crowds of peolple and writing constantly. It was the excitement of these readings (this excitiments and the applause of his listeners was what he loved) and the strain of his continual work that brought about his sudden death in 1870. He had asked that his burial should be quite simple, but the whole nation wanted to give him the highest honour they could,and so he lies buried in Westminster Abbey, but as he wished it, with nothing on the stone except his name"Charles Dickens".Charles Dickens was the greate writer and greate man. The man who knew London as few man have know it and who loved its commn people humorously and understandingly. And that is why the common people have taken himm to their heart.