porter for a small newspaper and then
             By 1833, Dickens' " first piece of original writing. . . got into
             print. . . when he was not quite twenty-two years old. It was a sketch
             entitled A Dinner at Poplar Walk, republished later as Mr. Minns and His
             Cousin. . . and its acceptance gave him the keenest joy he had ever known"
             (Gissing, Internet). At this time, Dickens had his share of hardships and
             humiliations but also small triumphs. He knew the metropolis of London and
             its infinite variety of human types and he possessed abounding energy and
             self-reliance. The success of his first volume enabled Dickens to marry
             Catherine Hogarth in 1836 though it was to her sister Mary that he was
             ...