Preview of Great Ambitions Summary:

Great Ambitions: A Story of the Early Years of Charles Dickens provides young adults with an interesting and wellwritten account of Charles Dickens's life, beginning when he is twelve years old and working in a blacking factory and ending when he is twenty-seven, married, a father, and a successful writer. While the details apply to Dickens's own life, they also become universal in that he experiences typical adolescent disappointments, romances, failures, ambitions, and successes. Determined to better himself, when he is not working as a reporter for the London Chronicle, he spends his time reading and studying in the British Museum, and when he decides to become a court reporter, he spends long hours mastering the difficult court shorthand.

Great Ambitions also examines how Dickens's experiences affect him as a writer. All writers are influenced by the world in which they live, and Dickens is no exception. Kyle...