For Dickens, it was a not-so-bleak house

The full span of Charles Dickens's life can be seen at his birthplace in Portsmouth, England - fromthe room where the famous author was born in 1812 to the green velvet chaise-longue couch upon which he died in 1870.

In between, of course, were all the wonderful stories, and the 2,000 characters he brought to life.

We traveled south from London to Portsmouth (a little over 1-1/2 hours from Waterloo station) on a late June day. Rain was coming down as we sped past green fields and small villages.

For 500 years, Portsmouth has been the seat of Britain's Navy (Henry VIII's flagship, Mary Rose, is here, as is Lord Nelson's HMS Victory).

Dickens's father worked for the Navy Pay Office, and arrived in Portsmouth in 1809. In those days, Portsmouth was a harsh place, according to Dickens biographer Peter Ackroyd. The town would have been full of the "smell of drunkenness" and a "relatively violent place - full of men who had been in the Napoleonic Wars." The streets, he writes, would not have been safe at night.

Today the center of Portsmouth is vintage 1950s, since much of it was bombed in World War II. But the birthplace of the creator of "A Christmas Carol," "David Copperfield," "Oliver Twist," and numerous other books, was saved.

We took a quick cab ride to the house, and found it on a quiet street of two-story houses near the sea. The Dickens house is red brick, with symmetrical paned windows facing the street, a black iron fence enclosing a small garden.

The entry to the house is not through the original front door, but below, on what would be called the lower ground floor.

It's easy to imagine his mother carrying him across the wooden planked hall and up and down stairs. In fact, Dickens once wrote: "So far back do my recollections of childhood extend, that I have a vivid remembrance of the sensation of being carried downstairs in a woman's arms, and holding tight to her, in the terror of seeing the steep perspective below."

All the rooms of the house are decorated in Regency style, popular when the family lived in this house between 1809 and 1812. The original wallpaper designs have been re-created, and Mrs. Dickens's painted dresser from her kitchen has survived and is on display.

In Charles Dickens's day the house had a view of fields of hay and vegetables, some windmills along the shore, and the Portsmouth Harbor. Today the view from the back of the house and garden is blocked by industrial buildings.

Dickens's mother, Elizabeth, came from Bristol and had clerics in her family, as well as makers of musical instruments. She was 23 when Charles was born. (He was her second child, born when his sister, Fanny, was 18 months old.)

It's said that Elizabeth was cheerful and fond of dancing, and her power of imitation was strong. Perhaps she passed on this quality of mimicry to her son.

Dickens's father, John, was the son of a servant and lived in the wealthy household of his father's employer until he was 20 or 21. He went to work in the office of the treasury of the Royal Navy in 1807.

John was polite and good-looking, according to reports. He was described by a contemporary at the Naval Pay Office as "a fellow of infinite humor, chatty, lively, and agreeable."

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