Today marks the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens! In celebration of the man who helped inspire The Cheshire Cheese Cat, I give you a list of little known facts about Dickens.

• Charles Dickens was epileptic and made some of his characters (like Oliver Twist’s brother) epileptic.
• He was also a mesmerist, which is basically healing through hypnotism. He even claimed to have healed several of his friends.
• He was friends with Hans Christian Andersen. When Andersen famously overstayed his welcome in the Dickens home, Dickens let him know it was time to leave by hanging a sign on his mirror that read, “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks, which seemed to the family like AGES.”
• Dickens thought very highly of himself and referred to himself as “the Sparkler of Albion.”
• He nicknamed everyone, from characters in his novels (Pip) to his own children (Skittles and Plorn).
• At age 12, his father was imprisoned for debt and Dickens was sent to work in a factory. While he rarely spoke about his experiences, they heavily influenced his writings.
• David Copperfield was his favorite work and the most autobiographical.
• He was obsessive-compulsive, to the point where he obsessively fixed his hair, would clean his friends homes, and always made sure his bed was aligned north-south. He also touched objects three times for luck.
• He had a secret room in his study hidden behind a bookshelf. All of the books on that shelf had clever names like, Noah’s Arkitecture and a nine-volume series called Cat’s Lives. 
• In June 1865, Dickens and his mistress were in the Staplehurst rail crash. He was on one of only 8 cars that did not end up in the river.  They helped other passengers before Dickens ran back for the manuscript for Our Mutual Friend.