How many novels, including his final unfinished work, did Charles Dickens write?

Charles Dickens’ first novel 'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club', also known as 'The Pickwick Papers', was published in book format in 1837. Before then, the story had appeared in serialized instalments in the magazine 'Bentley’s Miscellany'. Over the course of Dickens' life, he wrote 15 novels, many of which started as weekly or monthly instalments. As well as writing, Dickens edited several magazines and started his own called 'All The Year Round'.

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in 1812 in Portsmouth, England, but moved to London when he was 10 years old. He finished school at 12 to start working at a boot-blacking factory while his father was in debtors' prison. Dickens' introduction to the literary world began when he was 15 and started working as a freelance court reporter. His humorous descriptions earned him a position at two major London Newspapers, where he began submitting his observations under the pseudonym Boz. Collectively, these are known as the 'Sketches of Boz'.

'A Christmas Carol' (1843) does not class as one of Dickens novels because of its length. Instead, it is classified as a novella. Dickens wrote several novellas (short stories) as well as his 15 novels. Other novellas include 'The Cricket on the Hearth' (1845) and 'The Holly-Tree' (1855).

Dickens' final novel was 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' (1870), which remained unfinished at the time of his death at the age of 58.