[kennyc]

From Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1870 that the novelist Charles Dickens died (books by this author); he had a stroke and fell off his chair at the dinner table.

Dickens asked to be buried “in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner,” so even though he was buried in Westminster Abbey, it was a secret funeral, early in the morning, with only 12 mourners. But the grave was left open for a week and thousands of people, all types of people, came to throw in flowers for the man whose tomb is inscribed with the words “He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England’s greatest writers is lost to the world.”

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens

Go read some Dickens!