OK, here it is:

1. I was born in London in … 1791, I think.
3. I nearly died of fever when eight- years old.
3. I studied mathematics at Cambridge and was later acknowledged as one of the best polymaths of my era.

4. While in Cambridge, I was a member of a club, whose aim was to investigate paranormal claims.
5. I had some fleeting connections with (fictive character) Sherlock Holmes.

Michael Faraday?

No, but we were contemporary and he beat me to the unification of electromagnetic theory.

6. I was also a philosopher, an inventor and mechanical engineer.

7. I'm credited with having conceived the first automatic digital computer.

Anybody? Well, I really thought I was quite famous, but I guess not so I'll bow out graciously so that someone else may carry on:

I'm Charles Babbage and was considered to be the father of computing.

Never hoid of him, Claudio.

1. I was the second of eight children.

2. My early education was helped by an excellent memory of people and events.

3. But I was forced to leave school when my father was incarcerated.

4. To help my family, I had to work ten-hour days.

5. This made me aware of the conditions under which working class people lived.

Charles Dickens?

You got it, Animated! Actually, I thought this would be more puzzling. Here are the rest of my questions:

6. Later I gained employment as a junior clerk at a law office.

7. I was a gifted mimic, and impersonated those around me: clients, lawyers, and clerks.

8. After learning a system of shorthand in my spare time, I became a freelance reporter.

9. Despite my lack of education, I eventually came to be regarded as a literary genius.

10. Cliffhanger endings in my publications kept readers in suspense.

11. My works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during my lifetime, and my novels and short stories are still widely read today.

12. I was famous for my humor, satire, and keen observation of character and society.

13. I wrote about my unhappy childhood in an autobiographical novel.

14. Even the illiterate poor paid to have my stories read to them.

Your turn …

#5 gave it away for me. I have a lot of his books along with a exposition of the creation process behind "A Christmas Carol" which discussed a lot of his hardships.

I'll have one ready in a bit after I give the matter a little thought...

1. I was born in 1907 in Cleveland, Ohio.
2. I enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, reaching the rank of captain.
3. Later I transferred to the Office of War Information, I made training and education films for America's armed forces.

4. Although best known to the larger world audience for my film and television work, I was an influential actor and director for the stage.

5. I appeared in four different starring roles in the anthology TV series The Twilight Zone, tying with Jack Klugman for the most appearances on the show in a starring role.

Burgess Meredith?

Gotta be.

Great guess, Landmark!

Help me out here Arthur

Klugman - The invisible man, The pool hustler, The star ship captain. I am missing one.
Meredith - The reader with thick glasses, but that is all I can come up with.

Burgess Meredith in The Twilight Zone:

“Printer's Devil” as Mr. Smith (actually the literal Devil, i.e. Satan, to whom a newspaperman sells his soul)
“The Obsolete Man” as Romney Wordsworth (librarian condemned to death in future dystopia)
“Mr. Dingle, the Strong“ as Luther Dingle (timid wimp given super-strength by aliens)
“Time Enough at Last” as Henry Bemis (your “reader with thick glasses” in bank vault during A-bomb blast)

“In Praise of Pip,” as a bookie whose grown son is dying in Vietnam who gets to re-visit that son when he (the son) was a 10-year-old.

The 10-year-old Pip was played by pre-Lost In Space/pre-Will Robinson Billy Mumy, who appeared 3x on Twilight Zone himself — making young Mumy a close runner-up to both Klugman and Meredith!