Born in Portsmouth in 1812, Charles Dickens was the second child of a clerk in the Navy Pay-Office. His childhood, like many of those portrayed in his novels, was not a particularly happy one, owing in the main to his father's inability to stay out of debt. This led, in 1824, to his father's imprisonment in Marshalsea prison and Dickens being sent to work in a blacking wharehouse. Memories of this time haunted him for the rest of his life. In defiance of his parents' failure to educate him, Dickens worked hard, becoming first a clerk in a solicitor's office then in 1834 a reporter of Parliamentary debates for the Morning Chronicle. It is from here that Dickens's talent for portraits and caricatures stemmed, and his Sketches by Boz, wich appeared in the Monthly Magazine and the Evening Chronicle, became immensely popular. Following on from this was The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), which made Dickens's characters the centre of a popular cult. With the serialization of Oliver Twist (1837-1839) Dickens began his indictment of the cruelty that children suffer at the hands of society. While working on Oliver Twist, Dickens learned of the death of his beloved sister-in-law, Mary. The grief he displayed at this news seems to underline the less than loving relationship he had with his wife Catherine, from whom he was finally separated in 1858.

Dickens followed the success of Oliver Twist with Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841) and Barnaby Rudge (1841). He travelled to America later that year and while there his advocacy of an international copyright law and support for the abolition of slavery aroused the hostility of the American press. On his return to England, Dickens wrote Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844) and the hugely popular Christmas Books. After the publication of Dombey and Son in 1846-1848, Dickens's novels became increasingly sombre, with his social criticism more radical and his comedy more savage. Between 1849 and his death in 1870 Dickens published David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend. His last novel, The Mistery of Edwin Drood, was never completed and was later published posthumously. Public grief at Dickens's death was considerable and he was buried in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey.

The three books contained in The Christmas Books, A christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844) and The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), were all received enthusiastically when first published. One such enthusiast was contemporary novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, who declared them to be 'so good - and I feel so good after them - I shall do good and loose no time - I want to go out and comfort someone... Oh, what a jolly thing it is for a man to have written books like these and just filled people's hearts with pity.'