Charles Dickens

In tracing the parish boy's progress, Dickens did not write a topical satire on the workhouse system and the role of the 1834 New Poor Law in fostering criminality, he created a story about the survival of good, and the exploitation of violence.

Set in Coketown, a fictional industrial town in the north of England, 'Hard Times' was born of its author's indignation at the soul-crushing conditions of the industrial age.

Bleak House deals with a multiplicity of characters, plots and subplots that all weave in and around the true story of the famous case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a case of litigation in England's Court of Chancery, which starts as a problem of legacy and wills, but soon raises the question of murder.

Dickens wrote five Christmas books in all. In each of them, Dickens hoped to 'awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts' to make the holiday season a little brighter.