Dickens (1812-1870) is one of British literature’s most famous figures. Celebrated during his lifetime and influential to this day, Dickens was an author and a social critic whose novels exposed the ills of society and embraced Victorian values of goodness, honesty, and The Importance of Family.

Dickens grew up middle class, but his father’s reckless spending forced him into bankruptcy and debtors’ prison. This experience had a lasting impact on both Dickens and his stories; Nicholas Nickleby portrays the tragic financial downfalls of good families while broadly critiquing the socioeconomic conditions of 19th-century England, where industrialization made the rich richer and the poor poorer. Nicholas Nickleby particularly illustrates Dickens’s antipathy toward debtors’ prison, with characters who fall on hard times fearing the institution so much that they turn to manipulative businessmen like Ralph, who lend out money with the expectations of interest and currying of favors. Dickens was also intimately familiar with the need to become self-sufficient at an early age—he had to support his family when his father was imprisoned—which informs his depiction of Nicholas, who takes responsibility for his family in his father’s absence.

Before he achieved success with his novels, Dickens worked as a journalist and an actor.