A tale inspired by the mysterious final years of Charles Dickens finds the fifty-three-year-old literary master irrevocably changed when a train journey with his mistress ends in violence.

Follows the life and writing career of the popular nineteenth-century English novelist.

Charles Dickens often wrote about the social problems of 19th-century England, such as child labor, poverty, and crime. By shedding a light on these issues through popular works of literature, he helped create change.

With warmth, wit, and good cheer, Standiford shows how the unlikely success of "A Christmas Carol" revitalized Charles Dickens's languishing career and revived the celebration of the near-forgotten Christmas holiday.

Boston, 1870. When James Osgood receives word that literary master Charles Dickens has passed, he sends his clerk Daniel Sand to retrieve the author's final, yet unfinished novel with hopes that the book will resuscitate his failing publishing company, Fields & Osgood. However, when Sand turns up dead with the manuscript missing, Osgood, along with Sand's older sister Rebecca, travel to England to capture the killer and fetch Dickens' elusive novel....

Discusses how Dicken's helped the poor street children in London by writing about what he saw to cause reform.

Born into a miserable workhouse orphanage, Oliver eventually flees to London, where the cheerful Artful Dodger immediately befriends him and introduces him to the villainous Fagin and his gang of thieves. Temporarily rescued from the prospect of a life of crime by the kindly Mr. Brownlow, Oliver finds himself pursued by savage thief Bill Sikes and the enigmatic Monks.