Context

• he was a parlimentary journalist in 1833 - may have made him more socially aware to give him inspiration to explore the exploration of poverty within society
• Born into a middle class family
• father was out into debtors prison
• sent to work at 12 in a factory to live and work by himself where he endured the appealing working conditions that many of the poor faced during the victorian era
• dickens wrote the novel in what was widely acknowledged as the end of the industrial revolution