Dickens's Apprentice Years: The Making of a Novelist (New Preface and Expanded Bibliography)Hardcover - New Preface and Expanded Bibliography, 30 September 2017

Ever since the fifth instalment of the Pickwick Papers in 1836 scholars have expressed amazement at the virtually overnight emergence of the 24-year-old Charles Dickens from an unknown nobody to the literary lion of the day. At one bound he leapt from nowhere to the summit of literary success and fame. How did he do it?