Experiencing the best and the worst of life during the Victorian Age, Charles Dickens was not merely the conduit through whom some of the most beloved characters in literature came into the world—he was one of them. Also the biographer of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, A.N. Wilson seeks the sources of Dickens' creative genius and enduring popularity. Rising from miserable poverty to eminent gentleman, Dickens knew what he was writing about, and Wilson suggests that his fiction draws heavily from his life experiences.