On poverty

"Charles Dickens, the quintessential Victorian novelist, spent much of his childhood in straitened circumstances. These early experiences of hardship, including a period spent in a shoe polish factory while his father languished in debtor's prison, did much to shape his world view, and having witnessed the conditions under which working-class people were obliged to exist, he became a fierce advocate for social reform. As well as depicting the desperate plight of the London poor in his novels, Dickens produced a huge number of articles on the subject for periodicals and newspapers. ..."--Book flap.