Charles Dickens was born on the 7th February 1812, in Portsmouth, England, the second of eight children. The family endured many financial struggles and, when he was just 12, his father was sent to Marshalsea debtors' prison, the result of which was Dickens finished his education and went to work in a rat-infested boot-blacking factory to help pay off the debt. These experiences of neglect and hardship were to later provide themes in his books such as ‘Little Dorrit’ and ‘David Copperfield...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

John Galsworthy was born on the 14th August 1867 on the family estate, Parkfield, in Kingston-upon-Thames. His family’s wealth came from the shipping industryAt age nine he began his education at Saugeen, a Bournemouth preparatory school, before moving to Harrow school in 1881, distinguishing himself as an athlete.Galsworthy attended New College, Oxford to read law and left with a second-class degree with honours in 1889. The bar called him in 1890 but Galsworthy decided he...

Herbert George Wells was born on September 21st, 1866 at Atlas House, 46 High Street, Bromley, Kent. He was the youngest of four siblings and his family affectionately knew him as ‘Bertie’.The first few years of his childhood were spent fairly quietly

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...