Dickens's literary genius has traditionally been regarded as a creative impulse developed in private. Taking a fresh approach, Grahame Smith draws on a wealth of material to reveal how Dickens's potential as a writer was realised through a highly practical process of literary production.

Through analysis of Dickens's struggles with publishers and his response to the expectations of his vast readership and the demands of serialization, we see that Dickens's achievement is in fact the result of close interaction between a writer and his market.