Charles Dickens

The greatest English novelist and the most important literary chronicler of the Industrial Revolution and Victorian poverty. His novels — published in monthly serial installments for a mass readership — did more to change public attitudes to child labour, debtor's prisons, and workhouses than any campaign. A Tale of Two Cities (1859) remains the best-selling novel in history. His own childhood labour in a boot-blacking factory never left him.

• Roles: Novelist, Journalist, Social Reformer