There are two ways to approach the relationship between Dickens's novels and Victorian work, one through his biography and the other through the history of the industrialisation and urbanisation of Britain in the nineteenth century. It is easy to trace the impact of Dickens's early experiences of work as a 12-year-old child at Warren's Blacking in his opposition to child labour and general sympathy for working people, but the restructuring of Britain by the forces of industrialisation and urban growth is equally important in understanding the types of labour that he represents in his various novels. Complicating analysis of the theme of work in Dickens, however, is the tendency in Victorian novels to render labour invisible and to represent it through plots focussing on domestic settings, interpersonal relationships and issues of gender and sexuality.

From the late eighteenth century onwards Britain was transformed from an agricultural to an industrial society as the population moved from the country to industrial cities such as Manchester and Birmingham, or to the economic and political centre of London, seeking better wages if not better living conditions. From 1801 to 1851 the population in the principal towns and cities tripled, resulting, not surprisingly, in appalling overcrowding. London went from 958,803 to 2,362,236 inhabitants in this period, spawning some notorious slum areas and inspiring Dickens's description of Jacob's Island in Oliver Twist.