Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His ...

Installments were parts of novels, published in
magazines every week or month at a very low
price. This continued for many months until the
story was finished.
This increased the number of readers, even
among the lower classes.
Publishing a novel in installments was quite
common in the Victorian age. Writers had to find
devices and stratagems to catch and hold the
reader attention. One of these stratagems was
the creation of suspense and expectation at the
end of each installment.
Another stratagem was the use of images in the
books, to catch the attention of the readers and
also to help the readers better understand the
novel. Each part was therefore issued with two
illustrations. Dickens worked in close
collaboration with many illustrators. Dickens
selected some scenes in particular to be
illustrated, to provide the reader with what he
considered key scenes needing emphasis.