The professional author --
Sketches by Boz and Macrone --
Pickwick Papers and the development of serial fiction --
Dickens and the Burlington Street Brigand --
'The Best of Booksellers Past, Present, or to Come' --
Master Humphrey's Clock: 'wind, wind, wind' --
Trouble in Eden: American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit --
The break --
With Bradbury and Evans --
Dombey and Son, 'the great success' --
David Copperfield and the cheap edition --
Bleak House and the literary croesus --
Working the copywrights --
Return to Chapman and Hall --
'The end' --
The audience widens --
Appendices. Sales and profits of Dickens works, 1846-70 --
The printing history of Dickens monthly serials, 1846-70 --
Income from Dicken's works for Dickens, Bradbury and Evans, and Chapman and Hall, 1846-70 --
Income from Household Works and All the Year Round.

A fascinating account of Charles Dickens' relations with his publishers; Relates the story of the novelist's social encounters, violent breaches, and uneasy alliances with John Macrone, Richard Bentley, Edward and Frederic Chapman, William Hall, Bernhard Tauchnitz, William Bradbury, F M Evans, and his American publishers; Draws on accounts rendered to Dickens by Bradbury and Evans, and Chapman and Hall every six months from 1846; Identifies the sources and size of Dicken's income and traces the fluctuating fortunes of various books