Presented and narrated by eminent actor Sir Derek Jacobi, Charles Dickens’s England for the very first time traces the life and work of Dickens through a compelling journey which uncovers the important and intriguing places, towns and cities that inspired some of the most famous settings in literature.

Over 100 locations all over England are visited, many of which are not open to the public and have rarely been filmed, including the interior of 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields where Dickens first read in public, and the All The Year Round offices in Covent Garden where he lived and worked. Among the other crucial locations featured are Cooling Church in Kent which is used by the author in the opening chapter of Great Expectations, Miss Havisham’s house in Rochester, and the almost forgotten London Roman Baths used by David Copperfield.

Charles Dickens is the UK’s most prominent writer since Shakespeare, and the literary voice of Victorian England. His characters are universally well known, and his style of writing came to define the episodic cliff-hanger.