Charles Dickens, alongside Shakespeare the most famous British author in world literature, is regarded in Germany as a humorous popular writer with a social-critical touch, while in the English-speaking world he is mentioned in the same breath as Joyce and Kafka. It is time to rediscover his true significance here as well. "The Inimitable" was the name given to Charles Dickens by his friends, and he took on the nickname with self-irony, yet full of pride. Hans-Dieter Gelfert dedicates himself to Dickens' life in vivid chapters and sketches a broad panorama of the era in which he lived. Interspersed with biographical sections, all of his important works are presented and interpreted in separate chapters. Gelfert demonstrates how Dickens poetically processed his traumatic childhood experience as a twelve-year-old laborer without any hope, leading to the creation of Roma.