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It was an afternoon in June 1846 when Charles Dickens finally broke the writing block which had been troubling him.

It had been two years since his previous novel, but these last weeks walking in the hills of Switzerland above Lausanne had allowed him to sketch out the framework of a book.

In his study overlooking the lake, Dickens – a man of curious personal superstition who preferred to be away from London on the publication of any new work – took out a copy of Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, randomly pointed to the printed page and read: “What a work is likely to turn out!

Let us begin it!”

And so prompted, he began what was to become Dombey and Son, published in monthly parts from October through to April 1848.

Yet in this writing, as with many of this works, his own life imposed itself.

While working on the eighth instalment back in London, Dickens was