In David Copperfield, Dickens writes: "Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside. It was down in Blackfriars." Which fact of Dickens's own life does this setting draw on?

Dickens described the blacking warehouse where he worked as a boy as "literally overrun with rats". David Copperfield uses those same words for Murdstone and Grinby's. What does the match best show?

In David Copperfield, David says: "I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable income by it." He is reporting debates for a newspaper. Which job of Dickens's own is this?

Great Expectations first appeared in weekly parts in Dickens's journal All the Year Round in 1860 and 1861. What did publishing in parts require of him?

David Copperfield begins: "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." Who is the "I" here?

In an 1869 preface Dickens wrote of David Copperfield: "Of all my books, I like this the best." Which reading of that sentence is fair?

A Tale of Two Cities opens in a year the narrator names: "It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five." Dickens was born in 1812. What follows?

Oliver Twist says of the hungry boy: "Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery." Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. How far does that fact explain this line?

In Oliver Twist a starving boy in a workhouse asks for more food: "Please, sir, I want some more." Which fact of Dickens's life is most relevant to this scene?

In 1824 Dickens's father was jailed for debt in the Marshalsea prison in London. Suppose a Dickens novel shows a debtors' prison in close detail. What does the fact best explain?

Great Expectations opens: "Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea." Dickens spent his happiest boyhood years in Kent. What does that fact support?

In Great Expectations, Pip is an orphan raised by his sister and her husband, a blacksmith. Dickens's own father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. What does the difference show?

A reader claims that Dickens writes child workers with unusual exactness. Which biographical detail supports that claim?

Dickens kept his months of warehouse work a secret, and the public learned of them only after his death.

Dickens's first book, Sketches by "Boz" of 1836, appeared under a pen name rather than his own. What does that show a reader about author and speaker?

From 1834 to 1836 Dickens wrote for the Morning Chronicle and published short descriptive pieces about London. Which feature of his later novels does this work best connect to?

In Great Expectations, Pip does odd jobs about the forge as a boy. A reader says this shows Dickens knew child labor from the inside. Which question would test that reading?

Dickens died on 9 June 1870, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood half written, six parts of a planned twelve. Which claim does this fact support?

Dickens was born long after the French Revolution. His preface to A Tale of Two Cities praises Thomas Carlyle's history of that time. What does this suggest about the novel's crowd scenes?

Dickens was a solicitor's clerk and then a shorthand reporter in the law courts. Suppose a novel of his shows a trial closely. What is the fair way to state the link?