[3] Margolyes developed a love of Dickens' work when she was 11 years old and read Oliver Twist, and was inspired to create the series due to the small number of people who were familiar with American Notes.

[4] Margolyes received an Olivier Award nomination for her one-woman show Dickens' Women, in which she portrayed 23 characters from the novels and short stories.

[6] He visited countless social institutions across all levels of society as well as making a specific trip to Richmond, Virginia to observe slavery firsthand, about which he wrote scathingly on his return to the United Kingdom.

[7] Margolyes follows Dickens' route, leaving the UK on the Queen Mary 2, the contemporary equivalent flagship of the Cunard line, and wherever possible sleeping in the same inns and visiting the same sites that the author did.

[1] The series has been reviewed as being "far from... a critical academic analysis of Dickens' narrative of his 1842 journey" but as a work designed to bring viewers closer to the author with the aid of Margolyes' "subjective opinions".