Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812–9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz," was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and one of the most popular of all time, responsible for some of English literature's most iconic characters. Many of his novels, with their recurrent theme of social reform, first appeared in periodicals and magazines in serialised form, a popular format for fiction at the time. Unlike other authors who completed entire novels before serial production began, Dickens often wrote them while they were being serialized, creating them in the order in which they were meant to appear.