In the second half of the 19th century, England was at the pinnacle of a dynamic century - imperially, industrially, scientifically and literarily.

Between 1815 and 1915, approximately 10 million square miles of territory and 400 million people were added to the British Empire. Between 1830 and 1900, England's contribution to the world manufacturing output increased from 35% to 80%.

As a result of this rapid growth - both internal and external - the England that Louis leaves in the 1860s would have looked very different from the England he returns to in the 1890s.