Charles Dickens in the 1860s.

Anonymous, Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image. Source
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Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) remains one of the most popular of all English novelists. Many of his characters have become proverbial: Mr Micawber for naive optimism, Wackford Squeers for harsh school discipline, Uriah Heep for false humility, and of course Ebenezer Scrooge for misanthropy. His stories were one of the chief driving forces behind rising literacy in the Victorian age, and changes in public policy from schools to welfare and sanitation. All was done with charm, humour and common sense.

There are forty-two posts in The Copy Book tagged Charles Dickens. To see all our posts, go to the Archive.

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1

A Time Like the Present

Charles Dickens set his historical novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859) in the French Revolution seventy years before, but it was far from the dead past to him.

2

What the Romans Did for Us

The Romans did bring some blessings to Britain, but none so great as the one they did not mean to bring.

3

Money to Burn

Pip receives a visitor from among the criminal classes, but his condescending attempt to play the gentleman rebounds spectacularly.

4

Rochester Reverie

Mr Pickwick has embarked on a tour of Kent, and this sunny morning finds him leaning over the parapet of Rochester Bridge, deep in reflection.

5

The Harrying of the North

Charles Dickens laments William the Conqueror’s brutal rampage through rebellious Durham and Yorkshire.

6

Hereward the Wake

Charles Dickens tells the story of Hereward the Wake, the last Englishman to stand up to William the Conqueror.