Novels

Dickens’ writing style is florid and poetic, with a strong comic 
touch. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery — he calls one 
character the “Noble Refrigerator” — are wickedly funny. Comparing 
orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats, or dinner party 
guests to furniture are just some of Dickens’ flights of fancy 
which sum up situations better than any simple description could.

The characters themselves are amongst some of the most memorable 
in English literature. Certainly their names are. The likes of 
Ebenezer Scrooge, Fagin, Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Pecksniff, Miss 
Havisham, Wackford Squeers and many others are so well known 
they can easily be believed to be living a life outside the 
novels, but their eccentricities do not overshadow the stories. 
Some of these characters are grotesques; he loved the style of 
18th century gothic romance, though it had already become a bit 
of a joke (see Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey for a parodic 
example). One character most vividly drawn throughout his novels 
is London itself. From the coaching inns on the out-skirts of the 
city to the lower reaches of the Thames, all aspects of the 
capital are described by someone who truly loved London and 
spent many hours walking its streets.

Most of Dickens’ major novels were first written in monthly 
or weekly installments in journals such as Household Words 
and later collected into the full novels we are familiar 
with today. These installments made the stories cheap and more 
accessible and the series of cliff-hangers every month made 
each new episode more widely anticipated. Part of Dickens’ 
great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but 
still end up with a coherent novel at the end. The monthly 
numbers were illustrated by, amongst others, “Phiz” (a 
pseudonym for Hablot Browne).

Among his best-known works are Great Expectations, David 
Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two 
Cities, and A Christmas Carol. David Copperfield is argued by 
some to be his best novel — it is certainly his most 
autobiographical. However, Little Dorrit, a masterpiece of 
acerbic satire masquerading as a rags-to-riches story, is on 
a par with the very best of Jonathan Swift and should not be 
overlooked.

Dickens’ novels were, among other things, works of social 
commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social 
stratification of Victorian society. Throughout his works, 
Dickens retained an empathy for the common man and a skepticism 
for the fine folk.

Dickens was fascinated by the theatre as an escape from the 
world, and theatres and theatrical people appear in Nicholas 
Nickleby. Dickens himself had a flourishing career as a 
performer, reading scenes from his works. He travelled widely 
in Britain and America on stage tours.

Much of Dickens’ writing seems sentimental today, like the 
death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop. Even where 
the leading characters are sentimental, as in Bleak House, the 
many other colourful characters and events, the satire and 
subplots, reward the reader. Another criticism of his writing 
is the unrealistic and unlikeliness of his plots. This is true 
but much of the time he was not aiming for realism but for 
entertainment and to recapture the picaresque and gothic 
novels of his youth. When he did attempt realism his novels 
were often unsuccessful and unpopular. The fact that his own 
life story of happiness, then poverty, then an unexpected 
inheritance, and finally international fame was unlikely shows 
that unlikely stories are not necessarily unrealistic.

All authors incorporate autobiographical elements in their 
fiction, but with Dickens this is very noticeable, particularly 
as he took pains to cover up what he considered his shameful, 
lowly past. The scenes from Bleak House of interminable court 
cases and legal arguments could only come from a journalist 
who has had to report them. Dickens’ own family was sent to 
prison for poverty, a common theme in many of his books, in 
particular the Marshalsea in Little Dorrit. Little Nell in 
The Old Curiosity Shop is thought to represent Dickens’ 
sister-in-law, Nicholas Nickleby’s father and Wilkins Micawber 
are certainly Dickens’ own father and the snobbish nature of 
Pip from Great Expectations is similar to the author himself.