Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised Dickens as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are still widely read today.

• Study Guide: David Copperfield

  As an 1800s English work, David Copperfield shows how power leads to corruption, a still-relevant theme today. Moreover, the novel draws from several of Charles Dickens’s own personal experiences and demonstrates the harsh life caused by greed along with the hope that is born from love.

• Study Guide: Great Expectations

  As a novel of nineteenth-century England, wealth determines power, and Dickens comments on how the former does not produce happiness. Dickens explores themes in this novel by commenting on the society of 19th century England.

• Study Guide: Hard Times

  As a novel set in nineteenth-century England, many lower class citizens worked factory jobs and were very poorly treated. Dickens comments on this treatment and the abuse of power regarding the wealthy.