Editing Charles Dickens (section)

==Reputation==
[[File:Ottawa Public Library.jpg|thumb|right|Dickens's portrait (top left), in between [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] and [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]], on a stained glass window at the [[Ottawa Public Library]], Ottawa, Canada]]
Dickens was the most popular novelist of his time,<ref>{{harvnb|Trollope|2007|p=62}}.</ref> and remains one of the best-known and most-read of English authors. His works have never gone [[Out-of-print book|out of print]],<ref>{{harvnb|Swift|2007}}</ref> and have been adapted continually for the screen since the invention of cinema,<ref>{{harvnb|Sasaki|2011|p=67}}.</ref> with at least 200 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on Dickens's works documented.<ref>{{harvnb|Morrison|2012}}.</ref> Many of his works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime—early productions included ''[[The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain|The Haunted Man]]'' which was performed in the [[West End theatre|West End]]'s [[Adelphi Theatre]] in 1848—and, as early as 1901, the British silent film ''[[Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost]]'' was made by [[Walter R. Booth]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Davidson |first=Ewan |title=Blackfriars Bridge |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/698299/ |work=BFI Screenonline Database |access-date=20 May 2022}}</ref> Contemporaries such as publisher [[Edward Lloyd (publisher)|Edward Lloyd]] cashed in on Dickens's popularity with cheap imitations of his novels, resulting in his own popular '[[penny dreadful]]s'.<ref>{{cite news |last=Flood |first=Alison |title=Oliver Twiss and Martin Guzzlewit – the fan fiction that ripped off Dickens |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/25/oliver-twiss-twist-charles-dickens-rip-off-edward-lloyd |access-date=4 July 2020 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=25 June 2019 |archive-date=6 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200706231038/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/25/oliver-twiss-twist-charles-dickens-rip-off-edward-lloyd |url-status=live}}</ref>

Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest British novelist of the [[Victorian era]].<ref name=autogenerated1/> From the beginning of his career in the 1830s, his achievements in English literature were compared to those of Shakespeare.<ref name="Schlicke"/> Dickens's literary reputation, however, began to decline with the publication of ''Bleak House'' in 1852–53. Philip Collins calls ''Bleak House'' "a crucial item in the history of Dickens's reputation. Reviewers and literary figures during the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s, saw a 'drear decline' in Dickens, from a writer of 'bright sunny comedy ... to dark and serious social' commentary".<ref>Adam Roberts, "Reputation of Dickens", ''Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens'', ed. Paul Schlicke, Oxford University Press. Print publication date: 2000 {{ISBN|9780198662532}} Published online: 2011 (subscription required) e {{ISBN|9780191727986}}, p. 504.</ref> ''[[The Spectator]]'' called ''Bleak House'' "a heavy book to read through at once ... dull and wearisome as a serial"; Richard Simpson, in ''[[The Rambler]]'', characterised ''Hard Times'' as "this dreary framework"; ''[[Fraser's Magazine]]'' thought ''Little Dorrit'' "decidedly the worst of his novels".<ref name="auto">Adam Roberts, "Dickens Reputation", p. 505.</ref> All the same, despite these "increasing reservations amongst reviewers and the chattering classes, 'the public never deserted its favourite{{'"}}. Dickens's popular reputation remained unchanged, sales continued to rise, and ''[[Household Words]]'' and later ''[[All the Year Round]]'' were highly successful.<ref name="auto"/>

[[File:Charles Dickens, public reading, 1867.jpg|left|thumb|"Charles Dickens as he appears when reading." Wood engraving from ''[[Harper's Weekly]]'', 7 December 1867.]]
As his career progressed, Dickens's fame and the demand for his public readings were unparalleled. In 1868, ''[[The Times]]'' wrote, "Amid all the variety of 'readings', those of Mr Charles Dickens stand alone."<ref name="Garratt"/> A Dickens biographer, Edgar Johnson, wrote: "It was [always] more than a reading; it was an extraordinary exhibition of acting that seized upon its auditors with a mesmeric possession."<ref name="Garratt"/> Author [[David Lodge (author)|David Lodge]] called him the "first writer to be an object of unrelenting public interest and adulation".<ref name="Celebrity">{{cite news |title=Charles Dickens and Fame vs. Celebrity |url=https://daily.jstor.org/charles-dickens-and-fame-vs-celebrity/ |access-date=20 May 2022 |agency=JSTOR Daily}}</ref> Juliet John backed the claim for Dickens "to be called the first self-made global media star of the age of mass culture".<ref name="Celebrity"/> The word "celebrity" first appeared in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' in 1851, and the BBC states "Charles Dickens was one of the first figures to be called one".<ref name="Dickens reception">{{cite news |title=A dozen facts about Dickens, the man who redefined Christmas |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4bbrK4gVZ6Q3S1SndFP9fRH/a-dozen-facts-about-dickens-the-man-who-redefined-christmas |access-date=10 June 2024 |publisher=BBC}}</ref> Comparing his reception at public readings to those of a contemporary pop star—the BBC compared his reception in the US to [[The Beatles]]—''The Guardian'' states, "People sometimes fainted at his shows. His performances even saw the rise of that modern phenomenon, the 'speculator' or [[Ticket resale|ticket tout]] (scalpers)—the ones in New York City escaped detection by borrowing respectable-looking hats from the waiters in nearby restaurants."<ref name="Dickens reception"/><ref>{{cite news |first=Matt |last=Shinn |title=Stage frights |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004/jan/31/theatre.classics |date=31 January 2004 |access-date=12 September 2019 |work=The Guardian |archive-date=4 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191104173933/https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004/jan/31/theatre.classics |url-status=live}}</ref>

{{quote box
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| quote = "Dickens's vocal impersonations of his own characters gave this truth a theatrical form: the public reading tour. No other Victorian could match him for celebrity, earnings, and sheer vocal artistry. The Victorians craved the author's multiple voices: between 1853 and his death in 1870, Dickens performed about 470 times."
| source = —Peter Garratt in ''The Guardian'' on Dickens's fame and the demand for his public readings<ref name="Garratt">{{cite news |title=Hearing voices allowed Charles Dickens to create extraordinary fictional worlds |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/22/charles-dickens-hearing-voices-created-his-novels |access-date=7 September 2019 |work=The Guardian |archive-date=17 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181117223546/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/22/charles-dickens-hearing-voices-created-his-novels |url-status=live}}</ref>
}}
Among fellow writers, there was a range of opinions on Dickens. [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom|Poet laureate]], [[William Wordsworth]] (1770–1850), thought him a "very talkative, vulgar young person", adding he had not read a line of his work, while novelist [[George Meredith]] (1828–1909), found Dickens "intellectually lacking".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_fiuCwAAQBAJ&q=Not%20much%20of%20Dickens%20will%20live%2C%20because%20it%20has%20so%20little%20correspondence%20to%20life.%20He%20was%20the%20incarnation%20of%20cockneydom%2C%20a%20caricaturist%20who%20aped%20the%20moralist%3B%20he%20should%20have%20kept%20to%20short%20stories.%20If%20his%20novels%20are%20read%20at%20all%20in%20the%20future%2C%20people%20will%20wonder%20what%20we%20saw%20in%20them.&pg=PA49 Neil Roberts, ''Meredith and the Novel''. Springer, 1997, p. 49] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201219165806/https://books.google.ca/books?id=_fiuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=Not+much+of+Dickens+will+live,+because+it+has+so+little+correspondence+to+life.+He+was+the+incarnation+of+cockneydom,+a+caricaturist+who+aped+the+moralist;+he+should+have+kept+to+short+stories.+If+his+novels+are+read+at+all+in+the+future,+people+will+wonder+what+we+saw+in+them.&source=bl&ots=RCbLV-oFmU&sig=ACfU3U29Onvdso8VoklEJmhhQFZuFwt7HQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL7euEyMDiAhWjtVkKHQRGBXYQ6AEwBHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Not%20much%20of%20Dickens%20will%20live%2C%20because%20it%20has%20so%20little%20correspondence%20to%20life.%20He%20was%20the%20incarnation%20of%20cockneydom%2C%20a%20caricaturist%20who%20aped%20the%20moralist%3B%20he%20should%20have%20kept%20to%20short%20stories.%20If%20his%20novels%20are%20read%20at%20all%20in%20the%20future%2C%20people%20will%20wonder%20what%20we%20saw%20in%20them.&f=false |date=19 December 2020}}.</ref> In 1888, [[Leslie Stephen]] commented in the ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'' that "if literary fame could be safely measured by popularity with the half-educated, Dickens must claim the highest position among English novelists".<ref>[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofnati15stepuoft/page/30 ''Dictionary of National Biography'' Macmillan, 1888, p. 30].</ref> [[Anthony Trollope]]'s ''Autobiography'' famously declared Thackeray, not Dickens, to be the greatest novelist of the age. However, both [[Leo Tolstoy]] and [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]] were admirers. Dostoyevsky commented: "We understand Dickens in Russia, I am convinced, almost as well as the English, perhaps even with all the nuances. It may well be that we love him no less than his compatriots do. And yet how original is Dickens, and how very English!"<ref>{{cite book |last=Friedberg |first=Maurice |title=Literary Translation in Russia: A Cultural History |date=1997 |publisher=Penn State Press |page=12}}</ref> Tolstoy referred to ''David Copperfield'' as his favourite book, and he later adopted the novel as "a model for his own autobiographical reflections".<ref name="Inimitable Dickens">{{cite news |last=Kakutani |first=Michiko |title=Charles Dickens: Eminently Adaptable but Quite Inimitable; Dostoyevsky to Disney, The Dickensian Legacy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/22/books/critics-notebook-charles-dickens-eminently-adaptable-but-quite-inimitable.html |url-status=live |work=The New York Times |date=22 December 1988 |access-date=3 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309003316/https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/22/books/critics-notebook-charles-dickens-eminently-adaptable-but-quite-inimitable.html |archive-date=9 March 2021}}</ref> French writer [[Jules Verne]] called Dickens his favourite writer, writing his novels "stand alone, dwarfing all others by their amazing power and felicity of expression".<ref>Soubigou, Gilles "Dickens's Illustrations: France and other countries" pp. 154–167 from ''The Reception of Charles Dickens in Europe'' edited by Michael Hollington London: A&C Black 2013 p. 161.</ref> Dutch painter [[Vincent van Gogh]] was inspired by Dickens's novels in several of his paintings, such as ''Vincent's Chair'', and in an 1889 letter to his sister stated that reading Dickens, especially ''A Christmas Carol'', was one of the things that was keeping him from committing suicide.<ref>Soubigou, Gilles, "Dickens's Illustrations: France and other countries", pp. 154–167, from ''The Reception of Charles Dickens in Europe'' edited by Michael Hollington. London: A&C Black, 2013, pp. 164–165.</ref> Oscar Wilde generally disparaged his depiction of character, while admiring his gift for caricature.<ref>{{harvnb|Ellmann|1988|pp=25,359}}.</ref> Henry James denied him a premier position, calling him "the greatest of superficial novelists": Dickens failed to endow his characters with psychological depth, and the novels, "loose baggy monsters",<ref>{{harvnb|Kucich|Sadoff|2006|p=162}}.</ref> betrayed a "cavalier organisation".<ref>{{harvnb|Mazzeno|2008|pp=23–4}}.</ref> [[Joseph Conrad]] described his own childhood in bleak Dickensian terms, noting he had "an intense and unreasoning affection" for ''Bleak House'' dating back to his boyhood. The novel influenced his own gloomy portrait of London in ''[[The Secret Agent]]'' (1907).<ref name="Inimitable Dickens"/> [[Virginia Woolf]] had a love-hate relationship with Dickens, finding his novels "mesmerizing" while reproving him for his sentimentalism and a commonplace style.<ref>{{harvnb|Mazzeno|2008|p=67}}.</ref>

[[File:1969 - Eric Theater - 9 Jun MC - Allentown PA.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Advert for the Best Picture Oscar winner ''[[Oliver! (film)|Oliver!]]'' (1968), an adaptation of ''Oliver Twist'' and one of over 200 works based on Dickens's novels]]
Around 1940–41, the attitude of the literary critics began to warm towards Dickens—led by [[George Orwell]] in ''[[Inside the Whale and Other Essays]]'' (March 1940), [[Edmund Wilson]] in ''The Wound and the Bow'' (1941) and Humphry House in ''Dickens and His World''.<ref>Philip Collins, "Dickens reputation". Britannica Academica</ref> However, even in 1948, [[F. R. Leavis]], in ''[[The Great Tradition]]'', asserted that "the adult mind doesn't as a rule find in Dickens a challenge to an unusual and sustained seriousness"; Dickens was indeed a great genius, "but the genius was that of a great entertainer",<ref>[https://www-oxfordreference-com.qe2a-proxy.mun.ca/view/10.1093/acref/9780198662532.001.0001/acref-9780198662532-e-0371?rskey=CR5r9U&result=371 Oxford Reference, subscription required]</ref> though he later changed his opinion with ''Dickens the Novelist'' (1970, with [[Q. D. Leavis|Q. D. (Queenie) Leavis]]): "Our purpose", they wrote, "is to enforce as unanswerably as possible the conviction that Dickens was one of the greatest of creative writers".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571243600-dickens-the-novelist.htm |title="Dickens", Faber & Faber.}}{{dead link |date=November 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> In 1944, Soviet film director and film theorist [[Sergei Eisenstein]] wrote an essay on Dickens's influence on cinema, such as [[cross-cutting]]—where two stories run alongside each other, as seen in novels such as ''Oliver Twist''.<ref>{{cite news |title=Dickens on screen: the highs and the lows |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/23/dickens-on-screen-highs-lows |access-date=21 April 2020 |newspaper=The Guardian |archive-date=29 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729034256/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/23/dickens-on-screen-highs-lows |url-status=live}}</ref>

In the 1950s, "a substantial reassessment and re-editing of the works began, and critics found his finest artistry and greatest depth to be in the later novels: ''Bleak House'', ''Little Dorrit'' and ''Great Expectations''—and (less unanimously) in ''Hard Times'' and ''Our Mutual Friend''".<ref>Britannica Academica, subscription required.</ref> Dickens was among the favourite authors of [[Roald Dahl]]; the best-selling children's author would include three of Dickens's novels among those read by the [[Matilda Wormwood|title character]] in his 1988 novel ''[[Matilda (novel)|Matilda]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Rosen |first=Michael |title=Fantastic Mr Dahl |date=2012 |publisher=Penguin UK}}</ref> In 2005, [[Paul McCartney]], an avid reader of Dickens, named ''Nicholas Nickleby'' his favourite novel. On Dickens he states, "I like the world that he takes me to. I like his words; I like the language", adding, "A lot of my stuff—it's kind of Dickensian."<ref>{{cite news |title=Dear sir or madam, will you read my book? |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3647089/Dear-sir-or-madam-will-you-read-my-book.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3647089/Dear-sir-or-madam-will-you-read-my-book.html |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=15 April 2020 |work=The Telegraph}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Screenwriter [[Jonathan Nolan]]'s screenplay for ''[[The Dark Knight Rises]]'' (2012) was inspired by ''A Tale of Two Cities'', with Nolan calling the depiction of Paris in the novel "one of the most harrowing portraits of a relatable, recognisable civilisation that completely folded to pieces".<ref>{{cite news |title=Christopher and Jonathan Nolan Explain How A Tale Of Two Cities Influenced The Dark Knight Rises |url=http://collider.com/dark-knight-rises-tale-of-two-cities/ |access-date=9 September 2019 |agency=Collider |archive-date=5 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190905155417/http://collider.com/dark-knight-rises-tale-of-two-cities/ |url-status=live}}</ref> On 7 February 2012, the 200th anniversary of Dickens's birth, [[Philip Womack]] wrote in ''The Telegraph'': "Today there is no escaping Charles Dickens. Not that there has ever been much chance of that before. He has a deep, peculiar hold upon us".<ref>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9066463/Why-Charles-Dickens-speaks-to-us-now.html "Why Charles Dickens speaks to us now".] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308130856/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9066463/Why-Charles-Dickens-speaks-to-us-now.html |date=8 March 2021}}. ''[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]''. Retrieved 31 May 2019</ref>