Legacy

Charles Dickens was a well known personality and his novels were 
immensely popular during his lifetime. His first full novel The 
Pickwick Papers brought him immediate fame and this fame continued 
right through his career. He maintained a high quality in all 
his writings and although never departing greatly from his typical 
“Dickensian” style he did experiment with different themes, moods 
and genres. Some of these experiments were more successful than 
others and the public’s taste and appreciation of his various 
works have varied over time. He was usually keen to give his 
readers what they wanted and the monthly or weekly publication of 
his works in episodes meant that the books could change as the 
story proceeded at the whim of the public. A good example of this 
are the American episodes in Martin Chuzzlewit which were put in 
by Dickens in response to lower then normal sales of the earlier 
chapters. In Our Mutual Friend the inclusion of the character 
of Riah was a positive portrayal of a Jewish character after 
he was criticised for the depiction of Fagin in Oliver Twist.

His popularity has waned little since his death and he is still 
one of the best known and most read of English authors. At 
least 180 movies and TV adaptations based on Dickens’ works 
help confirm his success. Many of his works were adapted for 
the stage during his own lifetime and as early as 1913 a silent 
film of The Pickwick Papers was made. His characters were often 
so memorable that they took on a life of their own outside his 
books. Gamp became a slang expression for an umbrella from 
the character Mrs Gamp and Pickwickian, Pecksniffian and 
Gradgrind all entered the dictionary owing to Dickens’ perfect 
portrayal of these kind of people. Sam Weller was an early 
superstar perhaps better known than his author at first and 
other characters have had their lives expanded upon by subsequent 
authors. It is likely that A Christmas Carol is his best known 
story with new adaptations almost every year. This simple 
morality tale with humour and pathos, for many, sums up the true 
meaning of Christmas and eclipses all his other Christmas stories.

At a time when Britain was the major economic and political 
power of the world Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten 
poor and disadvantaged at the heart of empire. Though his 
journalism he campaigned of specific issues such as sanitation 
and the workhouse but his fiction was probably all the more 
powerful in changing opinion. He revealed the harsh lives of the 
poor and satirised the people who allowed abuses to continue, 
all in the context of a good-humoured, entertaining story which 
sold widely. His works seem to have inspired many more people 
to address problems and inequalities, even though he poked fun 
at these well meaning philanthropists, and his influence is 
often credited with having the Marshalsea and Fleet Prisons 
shut down.

Dickens may have hoped for the foundation of a literary dynasty 
through his ten children and he named some of them after past 
writers but it would have been difficult for them to be anywhere 
near as successful as their father and some of them seem to have 
inherited their grandfather’s lack of financial acumen. Several 
of his children wrote of their memories of their father or 
prepared his surviving correspondence for publication but his 
great-granddaughter, Monica Dickens, would follow in his 
footsteps as a writer of novels.

His works, with their vivid descriptions of life at the time, 
mean that the whole of Victorian society is often simply 
described as Dickensian. Following his death in 1870 a greater 
degree of realism entered literature probably in reaction to 
Dickens’ own tendency towards the picaresque and ridiculous. 
Late Victorian novelists such as Samuel Butler, Thomas Hardy 
and George Gissing all clearly owe much to Dickens but their 
works are usually much grittier and less sentimental. Writers 
continue to be influenced by his books and although his many 
faults are criticised few other writers can match his blend 
of characterisation, gripping plots, social commentary, 
popular, critical and financial success and his sense of 
humour.