The Keys of the Kingdom resembles Dickens's novels in its image of a naturally good character persecuted for being good. And it is similar to Dickens's Great Expectations (1860-1861) in its picture of a mistreated orphan boy in love with a young sweetheart who dies. But the setting of The Keys of the Kingdom is more modern than earlier English novels, as are the problems the characters encounter. It is more similar to a novel such as the French writer Georges Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest (1936). Indeed, the protagonists in both novels are very much the same character.

Literary Precedents Cronin's fiction falls very much in the tradition of Charles Dickens's in his concern for the poor and his portraits of young and poor boys who are nonetheless bright and full of high ideals.

They are also personal portraits: Dickens has much of himself tied...