Perspective

Charles Dickens was one of England's greatest writers. One reason for his continued fame was his ability to capture English culture in his novels and characters during the Victorian Era and in earlier periods. For instance, Dickens is among the most potent critics of Victorian Era capitalism, pointing out how, in his view, English capitalism created vast differences between the material means of rich and poor and how many of the poor lived in terrible conditions and working conditions. The images of smoke, suit, children endangered in factory labor, the mistreatment of children in orphanages and the like are a permanent part of the Western psyche.

In many ways, Dickens was a precursor to British and American progressives, who not only emphasized the importance of the state in protecting the weak from private sources of power but also put forth a more serious and secular perspective on the...