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Charles Dickens appeared on the British scene in 1812, approximately 300 years after Shakespeare. It may seem to some an exaggeration to connect him with the preeminent writer of all time, William Shakespeare, but I think not. Dickens was primarily a storyteller, not a playwright or poet. But in his understanding of character and society, in the variety, richness, and compelling nature of his storytelling, the comparison holds.
In addition to all his writer's gifts—his marvelous storytelling, use of humor, irony, turns of plot—Dickens offered a relentless social commentary on the pitiful plight of the poor and underprivileged of his time, and on the insensitivity and hypocrisy of the privileged. Just as Shakespeare presented hidden depths in his plays, offering the ethics and values of the society—often unnoticed, as they are in life—Charles Dickens did the same. His experience of having to work in a blacking factory at age 12 because his father was sent to debtor's prison, and early observations of London as a young journalist, led to social activism, as well as works such as “Criminal Courts,” “A Visit to Newgate,” “Little Dorrit,” and “Sketches by Boz,” the last reflecting the hypocrisies of middle-class life.
His work calls to mind those of a fellow Englishman of roughly a century earlier, William Hogarth, who satirized the London scene in painting and engraving, and also the work of the French artist Daumier. His novels such as Oliver Twist, Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, and Hard Times reflect his observations of society. Yet many of his novels as exemplified by Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby deal with the young and have a happy ending—perhaps to encourage readers, but also perhaps as a wish-fulfillment to make unbearable suffering endurable, offering hope.
Unfortunately there is little time for further biographical anecdote, except to say that he married Catherine Hogarth, who may have been a