No account of early Victorian literature can omit the name of Charles
Dickens from the famous writers of the time. How could we avoid notice
of one whose first immortal tale coincides with the accession of our
Queen, and who for thirty-three successive years continued to pour out
a long stream of books that still delight the English-speaking world?
When we begin to talk about the permanent place in English literature
of eminent writers, one of the first definite problems is presented by
Charles Dickens. And it is one of the most obscure of such problems;
because, more than almost any writer of our age, Charles Dickens has
his own accustomed nook at every fireside: he is a familiar friend, a
welcome guest; we remember the glance of his eye; we have held his
hand, as it were, in our own. The children brighten up as his step is
heard; the chairs are drawn round the hearth, and a fresh glow is given
to the room. We do not criticise one whom we love, nor do we suffer
others to do so. And there is perhaps a wider sympathy with Charles
Dickens as a person than with any other writer of our time. For this
reason there has been hardly any serious criticism or estimate of
Dickens as a great artist, apart from some peevish and sectional
disparagement of his genius, which has been too much tinged with
academic pedantry and the bias of aristocratic temper or political
antagonism.

I am free to confess that I am in no mood to pretend making up my mind
for any impartial estimate of Charles Dickens as an abiding power in
English literature. The "personal equation" is in my own case somewhat
too strong to leave me with a perfectly "dry light" in the matter. I
will make a clean breast of it at once by saying, that I can remember
reading some of the most famous of these books in their green covers,
month by month, as they came out in parts, when I was myself a child or