Of such were Scott, Thackeray, Carlyle and
George Eliot. But Dickens had an international fame at twenty-four,
and he was a household word wherever English was spoken by the time he
was thirty. From that day to the day of his death, fame, popularity,
wealth, troops of friends, were his portion, and with these were
joined unusual capacity for work and unusual delight in the exercise
of his great creative powers.
In taking up Dickens' novels it must always be borne in mind that you
will find many digressions, many bits of affectation, some mawkish
pathos. But these defects do not seriously injure the stories. You
cannot afford to leave _Pickwick Papers_ unread, because this novel
contains more spontaneous humor than any other of Dickens' work, and
it is also quoted most frequently. The boy or girl who cannot follow
with relish the amusing incidents in this book is not normal. Older
readers will get more from the book, but it is doubtful whether they
will enjoy its rollicking fun with so keen a zest. Mr. Pickwick, Sam
Weller and his father, Bob Sawyer and the others, how firmly they are
fixed in the mind! What real flesh and blood creatures they are,
despite their creator's exaggeration of special traits and
peculiarities!
[Illustration: ORIGINAL PICKWICK COVER ISSUED IN 1837 WITH
DICKENS' AUTOGRAPH--MOST OF DICKENS' NOVELS WERE ISSUED IN
SHILLING INSTALLMENTS BEFORE BEING PUBLISHED IN THE COMPLETE
VOLUME]
After the _Pickwick Papers_ the choice of the most characteristic of
Dickens' novels is difficult, but my favorites have always been _David
Copperfield_ and _A Tale of Two Cities_, the one the most spontaneous,
the freshest in fancy, the most deeply pathetic of all Dickens' work;
the other absolutely unlike anything he ever wrote, but great in its
intense descriptive passages, which make the horrors of the French
Revolution more real than Carlyle's famous history, and in the sublime
self-sacrifice of Sidney Carton, which Henry Miller, in "The Only
Way," has impressed on thousands of tearful playgoers.
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