Charles Dickens (Taniya Johnson illustration/Chronicle)
Colorful caricatures from Charles Dickens’ novels have become fixtures of our 21st-century imagination.
There is the cunning Artful Dodger, Oliver Twist’s swaggering pickpocket; David Copperfield’s Uriah Heep, that creepy paragon of villainy; and Great Expectations’ vengeful Mrs. Havisham, the delusional spinster. And don’t forget Mrs. Jellyby, the do-gooder from Bleak House who is so intent on saving Africa, she neglects her own children.
These satiric creations are as varied as Dickens’ own restless appetites. He was a theater lover and would-be actor, political reporter, avid reformer, philanthropist, and father of 10. On the eve of his 200th birthday, his cachet among critics and scholars has never been greater.
The author of 16 major novels over four decades was the first pop-culture celebrity, says Natalie Mc-Knight, professor of humanities and Victorian literature at Boston University and co-editor of Dickens Studies Annual. “People tried to get access to Dickens’ hotel room when he was in Boston in 1842. He was stalked, and reportedly fans tried to grab handfuls of fur from his coat when he was out in public.”
