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K. Chesterton  \nAPPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS of the works of CHARLES DICKENS  \nBY  \nG. K. CHESTERTON  \n1911  \nCharles Dickens, Circa 1840 From an oil painting by R. J. Lane.  \nCONTENTS  \nI. INTRODUCTION  \nII. SKETCHES BY BOZ  \nIII. PICKWICK PAPERS  \nIV. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY  \nV. OLIVER TWIST  \nVI. OLD CURIOSITY SHOP  \nVII. BARNABY RUDGE  \nVIII. AMERICAN NOTES  \nIX. PICTURES FROM ITALY  \nX. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT  \nXI. CHRISTMAS BOOKS  \nXII. DOMBEY AND SON  \nXIII. DAVID COPPERFIELD  \nXIV. CHRISTMAS STORIES  \nXV. BLEAK HOUSE  \nXVI. CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND  \nXVII. HARD TIMES  \nXVIII. LITTLE DORRIT  \nXIX. A TALE OF TWO CITIES  \nXX. GREAT EXPECTATIONS  \nXXI. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND  \nXXII. EDWIN DROOD  \nXXIII. MASTER HUMPHREY’S CLOCK  \nXXIV. REPRINTED PIECES  \nILLUSTRATIONS  \nCHARLES DICKENS, CIRCA 1840 FRONTISPIECE From an oil painting by R. J. Lane.  \nCHARLES DICKENS, 1842  \nFrom a bust by H. Dexter, executed during Dickens’s first visit to America.  \nCHARLES DICKENS, 1844  \nFrom a miniature by Margaret Gillies.  \nCHARLES DICKENS, 1849  \nFrom a daguerreotype by Mayall.  \nCHARLES DICKENS, 1858  \nFrom a black and white drawing by Baughiet.  \nCHARLES DICKENS, 1859  \nFrom an oil painting by W. P. Frith, R.A.  \nCHARLES DICKENS, CIRCA 1860 Photograph by J. & C. Watkins.  \nCHARLES DICKENS, 1868 From a photograph by Gurney.  \nINTRODUCTION  \nThese papers were originally published as prefaces to the separate books of Dickens in one of the most extensive of those cheap libraries of the classics which are one of the real improvements of recent times. Thus they were harmless, being diluted by, or rather drowned in Dickens. My scrap of theory was a mere dry biscuit to be taken with the grand tawny port of great English comedy; and by most people it was not taken at all—like the biscuit. Nevertheless the essays were not in intention so aimless as they appear in fact. I had a general notion of what needed saying about Dickens to the new generation, though probably I did not say it. I will make another attempt to do so in this prologue, and, possibly fail again.  \nThere was a painful moment (somewhere about the eighties) when we watched anxiously to see whether Dickens was fading from the modern world. We have watched a little longer, and with great relief we begin to realise that it is the modern world that is fading. All that universe of ranks and respectabilities in comparison with which Dickens was called a caricaturist, all that Victorian universe in which he seemed vulgar—all that is itself breaking up like a cloudland. And only the caricatures of Dickens remain like things carved in stone. This, of course, is an old story in the case of a man reproached with any excess of the poetic. Again and again when the man of visions was pinned by the sly dog who knows the world,  \n“The man recovered of the bite,  \nThe dog it was that died.”  \nTo call Thackeray a cynic, which means a sly dog, was indeed absurd; but it is fair to say that in comparison with Dickens he felt himself a man of the world. Nevertheless, that world of which he was a man is coming to an end before our eyes; its aristocracy has grown corrupt, its middle class insecure, and things that he never thought of are walking about the drawing-rooms of both. Thackeray has described for ever the Anglo-Indian Colonel; but what on earth would he have done with an Australian Colonel? What can it matter  \nwhether Dickens’s clerks talked cockney now that half the duchesses talk American? What would Thackeray have made of an age in which a man in the position of Lord Kew may actually be the born brother of Mr. Moss of Wardour Street? Nor does this apply merely to Thackeray, but to all those Victorians who prided themselves on the realism or sobriety of their descriptions; it applies to Anthony Trollope and, as much as any one, to George Eliot. For we have not only survived that present which Thackeray described: we have even survived that ","cbCaisK0BF0PoUQt","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaisK0BF0PoUQt","pdf",1973610,203,"English","# Contents\n## Introduction\n## Sketches by Boz\n## Pickwick Papers\n## Nicholas Nickleby\n## Oliver Twist\n## Old Curiosity Shop\n## Barnaby Rudge\n## American Notes\n## Pictures from Italy\n## Martin Chuzzlewit\n## Christmas Books\n## Dombey and Son\n## David Copperfield\n## Christmas Stories\n## Bleak House\n## Child’s History of England\n## Hard Times\n## Little Dorrit\n## A Tale of Two Cities\n## Great Expectations\n## Our Mutual Friend\n## Edwin Drood\n## Master Humphrey’s Clock\n## Reprinted Pieces","[{\"question\":\"What is the purpose of the introduction to Chesterton’s work on Dickens?\",\"answer\":\"The introduction frames Dickens’s enduring presence and argues that his portrayal of society remains vivid as the modern world changes. It also sets up Chesterton’s attempt to say what needs to be said about Dickens for a new generation.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Chesterton describe the relationship between Dickens and the modern world?\",\"answer\":\"Chesterton claims the modern world is fading, while Dickens’s caricatures remain “carved in stone.” He suggests Dickens’s relevance grows sharper as Victorian social structures break up.\"},{\"question\":\"What comparison does Chesterton make between Dickens and other Victorian writers?\",\"answer\":\"Chesterton contrasts Dickens’s sober, forward-looking awareness of social change with writers such as Thackeray, who is portrayed as less conscious of progress changing direction. He extends this contrast to figures like Trollope and George Eliot.\"}]","Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens - Introduction | PDF",1789771288,313]