Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) wrote most of his novels in monthly instalments, which is why they are long, crowded and built around cliffhangers. He knew the poverty he described: his father was imprisoned for debt when Dickens was twelve, and the boy was sent to work pasting labels in a blacking factory. That experience runs under David Copperfield, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. He is quoted here for the sentences that do two jobs at once — a joke and an indictment in the same breath. Citations give book and chapter, or the stave in the case of A Christmas Carol.