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Charles Dickens
Dickens is one of those writers who are well worth stealing. Even the burial of his body in Westminster Abbey was a species of theft, if you come to think of it.
101 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1986
8 people are currently reading
494 people want to read
About the author
George Orwell
1,343 books51.4k followersEric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
March 12, 2020
A reread for me, and just as good the second time around. A must for all Dickens fans!
September 26, 2015
Orwell on Dickens is fantastic and if you’re a Dickens fan is a must read. Orwell actually gets his arms around the huge beast that is the work of Charles Dickens. Insights fly out of every page like bold bright birds flapping wings of gold – not many writers on literature are so fearless. First Orwell describes, then as he gets into his project he sharpens his axes, then he buries them into Dickens. You think he’s going to chop down the great man, but no, in the end Orwell himself drives the ambulance to the A&E and pumps life back into the gasping relict.
Here is Orwell gearing up :
He attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached. Yet he managed to do it without making himself hated, and, more than this, the very people he attacked have swallowed him so completely that he has become a national institution
Here he is circling around his prey, figuring out what he is and is not :
Not a proletarian writer – if you look for the working classes in fiction, and especially English fiction, all you find is a hole… the ordinary town proletariat, the people who make the wheels go round, have always been ignored by novelists
That’s one of many enormous generalisations about the novel, English novels in particular. He seems to have read all of 19th century fiction including the Russians. He is of course approaching this issue from the Left :
His criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work… its whole moral is that capitalists ought to be kind, not that workers ought to be rebellious
In his attitude towards servants Dickens is not ahead of his age. In the nineteenth century the revolt against domestic service was just beginning, to the great annoyance of everyone with over £500 a year… He was writing at a time when domestic service must have seemed a completely inevitable evil…It was an age of enormous families, pretentious meals and inconvenient houses, when the slavey drudging fourteen hours a day in the basement kitchen was something too normal to be noticed.
For Orwell Dickens can write about prison, about childhood, about problems and issues, about the bourgeois, but not about work, not about agriculture, not about inventions, or about social progress or solutions. He has limitless imagination for characters and comic detail, none for how people might live better.
He is a man who lives through his eyes and ears rather than through his hands and muscles
His plots wind their melodramatic ways through the dead returned, the revelatory will, the revealed identity and so forth, and at the end is a nice rich guy who rewards the patiently suffering hero with a big bag of cash. After which, the hero… does nothing. He retires, he marries, he has a large family, he is a nice person, the end.
By this time, anyone who is a lover of Dickens, and who has read as far as this, will probably be angry with me says Orwell, and then starts into some very unflattering comparisons with Tolstoy. But in the end, he says, you do not begrudge the time spent with him, indeed, you think of it as blessed – Dickens
is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity… a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened… a man who is generously angry…
There were so many interesting points in here - I would like to discuss them all - but this is a review not a counter-essay.
I wish there were fearless critics of today who would take on the big beasts of our modern literatures and knock them around for 10 rounds or so, with such candour, vivacity and relish.
Here is Orwell gearing up :
He attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached. Yet he managed to do it without making himself hated, and, more than this, the very people he attacked have swallowed him so completely that he has become a national institution
Here he is circling around his prey, figuring out what he is and is not :
Not a proletarian writer – if you look for the working classes in fiction, and especially English fiction, all you find is a hole… the ordinary town proletariat, the people who make the wheels go round, have always been ignored by novelists
That’s one of many enormous generalisations about the novel, English novels in particular. He seems to have read all of 19th century fiction including the Russians. He is of course approaching this issue from the Left :
His criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work… its whole moral is that capitalists ought to be kind, not that workers ought to be rebellious
In his attitude towards servants Dickens is not ahead of his age. In the nineteenth century the revolt against domestic service was just beginning, to the great annoyance of everyone with over £500 a year… He was writing at a time when domestic service must have seemed a completely inevitable evil…It was an age of enormous families, pretentious meals and inconvenient houses, when the slavey drudging fourteen hours a day in the basement kitchen was something too normal to be noticed.
For Orwell Dickens can write about prison, about childhood, about problems and issues, about the bourgeois, but not about work, not about agriculture, not about inventions, or about social progress or solutions. He has limitless imagination for characters and comic detail, none for how people might live better.
He is a man who lives through his eyes and ears rather than through his hands and muscles
His plots wind their melodramatic ways through the dead returned, the revelatory will, the revealed identity and so forth, and at the end is a nice rich guy who rewards the patiently suffering hero with a big bag of cash. After which, the hero… does nothing. He retires, he marries, he has a large family, he is a nice person, the end.
By this time, anyone who is a lover of Dickens, and who has read as far as this, will probably be angry with me says Orwell, and then starts into some very unflattering comparisons with Tolstoy. But in the end, he says, you do not begrudge the time spent with him, indeed, you think of it as blessed – Dickens
is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity… a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened… a man who is generously angry…
There were so many interesting points in here - I would like to discuss them all - but this is a review not a counter-essay.
I wish there were fearless critics of today who would take on the big beasts of our modern literatures and knock them around for 10 rounds or so, with such candour, vivacity and relish.
January 5, 2024
This book is partly a review of the books of Charles Dickens but is mostly about the man who was Charles Dickens the author and why he was so appealing, someone who was read by the working class and yet buried in Westminster Abbey.
In Oliver Twist, Hard Times, and Bleak House Dickens attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached, yet he did this without making himself hated, indeed the ruling classes loved him so much that he himself became a national institution.
He attacks the law, parliament, and the education system without indicating what he would put in their place, so he couldn't be classed as a revolutionary writer. Indeed, VI Lenin walked out of a performance of The Cricket on the Hearth as he found Dickens' 'middle-class sentimentality' intolerable.
As a matter of course, Dickens was on the side of the underdog, until the underdog becomes the upperdog / overdog, and then he switches his allegiance as he does in Barnaby Rudge where he loathes the Catholics until they become persecuted and then he is on their side.
The secret of Dickens' success was that he was able to express in a comic, simplified, and therefore memorable form the native decency of the common man.
In Oliver Twist, Hard Times, and Bleak House Dickens attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached, yet he did this without making himself hated, indeed the ruling classes loved him so much that he himself became a national institution.
He attacks the law, parliament, and the education system without indicating what he would put in their place, so he couldn't be classed as a revolutionary writer. Indeed, VI Lenin walked out of a performance of The Cricket on the Hearth as he found Dickens' 'middle-class sentimentality' intolerable.
As a matter of course, Dickens was on the side of the underdog, until the underdog becomes the upperdog / overdog, and then he switches his allegiance as he does in Barnaby Rudge where he loathes the Catholics until they become persecuted and then he is on their side.
The secret of Dickens' success was that he was able to express in a comic, simplified, and therefore memorable form the native decency of the common man.
November 21, 2015
If every critical essay was as good, I would be reading only those all the time. Orwell gets into Dickens with such surgical precision, it is a delight to be on the sidelines and observe.
August 31, 2024
A great read!
January 13, 2024
চার্লস ডিকেন্সের সাহিত্য সমালোচনা লিখেছেন অরওয়েল। একটা-দুটো উপন্যাসের ওপর নয়, তাঁর সম্পূর্ণ সাহিত্যকর্ম নিয়ে বিশ্লেষণধর্মী আলাপ করা হয়েছে। ডিকেন্স ভক্তদের মন খারাপ করার মত রিভিউ দিয়েছেন তিনি। ইতিবাচক কথা লিখেছেন খুব সামান্য, বাকি প্রায় পুরোটাই ডিকেন্সের সাহিত্যের বিবিধ দুর্বলতা নিয়ে আলোচনা।
ডিকেন্সের লেখায় সহানুভূতির সাথে দরিদ্র মানুষদের কথা এসেছে, এজন্য তাঁকে প্রলেতারিয়েতদের লেখক বা সমাজতন্ত্রী বলার অসারতা তিনি ব্যাখ্যা করেছেন। অরওয়েল বলছেন, ডিকেন্স আসলে বুর্জোয়াদের লেখক; প্রলেতারিয়েত শ্রেণী তাদের অধিকার আদায়ে বিদ্রোহ করুক এমনটা কখনই তিনি কামনা করেন নি (যেমন A tale of two cities), তিনি চেয়েছেন বুর্জোয়ারা তাদের চাকরদের সাথে সদয় ব্যবহার করুক, তাদেরকে কিছু সুযোগ-সুবিধা বাড়িয়ে দিক। অর্থাৎ ডিকেন্স চেয়েছেন বিদ্যমান পুঁজিবাদী ব্যবস্থা যেন বজায় থাকে, শুধু পুঁজিবাদীরা যেন মানুষ হিসেবে দয়ালু হয়।
ডিকেন্স লন্ডনে জীবন অতিবাহিত করেছেন। তাঁর সাহিত্য কমফোর্ট জোনে থাকতে চাওয়া অলস মধ্যবিত্তের সাহিত্য।
তাঁর সাহিত্যে কৃষি ও কৃষিজীবীর জীবন নেই, অরওয়েল বলছেন কৃষি সম্পর্কে লেখার মত পর্যাপ্ত জ্ঞান ডিকেন্সের নেই।
উনিশ শতকের কলকারখানার কাহিনী, বিজ্ঞানের অগ্রগতিকেও ডিকেন্সের লেখায় খুঁজে পাওয়া যায় না। তাঁর লেখায় ব্যবসা-বাণিজ্যের ব্যাপার নেই, রাজনীতির মারপ্যাচ নেই। পেশাজীবিদের পেশা ডিকেন্সের সাহিত্যে নেই, আছে তাদের ঘরোয়া জীবন, পরিবার, বন্ধু। আছে শুধু বেদনা, প্রেম-ভালোবাসা, বিরহ, কষ্ট, আনন্দ।
বিচিত্র শ্রেণী-পেশার মানুষদের জীবন সম্পর্কে ডিকেন্সের ধারণা ছিল না। তাঁর জানার পরিধি সংকীর্ণ। তাঁর রচনার চরিত্রগুলি স্থবির, তাদের সাইকোলজিকাল জীবন নেই, সময়ের সাথে সাথে তারা বিকশিত হয় না। অরওয়েল তুলনা টেনেছেন টলস্টয়ের চরিত্রগুলোর সাথে- টলস্টয়ের চরিত্রগুলো জীবন্ত, যাদের সাথে বাস্তবের মানুষের কথোপকথন সম্ভব। টলস্টয়কে দেশ-কালের গণ্ডি অতিক্রম করা লেখক হিসেবে দেখছেন অরওয়েল।
তবে আমজনতা ডিকেন্সের সাহিত্য সহজে বুঝতে পারে, টলস্টয়কে বুঝতে কিছুটা উন্নত চিন্তাশক্তি প্রয়োজন।
যে ঘটনা সংক্ষেপে বলা যায়, ডিকেন্স সেটাকে অপ্রয়োজনীয় বিভিন্ন বিবরণ দ্বারা অলংকৃত করে দীর্ঘায়িত আকারে প্রকাশ করেন। এভাবে শৈল্পিকভাবে বাড়িয়ে বলার সৃজনশীলতায় ডিকেন্স অনন্য, কিন্তু ব্যাপারটা অনেক পাঠকের কাছে উপভোগ্য নয়। তবে কোন কিছুর বর্ণনায় এই বাড়তি অলংকারিক কথাগুলোই ডিকেন্সকে বাকি সাহিত্যিকদের থেকে আলাদা করেছে।
ডিকেন্সের মাত্র দুটো বই আমি পড়েছি- A tale of two cities এবং A Christmas Carol, দুটোই অরিজিনাল পড়েছি। আরও কিছু উপন্যাসের কাহিনীর সারসংক্ষেপ পড়েছি। আমার মতামত খুব একটা মূল্যবান না হলেও বলছি- অরওয়েলের আলোচনার মূল বক্তব্যের সাথে আমি সম্পূর্ণ একমত।
ডিকেন্সের লেখায় সহানুভূতির সাথে দরিদ্র মানুষদের কথা এসেছে, এজন্য তাঁকে প্রলেতারিয়েতদের লেখক বা সমাজতন্ত্রী বলার অসারতা তিনি ব্যাখ্যা করেছেন। অরওয়েল বলছেন, ডিকেন্স আসলে বুর্জোয়াদের লেখক; প্রলেতারিয়েত শ্রেণী তাদের অধিকার আদায়ে বিদ্রোহ করুক এমনটা কখনই তিনি কামনা করেন নি (যেমন A tale of two cities), তিনি চেয়েছেন বুর্জোয়ারা তাদের চাকরদের সাথে সদয় ব্যবহার করুক, তাদেরকে কিছু সুযোগ-সুবিধা বাড়িয়ে দিক। অর্থাৎ ডিকেন্স চেয়েছেন বিদ্যমান পুঁজিবাদী ব্যবস্থা যেন বজায় থাকে, শুধু পুঁজিবাদীরা যেন মানুষ হিসেবে দয়ালু হয়।
ডিকেন্স লন্ডনে জীবন অতিবাহিত করেছেন। তাঁর সাহিত্য কমফোর্ট জোনে থাকতে চাওয়া অলস মধ্যবিত্তের সাহিত্য।
তাঁর সাহিত্যে কৃষি ও কৃষিজীবীর জীবন নেই, অরওয়েল বলছেন কৃষি সম্পর্কে লেখার মত পর্যাপ্ত জ্ঞান ডিকেন্সের নেই।
উনিশ শতকের কলকারখানার কাহিনী, বিজ্ঞানের অগ্রগতিকেও ডিকেন্সের লেখায় খুঁজে পাওয়া যায় না। তাঁর লেখায় ব্যবসা-বাণিজ্যের ব্যাপার নেই, রাজনীতির মারপ্যাচ নেই। পেশাজীবিদের পেশা ডিকেন্সের সাহিত্যে নেই, আছে তাদের ঘরোয়া জীবন, পরিবার, বন্ধু। আছে শুধু বেদনা, প্রেম-ভালোবাসা, বিরহ, কষ্ট, আনন্দ।
বিচিত্র শ্রেণী-পেশার মানুষদের জীবন সম্পর্কে ডিকেন্সের ধারণা ছিল না। তাঁর জানার পরিধি সংকীর্ণ। তাঁর রচনার চরিত্রগুলি স্থবির, তাদের সাইকোলজিকাল জীবন নেই, সময়ের সাথে সাথে তারা বিকশিত হয় না। অরওয়েল তুলনা টেনেছেন টলস্টয়ের চরিত্রগুলোর সাথে- টলস্টয়ের চরিত্রগুলো জীবন্ত, যাদের সাথে বাস্তবের মানুষের কথোপকথন সম্ভব। টলস্টয়কে দেশ-কালের গণ্ডি অতিক্রম করা লেখক হিসেবে দেখছেন অরওয়েল।
তবে আমজনতা ডিকেন্সের সাহিত্য সহজে বুঝতে পারে, টলস্টয়কে বুঝতে কিছুটা উন্নত চিন্তাশক্তি প্রয়োজন।
যে ঘটনা সংক্ষেপে বলা যায়, ডিকেন্স সেটাকে অপ্রয়োজনীয় বিভিন্ন বিবরণ দ্বারা অলংকৃত করে দীর্ঘায়িত আকারে প্রকাশ করেন। এভাবে শৈল্পিকভাবে বাড়িয়ে বলার সৃজনশীলতায় ডিকেন্স অনন্য, কিন্তু ব্যাপারটা অনেক পাঠকের কাছে উপভোগ্য নয়। তবে কোন কিছুর বর্ণনায় এই বাড়তি অলংকারিক কথাগুলোই ডিকেন্সকে বাকি সাহিত্যিকদের থেকে আলাদা করেছে।
ডিকেন্সের মাত্র দুটো বই আমি পড়েছি- A tale of two cities এবং A Christmas Carol, দুটোই অরিজিনাল পড়েছি। আরও কিছু উপন্যাসের কাহিনীর সারসংক্ষেপ পড়েছি। আমার মতামত খুব একটা মূল্যবান না হলেও বলছি- অরওয়েলের আলোচনার মূল বক্তব্যের সাথে আমি সম্পূর্ণ একমত।
August 22, 2017
There is a battered but beloved kinship between Orwell and Dickens, the edges of which I had previously encountered. This frontal approach was very evenhanded, often critical and yet an homage in a full sense of the term. This isn't Orwell's survey of the oeuvre but rather a pellucid portrait of what Dickens isn't. The chief absence is one of action or work in the Dickens world. It is difficult to argue with a man show through the neck in Spain. There is a strange sense in the book in where Orwell that Dickens suffers from excessive detail and then poignantly notes that such will leave images imprinted in the reader for life. The sinuous convoluted plots are taken to task-- but that isn't really a complaint, as Orwell admits. It is intriguing that Orwell notes how ideology leaves Dickens frozen as if in amber, a curiosity from a simplistic world view. He notes the modernity of Joyce in comparison but leaves engagement unrealized, stillborn. As with the best of Orwell's other essays this marks a triumph of the expository and it is thus recommended.
July 26, 2025
In 2004, while knee-deep in the eccentric world of The Pickwick Papers—grappling with Dickens’s verbosity and brilliance in equal measure—I stumbled upon Orwell’s Charles Dickens essay at the National Library. It felt like serendipity: like two literary titans whispering over my shoulder, one telling the tale, the other pulling the curtain back.
Reading Orwell on Dickens was like being handed a magnifying glass to inspect not just Dickens’s arguments, but his world. Orwell’s analysis was razor-sharp, yet strangely loving. He wasn’t just dismembering Dickens—he was placing him in a framework, in history, in ideology.
He showed me that Dickens’s compassion wasn’t naivety, and his soppiness wasn’t weakness. Orwell revealed how radical it was to insist on goodness in a cruel world.
Later, I hunted down the essay on College Street—picked it up like a sacred text. It became my companion for re-reading Pickwick, Bleak House, and even Hard Times. Orwell's insights followed me everywhere: his queries about power, class, decency, and how Dickens managed to be political without being partisan.
What struck me most was Orwell’s honesty—his refusal to beatify without critique. He loved Dickens, but that love didn’t blind him. It taught me that real admiration includes disagreement.
Reading Orwell on Dickens was like being handed a magnifying glass to inspect not just Dickens’s arguments, but his world. Orwell’s analysis was razor-sharp, yet strangely loving. He wasn’t just dismembering Dickens—he was placing him in a framework, in history, in ideology.
He showed me that Dickens’s compassion wasn’t naivety, and his soppiness wasn’t weakness. Orwell revealed how radical it was to insist on goodness in a cruel world.
Later, I hunted down the essay on College Street—picked it up like a sacred text. It became my companion for re-reading Pickwick, Bleak House, and even Hard Times. Orwell's insights followed me everywhere: his queries about power, class, decency, and how Dickens managed to be political without being partisan.
What struck me most was Orwell’s honesty—his refusal to beatify without critique. He loved Dickens, but that love didn’t blind him. It taught me that real admiration includes disagreement.
August 11, 2021
Alguém alguma vez escreveu sobre G Orwell no Goodreads “este senhor escreve tão bem”
Efectivamente escreve e faz recenções de uma forma que me coíbem por vergonha em tecer alguns comentários sobre o que vou lendo.
Isto seria assim não fossem estas minhas pretensões nada mais que um exercício de solilóquio completamente inofensivo que seguramente ninguém, ou poucos irão ler.
Que bem que escreve George Orwell e que magistral análise de um dos mais populares autores ingleses que aqui nos é apresentado.
Poderia o meu comentário terminar aqui mas não queria de deixar de sublinhar que na análise efectuada à obre de Charles Dickens encontramos ainda muitas pistas de temas que foram linhas orientadoras da obra George Orwell.
É assim possível encontrar nas entrelinhas deste texto muitas das ideias que Orwell tinha sobre movimentos revolucionários; lutas de classe e justiça social; tiranos e tirania; sistema de ensino; cuidados com crianças; xenofobia; nacionalismos.
Efectivamente escreve e faz recenções de uma forma que me coíbem por vergonha em tecer alguns comentários sobre o que vou lendo.
Isto seria assim não fossem estas minhas pretensões nada mais que um exercício de solilóquio completamente inofensivo que seguramente ninguém, ou poucos irão ler.
Que bem que escreve George Orwell e que magistral análise de um dos mais populares autores ingleses que aqui nos é apresentado.
Poderia o meu comentário terminar aqui mas não queria de deixar de sublinhar que na análise efectuada à obre de Charles Dickens encontramos ainda muitas pistas de temas que foram linhas orientadoras da obra George Orwell.
É assim possível encontrar nas entrelinhas deste texto muitas das ideias que Orwell tinha sobre movimentos revolucionários; lutas de classe e justiça social; tiranos e tirania; sistema de ensino; cuidados com crianças; xenofobia; nacionalismos.
January 1, 2022
A very detailed and precise analysis of the work and the theory of mind of one of most prolific writers in English literature.
Orwell is brilliant as a literary critic. He applies his extensive knowledge and erudition on the socio-economic conditions plaguing the lower classes of British society in the 19th century, coming to the conclusion that Dickens believes that moral restructuring is the way to cure Capitalism of its shortfalls, rather than a restructuring of society.
Orwell is brilliant as a literary critic. He applies his extensive knowledge and erudition on the socio-economic conditions plaguing the lower classes of British society in the 19th century, coming to the conclusion that Dickens believes that moral restructuring is the way to cure Capitalism of its shortfalls, rather than a restructuring of society.
November 29, 2023
There are so many wonderful bits here, critical and insightful and generous and witty, without being dismissive ("Tolstoy's characters can cross a frontier, Dickens's can be portrayed on a cigarette card", "[Dickens] is all fragments, all details - rotten architecture, but wonderful gargoyles"), but I will admit the bit that made me absolutely howl was when Orwell described the character of Agnes from David Copperfield as "the real legless angel of Victorian romance". One simply can't recover from that.
December 30, 2023
Doesn’t know what he is talking about. I’m still having arguments with him in my head.
February 20, 2020
While I don’t agree with all aspects of this essay, it was fascinating to read one famous author’s take on another. Orwell seems to admire Dickens but is not slow to criticize him. One area Orwell briefly mentions (I wish this was expounded on more, but it wasn’t, so I had to try on my own which never leads to anything profound) was the “incestuous atmosphere” throughout some of his books. I can’t deny that I was a little…weirded out? by some of David Copperfield’s descriptions of familial relations i.e. his mother. It had an Oedipal feeling to it. Like childhood David constantly noticing and commenting on his mother’s beauty. Is that normal? Idk, I guess
enough that Freud has a whole body of study on it. I’m not sure what to attribute to just being the ‘language of the times’ and what crosses a line.
In general, Orwell seems to like Dickens, but I don’t think he really respects his work. The way he explains it is that Dickens is more a moralist than a politician. Dickens never offers constructive suggestions or a clear grasp of the nature of the society he is attacking, but rather an “emotional perception” that something is wrong and then states, “behave decently”. Perhaps these points aren’t big enough or profound enough to be Orwell’s cup of tea. He describes Dickens’ ideal happy ending as “purposelessness”. But this is coming from a man who can’t write a single word without it being a statement. I just wonder if sometimes Dickens wrote some of his stories because it was fun and not necessarily because he was trying to “say something” with each sentence.
Edit: I wrote this review before finishing the essay. I flipped the page to chapter 5 and what do I
find? That famous Orwell statement “All art is propaganda”. So this is where that comes from!
Also, that “every writer has a message, whether he admits it or not.” It’s like Orwell read my mind (Big Brother?). Could be true, but I would think Dickens would attempt to be clearer than he was if that was the case. Orwell talks about the differences between Tolstoy and Dickens and in this, he perfectly describes why I enjoy Dickens. “Does this mean Tolstoy’s novels are “better” than Dickens’s? The truth is that it is absurd to make such comparisons in terms of “better” or “worse” …”one is not more obligated to choose between them than between a
sausage and a rose. Their purposes barely intersect.” My ultimate problem with this essay, then, is this: I can’t figure out what Orwell determines Dickens’ purpose is.
enough that Freud has a whole body of study on it. I’m not sure what to attribute to just being the ‘language of the times’ and what crosses a line.
In general, Orwell seems to like Dickens, but I don’t think he really respects his work. The way he explains it is that Dickens is more a moralist than a politician. Dickens never offers constructive suggestions or a clear grasp of the nature of the society he is attacking, but rather an “emotional perception” that something is wrong and then states, “behave decently”. Perhaps these points aren’t big enough or profound enough to be Orwell’s cup of tea. He describes Dickens’ ideal happy ending as “purposelessness”. But this is coming from a man who can’t write a single word without it being a statement. I just wonder if sometimes Dickens wrote some of his stories because it was fun and not necessarily because he was trying to “say something” with each sentence.
Edit: I wrote this review before finishing the essay. I flipped the page to chapter 5 and what do I
find? That famous Orwell statement “All art is propaganda”. So this is where that comes from!
Also, that “every writer has a message, whether he admits it or not.” It’s like Orwell read my mind (Big Brother?). Could be true, but I would think Dickens would attempt to be clearer than he was if that was the case. Orwell talks about the differences between Tolstoy and Dickens and in this, he perfectly describes why I enjoy Dickens. “Does this mean Tolstoy’s novels are “better” than Dickens’s? The truth is that it is absurd to make such comparisons in terms of “better” or “worse” …”one is not more obligated to choose between them than between a
sausage and a rose. Their purposes barely intersect.” My ultimate problem with this essay, then, is this: I can’t figure out what Orwell determines Dickens’ purpose is.
February 16, 2014
As soon as I heard that Orwell wrote an essay on Dickens, I hurried to download it for I knew that I wouldn't find a real version. Let me first start by confessing that I'm not much of a Dickens fan although I think that it was so noble of him to use art to champion the lower class of the English society and to fight economic as well as political institutions that generated poverty, corruption and bad-living conditions. I admit that I put down A Tale Of Two Cities because it felt as if someone was forcing words on my head and that I only read Oliver Twist because it was a school assignment. I admit that these were two of my biggest literary sins and that I am willing to atone for them by reading ( and re-reading) all of Dickens' novels that I own. You're probably wondering about the reasons of my sudden change of heart ! Well, here is my sole reason : In 1939, George Orwell,in a state of utter political pessimism, wrote an essay on Dickens and he named it _yes, you guessed it right! - "Charles Dickens".
This essay is not only fascinating because it is extremely well-written but also because it is so filled with political arguments regarding a man who used literature as his weapon. Unlike many American artists at that time, Dickens believed in the ethical and political power of literature as he regarded it as the root for all debates concerning moral and social reform. In this sense, he was much of a social critic than merely a man of letters. "The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. He attacks the law, parliamentary government, the educational system and so forth, without ever clearly suggesting what he would put in their places. " Orwell said in his essay, and truth be told, I wholeheartedly agree !
This essay is not only fascinating because it is extremely well-written but also because it is so filled with political arguments regarding a man who used literature as his weapon. Unlike many American artists at that time, Dickens believed in the ethical and political power of literature as he regarded it as the root for all debates concerning moral and social reform. In this sense, he was much of a social critic than merely a man of letters. "The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. He attacks the law, parliamentary government, the educational system and so forth, without ever clearly suggesting what he would put in their places. " Orwell said in his essay, and truth be told, I wholeheartedly agree !
December 20, 2019
Κάποια επιχειρήματα του Orwell είναι ικανά να σου πουν ότι καλά έκανες και διάβασες αυτό το βιβλίο άλλα πάλι έρχονται να σου πουν πως η ιδεολογική προκατάληψη νικάει πολλές φορές και την καλύτερη ποιότητα.
wish-list
July 20, 2016Wandaful found a link to the free: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwe...
September 1, 2025
Charles Dickens by George Orwell aka Eric Arthur Blair is the 7th and longest so far of The Essays which have the 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, where Nineteen Eighty Four is an incredible 6th, Animal Farm is not far down at 54, while Homage to Catalonia is somewhere higher than The Essays, which some critics said that would become much more important than the other body of work, which you find reviewed, together with more than five thousand other magnum opera, books and films, on my blogs, if you are interested, here is one link https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
10 out of 10
“Dickens is one of those writers who are well worth stealing. Even the burial of his body in Westminster Abbey was a species of theft, if you come to think of it…” this is a quote that we can relate to the Bookshop Memories essay
This is an impressive work, which covers so much of Charles Dickens that one can be overwhelmed, not a specialist, or one who is very familiar with the important books of the famous author, but someone outside the Anglo-Saxon universe, without such a penchant for reading, and Dickens in particular, it could be puzzling, or more
Indeed, even Geroge Orwell writes about the fact that people know Dickens like the Bible, acquainted with his characters second hand, but people think of something connected with his books every single week
I wonder what would be the frequency, proportion today, when somehow I think Dickens is less relevant, though I could be mistaken, biased, or both – at this point, I think Great Expectations has had the biggest impact https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... though there are others
David Copperfield is Dickens, George Orwell writes, based on the fact that the protagonist is – becomes – a novelist, and there would be other arguments – this will be taken into another corner, where jobs and their absence is discussed
We get that Dickens had a rather peculiar perspective, the success of the hero was one where he would become a man of means, but without any profession shown as worthwhile, except perhaps the novelist, a lack of calling
Though against violence, Dickens did not have a vision, apparently, he sent his children to study at Eaton, most of the masters in his books are bad, but we have no proposal for a better system, it is just ‘if people behave better’
Or something of the kind – different aspects of novels are exposed – Great Expectations has this introduction where the escaped convict grabs the child, Pip, and he uses the most threatening, terrifying language:
‘You have to provide the tolls and food, or else your heart and liver will be pulled out and eaten, I have a young mate, who is much worse than me, and I hardly keep him from abusing you’ words to that effect, horrifying…
Later, readers have to accept that the same figure will show an incredible gratitude, when set against that ghastly speech, and then Pip is appalled to receive so much, because it is the former convict, notwithstanding the fact that this is a legal enterprise
The Invisible Woman https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... is a good film, which exposes the relationship between Dickens, his wife and the Invisible Woman
It does not make one fond of the writer, on the contrary, albeit we have Intellectuals https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... to read to learn more about Tolstoy, Ibsen and others
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
10 out of 10
“Dickens is one of those writers who are well worth stealing. Even the burial of his body in Westminster Abbey was a species of theft, if you come to think of it…” this is a quote that we can relate to the Bookshop Memories essay
This is an impressive work, which covers so much of Charles Dickens that one can be overwhelmed, not a specialist, or one who is very familiar with the important books of the famous author, but someone outside the Anglo-Saxon universe, without such a penchant for reading, and Dickens in particular, it could be puzzling, or more
Indeed, even Geroge Orwell writes about the fact that people know Dickens like the Bible, acquainted with his characters second hand, but people think of something connected with his books every single week
I wonder what would be the frequency, proportion today, when somehow I think Dickens is less relevant, though I could be mistaken, biased, or both – at this point, I think Great Expectations has had the biggest impact https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... though there are others
David Copperfield is Dickens, George Orwell writes, based on the fact that the protagonist is – becomes – a novelist, and there would be other arguments – this will be taken into another corner, where jobs and their absence is discussed
We get that Dickens had a rather peculiar perspective, the success of the hero was one where he would become a man of means, but without any profession shown as worthwhile, except perhaps the novelist, a lack of calling
Though against violence, Dickens did not have a vision, apparently, he sent his children to study at Eaton, most of the masters in his books are bad, but we have no proposal for a better system, it is just ‘if people behave better’
Or something of the kind – different aspects of novels are exposed – Great Expectations has this introduction where the escaped convict grabs the child, Pip, and he uses the most threatening, terrifying language:
‘You have to provide the tolls and food, or else your heart and liver will be pulled out and eaten, I have a young mate, who is much worse than me, and I hardly keep him from abusing you’ words to that effect, horrifying…
Later, readers have to accept that the same figure will show an incredible gratitude, when set against that ghastly speech, and then Pip is appalled to receive so much, because it is the former convict, notwithstanding the fact that this is a legal enterprise
The Invisible Woman https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... is a good film, which exposes the relationship between Dickens, his wife and the Invisible Woman
It does not make one fond of the writer, on the contrary, albeit we have Intellectuals https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... to read to learn more about Tolstoy, Ibsen and others
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
January 29, 2024
The book was worth the read and I enjoyed the dialogue he had with himself towards the end of the book about trying to make meaning of everything.
January 9, 2026
George let him up ☹️
June 20, 2023
I read this as the next step of reading everything Orwell wrote project. In this extended essay (90 pages) written in 1940 investigates the writing of Charles Dickens. I thought this was apt, because they both were concerned with the poor and Orwell’s conclusions about Dicken’s could have been mine about Orwell. I wondered if this was a little unconsciously auto-biographical. Orwell says that Dicken’s concerns himself with the poor, without offering any suggestions of how to improve the situation of the poor. Benjamin the Donkey seems to be confounded in the same way as an observer of injustice that he seems to be unable to provide a solution.
Orwell observes: Dickens observes the lives of the poor, without ever describing in detail the work, agriculture, or technology of the time (he was more concerned with relationships and the internal); it was acceptable for a rich man to have a dalliance with a poor woman, but is was uncomprehendable for a rich woman to do the same with a poor man (Social Science has proved that Men mate across and down social hierarchies, and Women across and up, so Dickens got this one right); Dicken’s was appalled by revolutionary acts. “its whole moral is that capitalists ought to be kind, not that workers ought to be rebellious”.
According to Orwell, Dickens saw the servant class as a necessary evil. “There were no labour-saving devices, and there was huge inequity of wealth” (p 54). The elites could not cope without a class of people paid at subsistence level to do all the work required that allowed the elite to lead. It did not mean that Dickens was not trouble by it, but could not phantom another way with the technology of the time. My observation is that a lot of the middle class today engages in busy work, that I am not sure would be miss if it did not happen. Especially for any large bureaucratic organisation. The poor still do the necessary work for a relative subsistence wage.
Orwell writes, “But every writer, especially every novelist, HAS a ‘message’, whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda” (p 69). Yes, but not all Propaganda is Art? Lots of the movies being produced today are pushing a contemporary narrative. I am not sure they will be watched in 50 years time. Animal Farm will be read. Art has to hit a timeless part of our soul that is eternal. It is the Paul Graham question. What qualities can we have that would be ‘good’ at any time in history? A concern for the welfare for the poor seems timeless, which is a theme of the work of both Orwell and Dickens. Maybe Dickens got it right, that those of us lucky enough to have relative wealth need to be kind with the poor, and that is enough. We do not need to intervene on behalf of the poor. I feel that I am knowing Orwell better with every part of his work I consume.
Orwell observes: Dickens observes the lives of the poor, without ever describing in detail the work, agriculture, or technology of the time (he was more concerned with relationships and the internal); it was acceptable for a rich man to have a dalliance with a poor woman, but is was uncomprehendable for a rich woman to do the same with a poor man (Social Science has proved that Men mate across and down social hierarchies, and Women across and up, so Dickens got this one right); Dicken’s was appalled by revolutionary acts. “its whole moral is that capitalists ought to be kind, not that workers ought to be rebellious”.
According to Orwell, Dickens saw the servant class as a necessary evil. “There were no labour-saving devices, and there was huge inequity of wealth” (p 54). The elites could not cope without a class of people paid at subsistence level to do all the work required that allowed the elite to lead. It did not mean that Dickens was not trouble by it, but could not phantom another way with the technology of the time. My observation is that a lot of the middle class today engages in busy work, that I am not sure would be miss if it did not happen. Especially for any large bureaucratic organisation. The poor still do the necessary work for a relative subsistence wage.
Orwell writes, “But every writer, especially every novelist, HAS a ‘message’, whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda” (p 69). Yes, but not all Propaganda is Art? Lots of the movies being produced today are pushing a contemporary narrative. I am not sure they will be watched in 50 years time. Animal Farm will be read. Art has to hit a timeless part of our soul that is eternal. It is the Paul Graham question. What qualities can we have that would be ‘good’ at any time in history? A concern for the welfare for the poor seems timeless, which is a theme of the work of both Orwell and Dickens. Maybe Dickens got it right, that those of us lucky enough to have relative wealth need to be kind with the poor, and that is enough. We do not need to intervene on behalf of the poor. I feel that I am knowing Orwell better with every part of his work I consume.
May 14, 2016
Near the end of this novella length essay, Orwell writes that anyone who loves Dickens and has read this essay is probably now angry at him - Orwell, that is. Orwell has spent the essay incisively demonstrating how Dickens's biases, biographical and ideological, shaped his literary output. Sympathizing with the poor, yet alienated from both industrial and agricultural labor as a member of the rising urban bourgeoisie, Dickens doggedly attacked institutional cruelties of his day yet had no alternative societal vision besides that men should act better towards one another. He was a moralizer par excellence, but lacked imaginative vision and thus had no comprehension of how progressive societal change could fundamentally alter that which he found so distasteful. In addition he feared mass popular action and associated it with the savage cruelty of the ill-educated mob.
Thus we see why both conservatives and progressives have found strands in Dickens to steal from.
I'm prepared to admit the case, and bear Orwell no ill feeling for arguing it so well. Dickens certainly had weaknesses, but his literary strengths... my goodness, those strengths. The man wrote a beautiful page with a mastery of language and phrase, and Orwell is prepared to acknowledge such. For me Dickens's glittering language strengths (usually) easily counteract his problematic aspects in plot, character and vision.
Thus we see why both conservatives and progressives have found strands in Dickens to steal from.
I'm prepared to admit the case, and bear Orwell no ill feeling for arguing it so well. Dickens certainly had weaknesses, but his literary strengths... my goodness, those strengths. The man wrote a beautiful page with a mastery of language and phrase, and Orwell is prepared to acknowledge such. For me Dickens's glittering language strengths (usually) easily counteract his problematic aspects in plot, character and vision.
July 7, 2023
I read this essay for The Literary Life podcast challenge for the category “Something by George Orwell other than Animal Farm or 1984.” Since Dickens is one of my favorite authors, I thought this 100ish page essay would be an enjoyable choice. It’s my fault for thinking “Orwell” and “enjoyable” could coincide.
This essay is not literary criticism—it’s socioeconomic and political criticism. Orwell has very little to say on Dickens as a novelist, or on the novels as art, and instead critiques Dickens as a social reformer, which he was not. Dickens wrote stories in the literary tradition of fairy tales, and that’s how they should be read. Nobody would (should) read Aladdin as a personal finance guide, or Hansel and Gretel as a survival guide; likewise it’s foolish and unliterary to read Dickens’ novels as social reform guides. Orwell criticizes Dickens repeatedly for neglecting to offer solutions to societal issues, but why should he? Do we criticize Beauty and the Beast for not doing so? Dickens’ stories are tales of beauty and redemption, and they are about the journey of souls, not sociopolitical reform. How sad that Orwell couldn’t see it. I won’t say that he didn’t make any good observations, but they were heavily outweighted by nonsense.
This essay is not literary criticism—it’s socioeconomic and political criticism. Orwell has very little to say on Dickens as a novelist, or on the novels as art, and instead critiques Dickens as a social reformer, which he was not. Dickens wrote stories in the literary tradition of fairy tales, and that’s how they should be read. Nobody would (should) read Aladdin as a personal finance guide, or Hansel and Gretel as a survival guide; likewise it’s foolish and unliterary to read Dickens’ novels as social reform guides. Orwell criticizes Dickens repeatedly for neglecting to offer solutions to societal issues, but why should he? Do we criticize Beauty and the Beast for not doing so? Dickens’ stories are tales of beauty and redemption, and they are about the journey of souls, not sociopolitical reform. How sad that Orwell couldn’t see it. I won’t say that he didn’t make any good observations, but they were heavily outweighted by nonsense.
October 23, 2015
I don't see this as a must-read for Dickens fans, but it is some interesting meta. Like a lot of literary criticism, there wasn't anything either revelatory on the one side or daft on the other. But Orwell offers a few theories on Dickens' work - he's clearly read most if not all of it - and reading one famous author writing about another famous author is always fun. He did have an interesting take on Dickens and the proletariat (I'm guessing from this essay that Orwell himself was communist).
July 26, 2023
A short but interesting critique of Dickens—largely regarding his social and political views—from George Orwell, published in 1940. Orwell’s ultimate conclusion is that Dickens, though he had no cogent political theory, represented a kind of old-fashioned Victorian liberalism, unshod of any nationalism, which was anathema to the totalitarians of the 20th century. That was, Orwell thinks, something to celebrate.
August 5, 2023
Orwell paints an affectionate but critical portrait of Dickens. Brilliant read.
“Dickens is not a ‘revolutionary’ writer… his whole criticism of society is exclusively moral… His radicalism is of the vaguest kind, and yet one always knows that it is there… Dickens voiced a code which was and on the whole still is believed in, even by people who violate it… Whether you approve of him or not, he is there.”
“Dickens is not a ‘revolutionary’ writer… his whole criticism of society is exclusively moral… His radicalism is of the vaguest kind, and yet one always knows that it is there… Dickens voiced a code which was and on the whole still is believed in, even by people who violate it… Whether you approve of him or not, he is there.”
March 29, 2018
This is an interesting essay (long one) on Dickens. I like Orwell's thoughts on this favorite author of mine. Since I couldn't find the single edition of this one I had to buy the collected essays of Orwell. At one point Orwell said he's sure many lovers of Dickens probably hate him. Everybody is entitled to their own thoughts, it's a good read overall.
December 15, 2020
Como tantos otros escritores Orwell es más que un lector de Dickens y en su caso uno que ha demostrado mucha dedicación para escribir un ensayo abundante de análisis y detalle. Una propuesta para entender a Dickens partiendo de lo que no es Dickens, y lo hace traspasando de inmediato la superficie para comprender su éxito y mensaje.
August 8, 2015
I did not read it in this German translation: found it here.
Orwell's clarity of thinking always tells me something new and significant.
Orwell's clarity of thinking always tells me something new and significant.
November 30, 2019
Interesting review of Charles Dickens as an author. Very insightful
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