“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me, the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But, since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.”

English writer and journalist, Victorian era

Charles Dickens was an English writer and journalist of the Victorian era. He is best known for creating some of literature’s most familiar fictional characters, and he remains closely associated with the novel form he helped define. His books and short stories were hugely popular in his lifetime, and later critics and scholars came to regard him as a literary genius. His work is still widely read, with many readers drawn to the vivid characters and social detail that made his fiction endure.