dickens

His functions gave a voice to the poor and the marginalized, challenging readers to see the planet with compassion, pity, and outrage. Dickens made characters to cry out for social reform and challenge cultural norms. The serial installments of his novels stirred his readers like no other literature ever had—for the final installment of The Old Curiosity Shop, crowds of people gathered about the docks as the initial shipment arrived in New York, begging to know the ending. But the bloody knives and the tumbrils rolling to and fro make in his mind a special sinister vision which he has...