Dickens as a Bourgeois Writer

Abstract

As early as 1855 Dickens was identified by Blackwood’s Magazine as a class writer, and this view has remained current to the present day.

We cannot but express our conviction that it is to the fact that he represents a class that he owes his speedy elevation to the top of the wave of popular favour. He is a man of very liberal sentiments … one of the advocates in the plea of Poor versus Rich, to the progress of which he lent no small aid in his day. But he is, notwithstanding, perhaps more distinctly than any other author of the time a class writer, the historian and representative of one circle in the many ranks of our social scale. Despite their descents into the lowest class, and their occasional flights into the less familiar ground of fashion, it is the air and breath of middle-class respectability which fills the books of Mr Dickens.