Читать книгу Charles Dickens - Sidney Dark - Страница 4

"Dickens," Mr. G. K. Chesterton has written, "is as individual as the sea and as English as Nelson; " and I can find no better excuse than this for writing another — and a very little — book about him. Dickens is to me a writer apart. I have been reading and re-reading his novels since I was six. I know his characters as I hardly know any of the men and women I have met in the flesh. Dickens is the novelist of the lettered and of the unlettered. The man at the street corner who has hardly heard of Thackeray knows all about Sam Weller and Mrs. Gamp. This is the glory of Dickens, In the pages that follow I have retold, briefly and simply, the events of his life. I have summarised his " cheery, gladsome message," and I have endeavoured to suggest the particular value and significance of each of his principal books. A writer so universal inevitably appeals to different men in different manners. Of all the books I have read on Dickens, I find myself in most complete agreement with Mr. Chesterton's characteristic monograph. I have quoted frequently from his pages, and I have to acknowledge my indebtedness for many suggestive annotations that have helped to fuller understanding.