Episodic writing
Most of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly
instalments in journals such as Master Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted
in book form. These instalments made the stories cheap, accessible and the
series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. When The Old Curiosity Shop was being
serialized, American fans even waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to
the crew of an incoming ship, "Is little Nell dead?" Part of Dickens's great talent was to incorporate this
episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end.
Another important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style resulted from
his exposure to the opinions of his readers and friends. His friend Forster had
a significant hand, reviewing his drafts, that went beyond matters of
punctation. He toned down melodramatic and sensationalist exaggerations, cut
long passages, (such as the episode of Quilp's drowning in The Old Curiosity
Shop), and made suggestions about plot and character. It
was he who suggested that Charley Bates should be redeemed in Oliver Twist. Dickens had not thought of killing Little Nell, and it was Forster who
advised him to entertain this possibility as necessary to his conception of the
heroine.
Social commentary
Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce
critic of the poverty and social stratification ofVictorian society. In a New York address, he expressed his
belief that, "Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does
in purple and fine linen".Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked
readers with its images of poverty and crime: it destroyed middle class
polemics about criminals, making any pretence to ignorance about what poverty
entailed impossible.
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