Let­ter to Charles Dick­ens begins not with divi­sion, but with a call for balance—between voic­es, between read­ers, between the liv­ing force of your imag­i­na­tion and the mea­sured real­ism of your great peer, Thack­er­ay. Though their meth­ods dif­fered, both you and he worked toward under­stand­ing the heart of human­i­ty, seen not only in draw­ing rooms but also in work­hous­es and alleys. The let­ter dis­miss­es pet­ty rival­ry, instead urg­ing appre­ci­a­tion of how both authors shaped the Eng­lish nov­el. Your pages, Charles, car­ry more than sto­ry; they car­ry the pulse of the peo­ple. From the streets of Lon­don to the qui­et grief of child­hood loss, your pen moved across soci­ety with pre­ci­sion and sym­pa­thy. Yet, some read­ers now mock your devout admir­ers, those who mim­ic your phras­es but for­get your depth, treat­ing your craft as a cos­tume rather than a study of sor­row and joy.

While many cher­ish “David Cop­per­field” as a sanc­tu­ary of mem­o­ry and heart, oth­ers recoil from the cheer­i­ness of “Pick­wick,” mis­un­der­stand­ing that humor and insight are not oppo­sites. The decline of com­ic genius in Eng­lish let­ters has been not­ed by many, as has the pub­lic’s dimin­ish­ing appetite for the hearty satire once found in tav­erns and mar­kets. You, Dick­ens, were heir to that tradition—laughter not just as relief, but as rebel­lion, espe­cial­ly when wield­ed by Sam Weller or the irre­press­ible Mrs. Gamp. These char­ac­ters were drawn with affec­tion, nev­er con­tempt, pre­serv­ing a warmth that sur­vives long after fash­ion changes. What is lost today may not be your sto­ry­telling, but the readi­ness of read­ers to meet your work with open hearts. In a world rush­ing for­ward, the patience need­ed to sit with your sen­ti­ment is increas­ing­ly rare. Still, the best of your tales endure, not in schol­ar­ly foot­notes, but in the qui­et joy they bring to those who still stop to lis­ten.

Some ques­tion your emo­tion­al can­dor, par­tic­u­lar­ly in moments where chil­dren weep and die too grace­ful­ly. The pass­ing of Lit­tle Nell, once regard­ed as heart­break­ing, now earns skep­ti­cism or ridicule, viewed by some as exces­sive or over­ly chore­o­graphed. But art changes with its audi­ence, and tears do not obey time. Those who mock your sen­ti­ment often for­get how deeply it res­onat­ed with read­ers who had seen real sor­row and found in your pages a gen­tler mir­ror. The ache of Paul Dombey’s silence or the trem­ble of Esther Sum­mer­son­’s voice still stir some­thing human, even in those who resist it. If your com­pas­sion is seen as old-fash­ioned, per­haps it is the world—not your words—that has hard­ened. And even if your tone no longer aligns with pop­u­lar cyn­i­cism, it stands all the more impor­tant for its dif­fer­ence.

Crit­ics argue that your plots stretch too far, indulging the grotesque and the goth­ic in ways that test belief. Yet those exag­ger­a­tions are not weak­ness but style—shadows made larg­er to cast truth more bold­ly. In your dark­er tales, the fog of Lon­don seems alive, and char­ac­ters like Quilp or Miss Hav­isham enter the mind with such force they could nev­er be for­got­ten. Improb­a­ble, yes—but so is life, and you nev­er claimed to write man­u­als. You wrote dreams that car­ried just enough real­ism to sting. And even your vil­lains, often cast in grotesque forms, reflect­ed social decay with more clar­i­ty than any par­lia­men­tary report. Fic­tion has rarely served jus­tice as mem­o­rably as when you hand­ed it to your read­ers on print­ed pages, wrapped in humor, pathos, and the occa­sion­al shiv­er.

Though our world now prizes irony and under­state­ment, there remains a need for the direct­ness you offered. When truth was need­ed, you gave it, even if dressed in dra­ma. Your works reached mil­lions not because they were easy, but because they were sin­cere. That sin­cer­i­ty, often mis­tak­en for sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty, is what made your nov­els more than entertainment—they were com­pan­ions. The con­cerns you raised—poverty, cru­el­ty, injustice—remain with us. So do the virtues you cham­pi­oned: kind­ness, integri­ty, per­se­ver­ance. If read­ers today find you too earnest, let them remem­ber that earnest­ness is not weak­ness, but moral strength expressed with clar­i­ty. The day may yet come when your voice, full of fire and com­pas­sion, will again be the one most need­ed.

To love your books is not sim­ply to love the past. It is to believe that sto­ry­telling, when done with pur­pose, can shape a bet­ter future. You remind­ed us that laugh­ter could be sharp, that tears could be mean­ing­ful, and that every person—no mat­ter how small—deserved to be seen. Whether your scenes unfold­ed in a crum­bling work­house or a joy­ous par­lour, your pur­pose remained the same: to show life not as it should be, but as it could be, through the lens of heart and humor. If mod­ern tastes change, your truth does not. And as long as sto­ries are told to remind us of who we are and who we ought to be, your name will not fade.