by DAVID HEWITT
Garry Knight under a CC Licence
As Britain celebrates the bicentenary of Charles Dickens, born 7 February 1812, his works have arguably never been more popular. Book sales are soaring, big-budget TV adaptations are drawing in millions of viewers, and specially themed exhibitions are being held in museums up and down the country. At the same time, it could also be argued, the central themes of his works have never seemed more relevant.
Driven by his own experiences of childhood poverty, the writer rallied against inequality, using his work to bring attention to what he regarded as some of the key social issues of his time: childhood poverty, rising inequality and high levels of unemployment. Given that these very same issues still dominate the news agenda in modern-day Britain, it’s only too tempting to speculate what Dickens would have made of London today. Is the city, heralded as the finance capital of the world, still home to children living in ‘Dickensian’ conditions on the margins of society?
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