Main content

Dickens

Melvyn Bragg discusses the achievements of Charles Dickens What is his political and literary legacy to our age?

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the achievements of the 19th century literary giant, Charles Dickens. George Bernard Shaw said of Little Dorrit that it was 鈥渕ore seditious than Das Kapital鈥�. We can all think of classic Dickens; the gin palaces, grimy narrow lanes, shoe shine boys sitting in the gutters and the terrible city smog. Silas Wake with his peg leg, young Oliver asking for more. But were these figures fictional agents for the radical change that Bernard Shaw suggests? Or was Dickens a great caricaturist but really a conservative at heart? What kind of person was the man Charles Dickens? And what is his political and literary legacy to our age? With Rosemary Ashton is Professor of English at University College London; Michael Slater is Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London and editor of The Dent Uniform Edition of Dickens鈥� Journalism; John Bowen, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Keele.

Available now

45 minutes

Last on

Thu 12 Jul 2001 21:30

Broadcasts

  • Thu 12 Jul 2001 09:02
  • Thu 12 Jul 2001 21:30

Featured in...

In Our Time podcasts

Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.

The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10

If you鈥檙e new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.

Arts and Ideas podcast

Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.

Podcast