Cedric Charles Dickens the Dickens Fellowship, a worldwide association of people who share an interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens, first taking that position on the death of his father in 1968, and again on his retirement in 1976, when he also founded the Dickens Pickwick Club, a society with an international membership. This he kept true to the spirit of the original in "The Pickwick Papers" by only allowing men to join, which in 2000 led to an accusation of sexism. In demand internationally as a guest and speaker at meetings of Dickens Fellowships and other events connected with
Racism in the work of Charles Dickens English society, and he suggests that Britain should put its own house in order before looking overseas. Professor Sian Griffiths has noted that Dickens' essay exhibits many of the same uncivil qualities he attributes to savages and writes: Dickens in collaboration with Wilkie Collins, wrote "The Frozen Deep", which premiered in 1856, an allegorical play about the missing Arctic Franklin expedition, and which attacked the character of the Inuit as covetous and cruel. The purpose of the play was to discredit explorer John Rae's report on the fate of the expedition, which concluded that the crew had turned to cannibalism,