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 of the 1840s, and his creation of the antisemitic caricature of the character of Fagin. Authors Sally Ledger and Holly Furneaux, in their book "Dickens in Context" examine this puzzle as to how one can square away Dickens' racialism with concern with the poor and the downcast. They argue this can be explained by saying that Dickens was a nativist and "cultural chauvinist" in the sense of being highly ethnocentric and ready to justify British imperialism, but not a racist in the sense of being a "biological determinist" as was the anthropologist Robert Knox. That is, Dickens did not regard