Charles Dickens scenes in "The Pickwick Papers" are claimed to have been influential in having the Fleet Prison shut down. Karl Marx asserted that Dickens "issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together". George Bernard Shaw even remarked that "Great Expectations" was more seditious than Marx's "Das Kapital". The exceptional popularity of Dickens's novels, even those with socially oppositional themes ("Bleak House", 1853; "Little Dorrit", 1857; "Our Mutual Friend", 1865), not only underscored his almost preternatural ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also ensured
Dickens in America feminine. Dickens also sat for a bust by Henry Dexter. (There are copies of the bust in the Charles Dickens Museum in London and the Philadelphia Free Library’s Rare Book Department) The original bust is now lost. Miriam also sits for a bust by a young sculptor from Boston, Kalman Gacs. Dickens stayed at the Tremont House (Boston) in 1842, but by the time he returned in 1868, it “has now become contemptable.” Miriam stays at the Omni Parker House. Dickens stayed there for his second visit, when it was just called the Parker House. Miriam says it was noted