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
Gerald Charles Dickens (actor) biographer and writer Lucinda Hawksley, and actor Harry Lloyd. Dickens attended Huntleys Secondary School for Boys in Royal Tunbridge Wells and West Kent College. Inspired to be an actor by a performance of "Nicholas Nickleby" by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Gerald Dickens first performed his solo version of "A Christmas Carol" in America in 1993, returning annually to perform at historic hotels, libraries, theatres and Dickens festivals. In 2009, Dickens' American tour included such Christmas companies as Vaillancourt Folk Art and Byers Choice and has yielded national and local press. Based on the readings performed by Charles Dickens himself during