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
Cedric Charles Dickens Charles Dickens, he also worked to preserve the heritage of the George and Vulture in the City of London, which was frequently mentioned in "The Pickwick Papers", where Charles Dickens himself often drank, and which was threatened with demolition; and Gads Hill Place in Kent, Dicken's final home, becoming a governor of Gad's Hill School, which occupies the building today. In 2005 he appeared in the first episode of BBC Four's documentary series "Dickens in America" with Miriam Margolyes, during which he talked about what it was like growing up as a member of the Dickens family. Dickens suffered a