Racism in the work of Charles Dickens For example, in his novel "Bleak House" Dickens mocks Mrs. Jellyby, who neglects her children for the natives of a fictional African country. The disjunction between Dickens' criticism of slavery and his crude caricatures of other races has also been noted by Patrick Brantlinger in his "A Companion to the Victorian Novel". He cites Dickens' description of an Irish colony in America's Catskill mountains a mess of pigs, pots, and dunghills. Dickens views them as a "racially repellent" group. Jane Smiley writing in the Penguin Lives bio of Dickens writes "we should not interpret him as the kind of left-liberal
Charles Dickens Museum a registered charity. Perhaps the best-known exhibit is the portrait of Dickens known as "Dickens's Dream" by R. W. Buss, an original illustrator of "The Pickwick Papers". This unfinished portrait shows Dickens in his study at Gads Hill Place surrounded by many of the characters he had created. The painting was begun in 1870 after Dickens's death. Other notable artefacts in the museum include numerous first editions and original manuscripts as well as original letters by Dickens, and many personal items owned by Dickens and his family. The only known item of clothing worn by Dickens still in existence is