‘Recalled to life’: Bleak House and The Man in Black

I’ve always thought that Bleak House is Dickens’ masterpiece – not just a vast panorama of contemporary London, from the highest to the lowest, but a rich compilation of literary genres from social commentary, to psychological drama, to mystery thriller. You can say something similar of most of his novels, of course, but in Bleak

Revisiting Dickens’ London

One thing everyone knows about Dickens – whether they’ve read him or not – is that he is London’s literary patron saint.  Whole generations have grown up seeing Victorian London through his eyes, from  the grime on the streets to the phoney glitter of the Veneering house in Our Mutual Friend, where everything is ‘in a