Convicts in Australia Magwitch, a main character of Charles Dickens' 1861 novel "Great Expectations". The most famous convict novel is Marcus Clarke's "For the Term of His Natural Life" (1874), followed by John Boyle O'Reilly's "Moondyne" (1879). "The Broad Arrow" by Caroline Woolmer Leakey was one of the first novels to depict the convict experience, and one of the only to feature a female convict as its protagonist (Marcus Clarke drew on Leakey's book in writing "For the Term of His Natural Life"). Thomas Keneally explores the convict era in his novels "Bring Larks and Heroes" (1967) and "The Playmaker" (1987). Convicts feature
Charles Dickens and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term "Dickensian" is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, at 1 Mile End Terrace (now 393 Commercial Road), Landport in Portsea Island (Portsmouth), the second of eight children of Elizabeth Dickens (née Barrow; 1789–1863) and John Dickens (1785–1851). His father was a clerk in the