Charles Dickens and inspiring a new class of readers. Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, "A Christmas Carol", remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. "Oliver Twist" and "Great Expectations" are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, "A Tale of Two Cities", set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell, G. K. Chesterton and Tom Wolfe—for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations,
Letters of Charles Dickens burned those letters that had been sent to him in a mass bonfire in 1860, commenting, "Would to God that every letter I had ever written was on that pile". He burned more in 1869, the year before he died. As a result, hardly more than 250 letters to Dickens have survived to the present day. The reading public's first chance to study large numbers of Dickens letters came shortly after his death with the publication of "The Life of Charles Dickens" (1872–74) by his lifelong friend John Forster. Many of Dickens's letters to Forster were included, but they were