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,
Charles Dickens fancy". Dickens's biographer Claire Tomalin regards him as the greatest creator of character in English fiction after Shakespeare. Dickensian characters are amongst the most memorable in English literature, especially so because of their typically whimsical names. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit, Oliver Twist, The Artful Dodger, Fagin, Bill Sikes, Pip, Miss Havisham, Sydney Carton, Charles Darnay, David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Daniel Quilp, Samuel Pickwick, Wackford Squeers, and Uriah Heep are so well known as to be part and parcel of British culture, and in some cases have passed into ordinary language: a