Ma 97, Page 62 Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol
Other nineteenth-century writers, Surtees, Barham, Thackeray, even Marryat, have one thing of Dickens’s profuse, overflowing high-quality, but none of them on something like the same scale. The appeal of all these writers now depends partly on period-flavour and although Marryat is nevertheless officially a ‘boy’s writer’ and Surtees has a sort of legendary fame among hunting guys, it is probable that they are study largely by bookish people. As soon as he comes up against crime or the worst depths…