Well, not exactly. But he was born 200 years ago on February 7, and if you haven’t broken out Great Expectations lately, it’s high time you did. To celebrate.
What? You say you don’t care for nineteenth-century literature?
Well, as my father used to say, that just leaves more for me. But Dickens has had a greater effect on your life than you may know. Your notions of a white Christmas, for example, come straight out of Dickens. He also used names to develop character, he used literature as social activism, and he’s put words into the dictionary and phrases like red tape into the vernacular.
The BBC has a lot to say about how Charles Dickens affected his time and ours. You can read the whole article here. In the meantime, I’ll start the party: My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip …
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