Here’s another article about the pervasive and ongoing influence of Charles Dickens.

Finally deciding on the historical novel she wanted to write, Zadie Smith tried to avoid including Charles Dickens.

However, she found he was everywhere:

“I’d read a book about American slavery and discover him in the footnotes!”

Eventually Dickens became a character in the story Zadie Smith was telling about Arthur Orton, who claimed to be Sir Roger Tichborne, a long missing heir.

“I let him pervade the pages, in the same way he stalks through nineteenth-century London. He’s there in the air and the comedy and the tragedy and the politics and the literature”