Introduction
as well as sixteenth century, lest we judge them by the standards of our day rather than by those of their own. Many of the unfavourable judgments of Dickens which have been made in our time are due to this failure of the historic sense, though there are other aspects in which he is still far ahead of us rather than behind us.
Edward Wagenknecht
Note—Some of the points made in the latter portion of this introduction have been anticipated in my book, The Man Charles Dickens, from which I have been permitted to quote two or three paragraphs through the courtesy of the publishers, Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company.—E.W.
