Article: Why we need a new Dickens; everyone cares about Oliver Twist. Now we need to help the Artful Dodgers. (Charles Dickens)

Christmas is always the busy season for Dickens, but this year there's more going on than usual. There's a Bill Murray remake of A Christmas Carol (playing the perfect eighties Scrooge-a TV exec too busy to do lunch with his ghost) and, for the truly sturdy, a two-part, six-hour film of Little Dorrit. Coming soon: Disney's Oliver Twist. And a new biography of Dickens is getting prominent reviews, including front-page billing in The Washington Post Book World.

But what's been missing from the articles I've read about these works is the recognition of Dickens's central accomplishment: he prodded (and entertained) millions of readers into caring about the poor ...

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