g fashion.
Great success marked the appearance of the _Pickwick Papers_ in book
form, and the public appreciation gave Dickens confidence and
stimulus. Soon appeared _Oliver Twist_, _Nicholas Nickleby_, _Old
Curiosity Shop_ and the long line of familiar stories that ended with
_The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, left unfinished by the master's hand.

All these novels were originally published in monthly numbers. In
these days, when so many new novels come from the press every month,
it is difficult to appreciate the eagerness with which one of these
monthly parts of Dickens' stories was awaited in England as well as in
this country. My father used to tell of the way these numbers of
Dickens' novels were seized upon in New England when he was a young
man and were worn out in passing from hand to hand. Dickens first
developed the Christmas story and made it a real addition to the joy
of the holiday season. His _Christmas Carol_ and _The Cricket on the
Hearth_ still stand as the best of these tales that paint the simple
joys of the greatest of English Holidays. Dickens was also a great
editor, and in HOUSEHOLD WORDS and ALL THE YEAR ROUND he found a means
of giving pleasure to hosts of readers as well as a vehicle for the
monthly publication of his novels.

Dickens was the first to make a great fortune by giving public
readings from his own works. His rare dramatic ability made him an
ideal interpreter of his own work, and those who were fortunate enough
to hear him on his two trips to this country speak always of the
light which these readings cast on his principal characters and of the
pleasure that the audience showed in the novelist's remarkable powers
as a mimic and an elocutionist.

Most of the great English writers have labored until forty or over
before fame came to them. Of such were Scott, Thackeray, Carlyle and
George Eliot. But Dickens had an international fame at twenty-four,
and he was a household word wherever English was spoken by the time he
was thirty. From that day to the day of his death, fame, popularity,
wealth, troops of friends, were his portion, and with these were
joined unusual capacity for work and unusual delight in the exercise
of his great creative powers.

In taking up Dickens' novels it must always be borne in mind that you
will find many digressions, many bits of affectation, some mawkish
pathos. But these defects do not seriously injure the stories. You
cannot afford to leave _Pickwick Pap