7 February 1812 -- 9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz", was an English novelist of the Victorian era as well as a vigorous social campaigner. Critics George Gissing and GK Chesterton championed Dickens's mastery of prose, his endless invention of unique, clever personalities, and his powerful social sensibilities, but fellow writers such as George Henry Lewes, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf faulted his work for sentimentality, implausible occurrences, and grotesque characterizations Please see ...