\paperw3360 \margr0\margl0\ATXph16380 \plain \fs20 \f1 T\fs22 he great English novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) gained wide acclaim for his memorable characters and his vivid
portrayals of the social evils of Victorian England. In 1836 he published the first number of the \i Pickwick Papers\i0 , which established his position as a writer. This was followed in 1838 by \i Oliver Twist\i0 , the first of his æreformingÆ novels
. Among his later books are \i A Tale of Two Cities\i0 , published in 1859, and \i Great Expectations\i0 which appeared in 1861. The following excerpt is taken from \i Hard Times\i0 , written in 1854:\par
\par
\i It was a town of red brick, or of b
rick that would have been red of the smoke and ashes allowed it; but, as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke
trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the pist
on of the steam engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at
the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.\par
