Charles Dickens never did dispense with God
sir – I cannot agree with Simon Heffer on the religious faith of Charles Dickens (Hinterland, December 16). He says: “Dickens was one of the great public figures of the mid-19th century … who discreetly dispensed with God, becoming an apostle of the secularisation we now take for granted.”
This is contrary to Dickens’s stated beliefs. He certainly disliked the Established Church; and, in a time of great hardship, detested the hypocrisy, moralising and other trappings associated with it. However, he never lost his faith, and worked to ensure that the principles of Christianity were put into action.
This was recognised by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at the bicentenary service commemorating Dickens’s birth in 2012. As Dickens wrote: “In this world there is no stay but the hope of a better, and no reliance but on the mercy and goodness of God.” Chris Davies
Chertsey, Surrey sir – Simon Heffer fails to mention one saving grace of the film about Dickens, The Man Who Invented Christmas.
It offers the first popular recognition (long overdue) of the vital role played in Dickens’s life by his friend and confidant John Forster (1812-76).
Played with a convincing Geordie accent by Justin Edwards, Forster was Dickens’s de facto literary agent at a time when such figures barely existed. As a member of the Inner Temple and a fellow writer from Dickens’s early days in journalism, Forster’s legal training and critical skills played an invaluable role in his friend’s early success.
Upon Dickens’s death in 1870, Forster was left the original manuscripts to his novels, which he passed to the V&A. He was also Dickens’s first biographer, largely shaping the benign image that persisted for almost a century. Christopher Goulding
Newcastle upon Tyne