He was called ‘The Great Inimitable’, ‘Boz’, Mr Dickens and Charles – by whichever name you know him, he was one of the greatest writers of all time. He created the Dickensian world and peopled it with unforgettable characters. He entranced rich and poor, English and foreign, with his novels, and he brought about great social change through what he wrote.

But what about the Dickens the man? I am fascinated by his life and personality and love to read biographies of him. There are times I hate him – for example, in his unkind treatment of his poor wife. At other times I love him. I admire the way he dragged himself up from a difficult childhood and used the experience to create children who suffer in his fiction. I hate the fact that he died before he turned sixty, leaving a novel that will forever be unfinished; but I rejoice that he lived as long as he did and made full use of his time in giving us such masterpieces as Bleak House, Great Expectations, David Copperfield and, of course, A Christmas Carol.

My personal favourite is Bleak House because it holds so many stories which all connect so superbly at the end. I find Esther Summerson an intriguing character – secretive, damaged by her childhood, and very complex. Generally, I am not fond of Dickens’s heroines – they are far too good and dutiful for me. I prefer my heroines to have more spice and naughtiness in them. However, I love Dickens’s middle-aged women – women like Mrs Merdle and her famous bosom, or poor little Miss Flite, Miss Havisham or Aunt Betsy Trotwood.

Charles Dickens was the most famous novelist of his age and is recognised by many as the greatest English writer after Shakespeare. But Dickens was more than just a creator of memorable and colourful characters – he was essentially a subversive writer, spending his life fighting tyranny and injustice.