BOZ--The Life and Times of Charles Dickens

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Dear Friends,

I am sensible of the honour done to me by Mr Holloway and his esteemed colleagues in offering me this remarkable literary endeavour. I have long believed that the education of the young is one of the most hallowed tasks that a person may be called upon to carry out, and to have the opportunity to use such an innovative and entirely mysterious mode of communication, by which my words are whisk'd hither and yon by the modern miracle of electricity, makes the duty doubly pleasurable.

I can forsee some slight difficulties occasioned by a natural tendency in people to require explanations, (indeed, one might suggest that such a tendency is a prerequisite of learning). I refer to the fact that, having been born in Portsmouth in England in the year of our Lord 1812, my age is such as to occasion a measure of disbelief in my existence. Dearest children, seize that disbelief and hold it in suspension! Do not discard it, for in an age in which every huckster may peddle his wares by newspaper and television, a healthy sense of disbelief may be your only guard against deception on a grand scale.

But do, I beg you, suspend your disbelief in my existence, since without you, my readers, I would become nothing but that object of veneration mixt with tedium, a 'Dead Author'.

Welcome then, to Victorian Lives and Letters. Let learning commence!

Your most obedient servant

Charles Dickens

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