Charles Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity. THE CALAIS NIGHT MAIL: It is an unsettled question with me whether I shall leave Calais something handsome in my will, or whether I shall leave it my malediction.