A lifelong fan of Charles Dickens, Lynne Roberts discusses the impact his stories had on the working class, and why his books should never be read at school

Whenever I hear that a Charles Dickens novel has yet again been allocated as a set work at school, I let out a sigh of despair. For no young person, or even older person, should be forced to read the man for any other reason than to indulge in the sheer pleasure and richness of his language and characters.

This is especially true if the imposed book is Great Expectations - possibly the most perfect book ever written. Even its title must have been coveted by writers at the time.

But all of Dickens's books could have carried that enviable title, for they each involved the reader so deeply with extraordinary characters, and promised wonderful, endless possibilities. They had comedy and tragedy, moral lessons, and an astute understanding of human nature and the human condition that we all share.

Many of the names of Dickens's characters also seem so well to describe their traits and demeanours that you have to wonder which came first. When you read Dickens, you revel in finding the good in the bad and the bad in the good. Characters are stripped bare until they are confronted with the brutal, and sometimes humiliating truth about themselves.

Dickens's genius is that the reader can sometimes identify these truths - for better or worse - in themselves as well. And this is why handing out Dickens to school children, even 18 year olds, is a futile waste. To understand Dickens, to be moved by him, you have to be mature enough to understand human frailty. Fortunately, Dickens' books will still be there waiting for you long after your schooling is finished - in cardboard boxes, second-hand bookstores, or your parents' bookshelf.

When Dickens was born, the literacy rate in England was only 50%. Reading was not considered to be necessary or even advisable. The working class was deliberately kept ignorant, and the bloated greed of the Industrial Revolution crushed the life out of families and subjected them to a bleak existence. Entire families, including children, worked in factories and mills, with only a half-hour rest each day for "eating and recreation."

Dickens captured these struggles and humiliations with deft humanity, and the reason is biographical. When he was 12, his father was sent to a debtor's prison and Dickens had to work full time in a boot polish factory to support his family. He kept this part of his history secret from all but a few close friends and it was only made public two years after his death. That the writer himself knew what it was to live and feel like so many of his downtrodden characters undoubtedly endeared him even more to his fans.

Dickens's first work was a serialisation of The Pickwick Papers in 1836. From the very beginning he was a writer who bridged the gap between talent and great commercial success, and, more significantly, the man who, through his subject matter and publishing ideas, raised the ordinary man in the street to the same rank as an educated one, at least on a literary level.

He pointed out profound truths that required no great intellect to grasp, truths so perceptive that we may not readily admit to them: that you can be a moralist without morals, a religious fanatic without kindness or even faith.

Dickens was perhaps the first true literary celebrity, and when he toured America, he was labelled "The Inimitable", a tag he then jokingly used when signing his letters home. Incidentally, though Dickens insisted on paying for his accommodation while in America, he was widely criticised for asking to be paid for public readings and talks.

When he died, he was buried, under orders from the Queen, in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. He was just 58 years old. Relatively old for that time, but still considerably young by modern standards. Who knows all the characters and stories that were still waiting inside his inimitable imagination?