Image of the manuscript from "Our Mutual Friend" by Charles Dickens
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So the Dickens bicentenary is a celebration of his immortality, but it's also a celebration of consensus, a sigh of relief. The verdict on Dickens is sound. He's been questioned and cross-examined and voted in. The exponential accumulation of fiction combined with the widening of its circle of stewards--prize givers and professors, yes, but also recommendation engines and top-10 lists--may make that kind of consensus difficult for future readers. They'll have more writers to choose from, more tastemakers to choose them and infinite piles of books in the cloud. The advantage will go to those novelists who don't just reflect the culture but also transform it. Will the readers of the future find their 21st century Dickens on the Pulitzer roster or the best-seller list or FanFiction.net This much is clear: on Feb. 7, 2112, they'll be wishing the original Inimitable a very happy 300th birthday.