Charles Dickens and Lawyers in the Early Nineteenth Century

Charles Dickens and Lawyers in the Early Nineteenth Century

Lawyers. In today's culture, just the word alone is enough to inspire countless jokes and endless sarcastic comments. Far from being the most loved profession, lawyers have attained a very bad image despite the importance of their work and the prestige and wealth that usually accompanies it. Were lawyers seen in this fashion when Charles Dickens was writing his magnificent pieces of literature? The image of lawyers of that time may not seem so different to the people who are about to enter the twenty-first century.

One eminent historian says of the nineteenth century:

Justice was dilatory, expensive, uncertain, and remote. To the rich it was a costly lottery: to the poor a denial of right, or certain ruin. The class who might profit most by its dark mysteries were the lawyers themselves. (Plucknett 73)

The nineteenth century, especially the early nineteenth century, which would have been most influential on Charles Dickens' writing, was in the midst of a legal upheaval. The justice system was decaying to a point where it needed massive reform movements in order for it to not kill off the people it was trying to serve. However, the years prior to the reform movements saw an age of ludicrous legal extremes.

Where does the heart of the legal problem lie in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century? The legal system of the time was built on English Common Law. This Common Law used earlier legal precedents combined with the facts of a case in order to determine guilt or innocence. However, this system left a great amount of room for interpretation that lawyers of the time were able to use to their advantage. By the early nineteenth century, lawyers ...

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...r England. The system was biased and subjective with many people looking to make names for themselves by using the system to their full advantage. Lawyers, especially good ones, stood to make a fortune during this time period. They used their skills to analyze and interpret laws to twist them to their particular needs. Before the reform movement swept through the legal system, injustice ran rampant through the early nineteenth century.

Works Cited

Brown, Ivor. Dickens in His Time. London: Nelson, 1965.

Pickerel, Paul. Dickens: A Collection of Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967

Plucknett, Theodore. A Concise History of the Common Law. Boston: Little, Brown, 1956.

Reed, John. Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness. Athens: Ohio UP, 1995.

Waters, Catherine. Dickens and the Politics of the Family. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.