Charles Dickens on economics

In Household Weekly, 1850:

“Political economy is a mere skeleton unless it has a little human covering, and filling out, a little human bloom upon it and a little human warmth in it.”

Courtesy of Sylvia Nasar’s [amazon_link id=”1841154563″ target=”_blank” ]Grand Pursuit: The story of the people who made modern economics[/amazon_link], which I’m finally reading now it’s out in paperback.

[amazon_image id=”1841154563″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Grand Pursuit: The Story of the People Who Made Modern Economics: A Story of Economic Genius[/amazon_image]

In last Saturday’s FT John Sutherland opted for [amazon_link id=”1853262374″ target=”_blank” ]George Eliot[/amazon_link], rather than [amazon_link id=”014143967X” target=”_blank” ]Dickens,[/amazon_link] as the Victorian author with the most to say about poverty and wealth. I’d go for [amazon_link id=”046087781X” target=”_blank” ]George Gissing[/amazon_link] or [amazon_link id=”014043464X” target=”_blank” ]Mrs Gaskell[/amazon_link] or [amazon_link id=”0199538697″ target=”_blank” ]Zola[/amazon_link] or [amazon_link id=”0140444300″ target=”_blank” ]Victor Hugo[/amazon_link] above either.

3 thoughts on “Charles Dickens on economics

  1. I met Alfred Gissing, George’s son in 1951, in 2013 I discovered a cousin George Gissing lived in Dean Street Soho in 1851 who had Karl Marx as a near neighbour and in the same house as Morgan Kavanagh, a philosopher who had interesting ideas about religion. Small world!

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