When Dostoevsky Met Dickens

As a brief aside to DB's wonderful "Whole Duty Of Man" series, there was a great piece in this morning's Washington Post entitled "Christmas Carol: Dickens's Gift Keeps On Giving". The whole article is worth your time, but I was especially struck by the final paragraph:

"In his book, [Dickens' biographer Michael] Slater records Fyodor Dostoevsky's report of meeting [Charles] Dickens. The Russian novelist wrote that Dickens, 'told me that all the good simple people in his novels... are what he wanted to have been, and his villains were what he was, or rather what he found in himself.'"

Slater also highly recommends that readers check out Dickens' other Christmas book, The Haunted Man, an endorsement which we strongly second.