[x]

Yes if you want the facts of the matter go directly to a novelist who had last been to the U.S. almost 20 years before.

Good one.

Dickens was an interesting case.

His writing inspired British socialists, but he wasn't any great friend of democracy or racial equality.

Maybe "but" isn't the right word, since plenty of early socialists had no great love for democracy or racial equality either.

[jeffersondem]

“His writing inspired British socialists, but he wasn’t any great friend of democracy or racial equality.”

Racial equality? Is that now the standard for judging people who lived in the 1800s?

Just for the tally book, what was Lincoln’s position on fair housing laws?