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Why did some early critics call Charles Dickens’s characters exaggerated?

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Portrait of Charles Dickens seated at a desk, writing with a quill pen, dressed in a suit with a bow tie. — Charles Dickens English novelist Charles Dickens working at his craft. Dickens published some of most beloved novels in English literature, including *A Christmas Carol*, *A Tale of Two Cities*, and *Great Expectations*.

Some early critics labeled Charles Dickens’s characters as exaggerated because they perceived his characterization as turning ordinary, conventional people into "monsters of humour or horror" through mere overstatement. These critics often failed to recognize the reality of the people Dickens depicted, as they did not share his deep immersion in the common life of the English people.1

In reality, Dickens’s method was not simple overstatement but a creative process of identifying the "germ" of a character—such as a specific habit, affectation, or attitude—and logically extending it into a "charming fantasy" or "dramatic contradiction". As noted by G.K. Chesterton, this process was akin to a conjuring trick; it required the genius to see that a trait existed and that it could bear such exaggeration.1

While critics sometimes dismissed his work as "vulgar" or "wild caricature," Dickens’s approach was rooted in a sharp, sensible observation of life, allowing him to measure the "full madness" of human traits and social institutions.1