Jill Lepore says that most writers like to think of themselves as hostage to critics. According to her essay, to whom does Dickens sees himself...

In her
New Yorker essay "Summer Vacation with Dickens" Jill Lepore
argues that, whereas most writers think of themselves as hostage to critics,liked to figure
himself as imprisoned by his readers. What she seems to mean by this is that Dickens was, to
some extent, in thrall to his readers' expectations as to what kind of story he should write for
them, what kind of characters, and so on.

As Lepore goes on, this was because
of a number of developments in the 19th centurysuch as higher literacy rates, the wide
availability of cheap books and magazinesthat, together, led to the rising up of what she calls
a democracy of readers against an aristocracy of critics. This process was very beneficial to
Dickens, and greatly helped the sale of his works.

Whereas most literary
critics were quite dismissive of Dickens, the reading public lapped up his stories with great
enthusiasm. However, the downside of this was that Dickens came to feel perhaps that he had to
write with the public hovering over his shoulder, so to speak, that the act of writing was no
longer about self-expression but about satisfying the voracious demands of an increasingly
literate, demanding reading public.