Charles Dickens’s Anti-Semitism, His Philo-Semitism, and His Enduring Prejudice

In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens created the notoriously Jewish gangster Fagin, who lured impoverished Gentile children into lives of crime. Fagin, writes Adam Roberts, was “one of the most famous villains in English literature” and the product of “a congeries of virulently anti-Semitic stereotypes and libels.” Later, as Roberts explains, an encounter with a Jewish family led Dickens to regret his choices. In an attempt at “repentance,” the great English author created another Jewish character—less famous, but far more compelling—in his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend. This Jew, Mr. Riah, works for an unscrupulous banker named Fascination Fledgeby: