The novels of Charles Dickens reached new heights of popularity during the First World War, symbolising for many the quintessence of Englishness and the values that the war was being fought to defend.

Dickensians of every stripe used his name and works to raise funds for the war and to stimulate pro-British feeling in the colonies and America. But Dickens was hugely popular too in Germany, so that his writing could be found in trenches on both sides of No-Man’s Land, sometimes to the consternation of Dickensians at home. Jerry White charts the use and abuse of Dickens and his legacy across the course of the First World War.