The 19th century was over 200 years ago yet aspects of their society are still known by many modern people. This is because of the work of 19th-century writers that produced timeless classics like Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, or Charles Dickens’s Hard Times or Oliver Twist. The novels were not only successful in their own time but still are today. When thinking historically, these novels are poor sources unless you examine them in the context of their own time. This context reveals social, economic, or even political criticism from the writers on the world they lived in. Dickens wrote about the world he lived in, and although his stories are just that, stories, they still show us historically what were the issues in Dickens's time and overall Dickens's work often focused on social prevails. On the other hand Jules Verne takes readers on an adventure through the world he lived in, and although he never travelled himself the very chance and opportunity very likely could have existed when we take into account the global British Empire. Consequently Verne also supplies historians with the understandings and more importantly the misconceptions of an Englishman of his day.

Phileas Fogg, Vern’s protagonist in Around The World In 80 Days is portrayed as the perfect English gentlemen to a fictional degree of perfection. “Phileas Fogg, an enigmatic personage about whom nothing was known except that he was a man of honor and one of the finest English gentlemen in high society”. (Vern, 1) The perception of Fogg is an intimidating, calculating, and far removed individual whose only enjoyment is playing cards but surprisingly Fogg proves his protagonist  status by saving a woman from ritual sacrifice and leading a rescue mission against Native Americans to name a few. The story emphasises English honor impued in Fogg where as people of other cultures as assigned less than flattering descriptions. Vern’s descriptions of the “Sioux” as they attack a train, he refers to them as both “apes” and “Worms”. (Verne, 160) These degrading comparisons of Fogg to non-western people is startling yet give context into Vernes focus, which was on industrialized society (European society) rather than foreign cultural understanding and moreover Verne likely understood very little of the outside world. It is common knowledge that Verne never left Europe in his lifetime yet the very existence of the British global empire allowed him to write such a story.

Dickens for a writer of his time had experienced many of the hardships of the labor class in industrialized world when he was young. That gave him an interesting perspective in his writing. His story Oliver Twist had originally been called The Parish Boy's Progress since it followed Oliver rise through the orphan system . (Pool 241) The whole story followed an orphan boy who winds up in a parish where struggles but overall his life is indeed better than before. The story showed readers the dark truth of dickens fictional worlds of the orphan system that Oliver Twist experiences this first hand. For example he is almost sold to a chimney sweeper in which the buyer jokes about lighting a fire under the child presumably to speed up his work, but luckily Oliver is not sold. Dickens portrays the social issue of apprentices and the degree of  abused of  younger children in an industrialized city. In another of Dickens’s works Hard Times, he tells the story of Coketown, a fictional industrialized city. “It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would be red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it… it was a town of machinery and tall chimneys”. (Dickens, 16) His description of the city is likely an exaggeration of what things were actually like, but historically the similar conditions existed, which are brought to life by Dickens’s criticism of his world through literary fiction.

- Eric Bly