Featuring the first extended treatment of Charles Dickens's views of the Chartist movement, this critical evaluation of "Barnaby Rudge" considers Dickens's literary output in conjunction with his personality, his class identity, and his relationships with individual Chartists. Challenging the critical consensus of modern literary critics, it reevaluates Dickens's writing as part of an ongoing project to warn readers of the dangers of Evangelicalism, drawing upon his printed correspondence, Victorian periodicals, and theatrical adaptations of the novel.