Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic. The Life and Adventures of Martin Cbuzzlewit is his sixth novel. The story involves the escape of a young boy from imminent danger, and portrays the terrified child's point of view throughout his traumatic experiences. It also contains some of Dickens's most memorable characters. There is the seedy but charming schemer Montague Tigg, and his associate Chevy Slyme, the eccentrically fey and colourfully attired barber, the buxom goodhearted pub landlady Mrs Lupin and many others. The novel is widely accepted as the last of his picaresque novels and was thought by Dickens himself to be his best novel.