Asked to name the "most touching story in all literature," Charles Dickens is reputed to have replied, "The story of the Prodigal Son." This anecdote exists in several variations (in another version Dickens identifies the parable as the "greatest short story") and is likely apocryphal. Yet its persistence may be attributed to more than just its usefulness to the preachers and Sunday school teachers who have been among its primary broadcasters since the late 1890s; the anecdote also succinctly captures a truth about the author, the admiration for the parables that his writings public and private manifestly convey. This was apparent to contemporary readers, including A. P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster Abbey, who took the parable of the rich man and Lazarus as his text for his celebrated funeral sermon for Dickens in 1870.
