Dickens chronology

I've been wondering. How do we fit Charles Dickens into Barzun's over-arching theory about the 19th century in European cultural history? My continued readings in and musings about Barzun's book, DARWIN, MARX, WAGNER, combined with the release of yet another Hollywood version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, have together brought me to this curiosity.

Dickens' career straddles the great divide between the romanticism of the early part of the century and the materialistic turn of the latter part. Barzun, remember, assigns great importance to the year 1859 in connection with that turn. So where do Dickens' works stand, on either side of that line.

Here are some of the most influential of his works, and their date of publication, with italics for the one of his great works that came out within the fateful year itself.

THE PICKWICK PAPERS (1837)
THE ADVENTURES OF OLIVER TWIST (1839)
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1843)
DAVID COPPERFIELD (1850)
BLEAK HOUSE (1853)
A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1859)
GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1861)
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND (1865).

Dickens was a world-famous author long before 1859, and his habits of mind were settled before what Barzun saw as the turn toward mechanism. I expect that if I asked him, Barzun would likely include Dickens with the High Romantic movement. I'd rather not bother a 101 year old man with a question on such a point, though.

I've looked into his magnum opus, FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE (2000) for Dickens mentions. I have found only one -- a brief discussion of a couple of the female characters, in connection with the Victorian notion of an idealized wife as "the angel in the house." Nothing there seems to shed any light on Dickens himself.