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One of the things I really like about Victorian novels is the close anatomisation of character. People's gestures and mannerisms and the quality of their thought is very closely identified and analysed.

I kind of have a Victorian sensibility - I don't understand stuff until I can classify it and name it.

I am obsessed with the whole Victoriana thing, the whole Jack the Ripper London era, the grayness of it, the haunted feeling of it, all ancient and bloody.

I used to be very fascinated by Victorian stuff, and my best-known books, the 'Mortal Engines' series, have a sort of retro, Victorian vibe, despite being set in the far future.

I inhaled Dickens as a kid, and I've always been fascinated by the Victorians. So many ridiculous objects they had! They created things like mustache cups, so you wouldn't wet your mustache when you were drinking tea. And eyebrow combs. What's happened to all the eyebrow combs? Marvelous things.

I always have to get my U.K. fix, and 'Downton Abbey' is definitely that. I absolutely love period dramas, but this one is particularly appealing - following the ins and outs of aristocracy as well as the interaction between the rich and the poor.

I love the tradition of Dickens, where even the most minor walk-on characters are twitching and particular and alive.

I had a kind of Dickensian childhood.

The most enduring stories in literature generally have some kind of crime at their center, whether it's the bloody butchery of 'Hamlet,' the lecherous misanthropes of Dickens or the lone gunman from 'The Great Gatsby.'

My neighborhood in South London was very Dickensian.