In an extra feature for Criterion's edition of Guillermo del Toro's "Cronos," the Mexican auteur takes viewers on a tour of his "Bleak House," which reveals an unabashed love for a wide range of cultural artifacts and art. Audiences witness a collection of over 7,000 DVDs as well as other means to inspire those that work at del Toro's "man cave." There is also a "Dickens Room" dedicated to Victorian literature, much of it including the very works that inspired his latest film "Crimson Peak."

Of course one artist looms large throughout the house and not because of the eponymous name of one room or because the title of the house is inspired by one of his best known novels.

It is because, for del Toro, a voracious reader whose Twitter account is dedicated to sharing his favorite art and literature, Charles Dickens is the greatest author of all time.

"I truly think he is the greatest author that ever lived. I think that he influenced everyone from Hitchcock to Thackeray. He looms really large as a creator," del Toro told Latin Post.

"It is impossible for people to understand now how much of a mainstream powerhouse he was. He was like the [Steven Spielberg] and [George] Lucas of his time. He produced fervor in people reading his books. They wanted to know how all of the novels ended."

Del Toro has his favorites from Dickens' output, but there are two novels that for him represent the crowning achievements of the author's work.

"I think 'Great Expectations' or 'Bleak House' may be my favorites because I identify with the childhood aspect of 'Great Expectations,'" he revealed.

"I think 'Oliver Twist' and 'David Copperfield' are right up there, but 'Great Expectations' has this almost horror gothic romance aspect to it with Miss Havisham and the rotting wedding cake and the abandoned house, the creation of a perfect female monster to break men's hearts. It is very baroque."

The gothic aspects in "Great Expectations" served as one of the many inspirations for "Crimson Peak," and when asked during a separate press conference what film he would like to see accompany his latest work in a double bill, del Toro listed two movies. One was "Jane Eyre" with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine and the other, which he noted would be "aiming too high," was David Lean's famous "Great Expectations."

There was a time when del Toro was attached to direct "Drood," a film based on the book by Dan Simmons that tells the story of Dickens after he survived an 1865 railroad catastrophe. In the novel, the famed author meets a supernatural being called Drood and becomes obsessed with it. The project was supposed to be released in 2012 but has yet to come to fruition.

Dickens is a mainstay of the literary canon with such masterworks as "Great Expectations," "Oliver Twist," "David Copperfield" and "A Tale of Two Cities" being required reading in high school education in the U.S. In his native England, Dickens remains a seminal figure whose likeness was embodied in a statue for the very first time just over a year ago in Portsmouth. Dickens wrote 15 novels (though his last one "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" is unfinished) as well as a number of other short works, including the famed "A Christmas Carol."