To all my followers: if you’re not already a member, you should consider becoming one!
The Dickens Fellowship, founded in 1902, is a worldwide association of people who share an interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870).
I officially have the best job ever. I work at a library, and get to peek at the new books before they go out on the shelves. Everyone knows what a Dickens fangirl I am, too, so they set aside any related books for me. With the bicentennial, I’ve gotten to read 5 or 6 new books already.
Just got this one today — looks pretty interesting!
Charles Dickens’s Networks: Public Transport and the Novel by Jonathan H. Grossman
The same week in February 1836 that Charles Dickens was hired to write his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, the first railway line in London opened. Charles Dickens’s Networks explores the rise of the global, high-speed passenger transport network in the nineteenth century and the indelible impact it made on Dickens’s work. The advent first of stage coaches, then of railways and transoceanic steam ships made unprecedented round-trip journeys across once seemingly far distances seem ordinary and systematic. Time itself was changed. The Victorians overran the separate, local times kept in each town, establishing instead the synchronized, ‘standard’ time, which now ticks on our clocks. Jonathan Grossman examines the history of public transport’s systematic networking of people and how this revolutionized perceptions of time, space, and community, and how the art form of the novel played a special role in synthesizing and understanding it all. Focusing on a trio of road novels by Charles Dickens, he looks first at a key historical moment in the networked community’s coming together, then at a subsequent recognition of its tragic limits, and, finally, at the construction of a revised view that expressed the precarious, limited omniscient perspective by which passengers came to imagine their journeying in the network.
This is absolutely hilarious. Housemates inform me I’m finding it far more amusing than it actually is, but I don’t care. It’s splendid.
Amazing!
The oldest surviving film featuring a Charles Dickens character has been discovered, in the year of the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth.
The Death of Poor Joe, which dates back to March 1901, was discovered by British Film Institute (BFI) curator Bryony Dixon, in February.
The Queen Presides Over the Dickens of a Celebration Also on hand was Rowan Atkinson, who played Fagin in a West End production of Oliver! “I think it’s an extremely important evening. Dickens is an invaluable part of British literary heritage,” Atkinson said. “I am making the most of the opportunity to do it now as I probably won’t be around when we celebrate it in another 100 years’ time.” He said that it was a “privilege” to be invited to celebrate Dickens – and managed to avoid the pratfalls of his most famous character, Mr. Bean, when he met Her Majesty.
“For me, [Dickens bicentenary] celebrations will be somewhat muted as one of his works, David Copperfield, almost killed off my reading enjoyment early in life.”
Please, Sir, can I have some more?
After 200 years, Charles Dickens is still one of our most popular and celebrated authors.
Queen celebrates Charles Dickens anniversary
Queen celebrates 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens by watching show with some of his great characters from Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.
On the bicentenary of one of our greatest writers, the state of literacy in modern Britain becomes more and more Dickensian.
At a celebration to mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, actress Joanna Lumley spoke about what she loved about his work. “What appeals to me about his writing is the humanity and his love of people as colourful drawings,” she said. “On the times he was writing about he was on the money like Coronation Street or EastEnders.”
Or maybe respect Dickens’ wishes that he be remembered not in a public monument, but through his works alone?
Crunch time as £150,000 needed for Charles Dickens statue
The race is on to raise enough money to fund a statue of Portsmouth’s most famous son Charles Dickens at the heart of the city.
It was a much different world when Charles Dickens walked the streets of London over one hundred and fifty years ago. Or was it?
