Dickensblog

Whoops

"Top English students reach university believing Charles Dickens is ‘just as old’ as William Shakespeare, an academic has warned."

'Dodger': A review

By Christy McDougall, guest blogger

A few years ago, the world learned, to its great dismay, that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer’s. Well, it doesn’t show in one of his latest books, Dodger. Dodger is a rollicking romp through Dickensian London, with the occasional interference of some famous historical personage and occasional discursions into philosophical matters.

Big doings at the Dickens Museum

Ian Keable's magic show "The Secret World of Charles Dickens: Mirth, Marvels and the Mysterious" returns to the Dickens Museum next month. Also next month, the Museum will start a new club for kids, called Little Dickens.

One for the kids

Director Ron Howard lists Great Expectations (1946) as one of the 10 films he wants his grandchildren to love.

Pic: A Poe Carol

I'm not sure whether to call this a picspam or a mashup, but whatever it is, it's fantastic. Selenia has combined A Christmas Carol with "The Raven," and the results are below . . .

Dickens and the press

Charles Dickens and the Mid Victorian Press, a collection of papers from last year's Dickens Journals Online Conference, will be published later this spring by the University of Buckingham Press.

Picspam: A Sherlockian Carol

For our next picspam, Christy has come up with a unique twist: combining A Christmas Carol with the BBC's Sherlock. Picspam below the cut . . .

Dickens and death

At the Daily Beast, David Frum uses The Old Curiosity Shop to explore Dickens's attitude toward death, and how he offers "wisdom and a kind of comfort even to modern readers."

'Little Dorrit' music video

We haven't had one of these in a while, so here's a nice one! This video is by YouTube user bubblewrapstargirl. The song is "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri.

 

Podcasting Dickens

The other day I did a podcast with Emily Whitten of Redeemed Reader and Rea Berg of Beautiful Feet Books. I was there representing Youth Reads, a Web page that I run as part of my day job. But I mention it here because, in the course of our conversation about what constitutes a virtuous love story, Dickens came up quite a lot! At various points, you can hear us talk about Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend, and Little Dorrit.