Dickensblog

Because one can never have too much 'A Tale of Two Cities'

. . . there's a new readthrough about to start! This one has its own blog and is sponsored by the Victorian Studies Centre and Dickens Journals Online.

7 Quick Takes Friday

• If you're a U.K. resident, you could win a private tour of the Museum of London's Dickens and London exhibition. See the Guardian for details.
• Dickens Journals Online completed their project of putting all of Household Words and All the Year Round online. They're holding a launch conference at the end of March at the University of Buckingham, in conjunction with the University of Leicester.
• The site Dickens Daily is publishing all the novels serially online, one installment per day.
• PBS's Masterpiece has its Great Expectations page up.
• In a video interview with Access Hollywood, Holliday Grainger talks about filming the other Great Expectations (in which she plays Estella), and how much she enjoyed speaking her favorite line from the book.
• The Huffington Post has an interesting article about biblical references in Oliver Twist.
• Marlborough School in Falmouth came up with some fun ways of celebrating Dickens (and had to correct one child who thought Dickens invented the Muppets).

Charles Dickens, clairvoyant?

The Guardian has a weird tale of how Dickens published a ghost story remarkably similar to one that was about to be published in another magazine, without having seen it.

I'm a Dickens detective!

An effort is underway to edit the online editions of Household Words and All the Year Round. (I believe I posted about this once before, but I can't find the link now.) More calls for volunteers to help with the editing (or "Dickens detectives," as the Guardian called them) have gone out recently, and I signed up today! If you'd like to join the effort, go here to create an account and get your instructions.