Dickensblog

Dickens and Christianity

Publishers Weekly has a short interview with Gary Colledge, author of God and Charles Dickens, which I'm currently reading. (My review of Colledge's previous book is here.)

Dickens in China

The complete works of Dickens are now available in Chinese for the first time. My favorite part: "To echo Dickens' experience and spirit, the publishing house donated sets of the complete works to an elementary school in a remote area of Zhejiang province and a prison."

Dickensian walks

The Telegraph suggests a few good ones.

Color me impressed

A reading group in Ulster is celebrating the Dickens bicentennial -- a reading group of 12 to 14 year olds! Good for them!

Family tree

Here's a fun article by a woman who found out that her great-great-great uncle knew Dickens -- and that Dickens once helped the man's kid out of a jam!

A creative transport

Stuart Mitchner of the Princeton, N.J., Town Topics offers a rich analysis of The Mystery of Edwin Drood and how the work intertwined with the final stages of Dickens's life. True, he falls for that dubious anecdote about Dickens and Dostoevsky from Claire Tomalin's biography, but the rest of this article is beautifully, intelligently done and well worth a read.

A Dickens of a reading

ReadingEagle.com reports on the North Carolina Dickens Fellowship reading competition, focusing on high school junior Morgan Kauffman, who was a finalist with her reading from The Pickwick Papers. Morgan hopes to be able to perform at a Dickens festival in London this December. Best wishes to her!

7 Quick Takes Friday

• Naxos is releasing all 16 of Dickens's major novels as audiobooks, in both abridged and unabridged versions, for the bicentennial. Visit their page for more information and to download their Dickens podcasts. And The Dabbler blog is exclusively serializing their abridged version of The Pickwick Papers.
• Actor Stephen Fry gave away free copies of A Tale of Two Cities on the set of his new film for World Book Night, earlier this week.
• Speaking of free books, the library system in Sheffield, England, is giving away 1500 free copies of Oliver Twist in honor of the bicentennial. Very nice, but since it's Sheffield, shouldn't it be David Copperfield instead? (You know, "Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!")
• And speaking of Oliver Twist, Robin Stone of the Globe and Mail tells a terrific story about how she got both herself and her nine-year-old son hooked on the children's edition of that book. Kudos to both of them!
• Here's an interesting tale about why Dickens gave away his personal copy of David Copperfield.
• Rabbit Run Theater in Madison, Ohio, is going to be doing three different Dickens plays this summer and fall, and the nearby Lodge at Geneva-on-the-Lake is offering special packages that include overnight stays and tickets to see the performances. Read all about it here.
• Filming has started on The Invisible Woman. Can't say I'm too thrilled about seeing Dickens get the National Enquirer treatment, which is what I'm afraid this is going to be. In other movie news, the new independent film Nancy, Please tells the story of a graduate student who gets into a violent conflict with his old roommate over, of all things, a copy of Little Dorrit. Here's an interview with the director.

Dickens and that other writer

Just in time for Shakespeare's birthday, here's a story about how Dickens helped save his birthplace.

(Can you imagine seeing Dickens's signature in the visitor's book at Shakespeare's birthplace? An epic collision of genius!)

7 Quick Takes Friday

• A "Dickens' Legacy" conference will be held tomorrow at Cambridge University.
• Simon Callow has come to terms with the fact that Shakespeare, not Dickens, will be "the chosen poster boy for British culture" during the London Olympics. (I, however, have not.)
• Portsmouth is doing special "Discover Dickens" tours in honor of the bicentennial.
• An art show in New Zealand is showing watercolors inspired by Dickens, by the artist Paul Braddon.
• Christopher Gellert, in the Washington Square News, dares to suggest that "in his day, [Dickens] might have been considered as campy as Stephanie Meyer." BITE YOUR TONGUE, SIR.
• In a more palatable comparison, the New Yorker's Maria Tatar examines the tradition of child deaths in literature, from Dickens to Stowe to The Hunger Games.
• The Gravesend Messenger reports on the new Charles Dickens Ale, created by The Leather Bottle pub that was featured in The Pickwick Papers.