Dickensblog

Dickens vs. Bulwer-Lytton: The saga continues

You may recall that I, along with some other writers, took on statistician Mikhail Simkin's contention that Dickens's work is no better than that of Edward Bulwer-Lytton. In a new article in Significance magazine, Simkin responds.

I don't know yet whether I'm going to write a response to the response -- I haven't yet had time to go through his critique in detail. Just putting it out there for now.

How cashy can you get?

An 1867 reference to Dickens's "cashy, good-natured, shrewd English face" sent Anatoly Liberman at the Oxford University Press blog off on a hunt for the meaning and origin of the word cashy. Thanks to The Buzfuz for the link!

Revisiting 'The Old Curiosity Shop'

Random Reads, a blog at Random House India, is doing a series about "forgotten" classics. This month, The Old Curiosity Shop is featured. It's odd to think of this one as "forgotten," when it was so immensely popular in its time -- but there's no doubt that tastes have changed since then. Makes you wonder which Dickens novels will be considered the best, and which will be "forgotten," in another century or so.

(Elsewhere, Simon Riley, reviewing an updated dramatic version, reminds us how relevant The Old Curiosity Shop still is.)

Dickens & Dostoevsky, debunked

That story about a meeting between the two writers that's been floating around for the past few years has finally been confirmed as a hoax . . . and a complex hoax it was, according to the Times Literary Supplement. (Slate has a shorter version of the story.)

Dickens and Bulwer-Lytton in 'The Atlantic'

I have an article in The Atlantic today, about Mikhail Simkin's attempt to prove that there's no substantial difference between Dickens's works and Edward Bulwer-Lytton's. Click here to read it!

Praise for 'David Copperfield'

"At its best fiction is not opposed to or inconsistent with real life, but rather its defense and articulation. And whether by calling our attention to the varied sorts of people we already know without noticing, or by sounding out our own inner selves with whom we have neglected to become acquainted, Charles Dickens shows himself to be a high practitioner of this advocacy. And it is in David Copperfield that he reaches the height of his practice."

Paul Joseph Prezzia, The Civilized Reader, Crisis

The cinematic Dickens

Liz Ferguson of the Montreal Gazette reviews the documentary Dickens on Film, which was recently shown at Montreal's Festival of Films on Art.

Dickens or Bulwer-Lytton? Take the quiz!

Can you tell Charles Dickens's writing from that of Edward Bulwer-Lytton? Take the quiz and find out! I scored 92 percent, which means I got one answer wrong. I won't tell you (yet) which one, but I will say that I hesitated over it for a very long time, and of course am now kicking myself over it.

Mikhail Simkin of UCLA, who came up with the quiz, has published a paper about the results. And he discusses them at the previously linked quiz page. While I find his experiment very interesting, I disagree with some of his premises, as well as his conclusion.

Of Dickens, Rowling, and Whedon

A fascinating article, "Charles Dickens: The Beginning of Modern Fandom?" examines how "the emotional connection of the readership to Dickens’ characters" bound his readers into an enduring fandom, and compares him with some of today's most popular writers.

(Is it really accurate to call him "the Victorian Joss Whedon," though? It's not like he killed EVERYBODY off . . . )

Poe and Dickens

The blog The World of Edgar Allan Poe has a very interesting, well-researched article about the relationship between the two writers.