Dickensblog

Dickens slept here

Want to sleep in the same bedroom where Dickens used to sleep sometimes? If you stay at this hotel -- the original Bleak House that's been so much in the news in recent years -- you can!

Oldest surviving Dickens film discovered

How cool is this? The Death of Poor Joe, based on Bleak House and dating back to March 1901, was unearthed last month (yes, Dickens's 200th birthday month!) in the British Film Institute archives, where it had been wrongly catalogued. It's only a minute long and you can watch the whole thing right here. I wouldn't call it exactly true to the book, but it's fascinating, both as an early silent film and a piece of Dickensiana.

What a horserace!

Remember that Atlantic poll from the other day? The one where Bleak House was way ahead? Well, David Copperfield suddenly came charging up to take the lead, and when the poll closed, it had won. (Nina, how'd you do it? ;-) ) Great Expectations was second and Bleak House dropped back to third -- and they were all within half a point of each other!

If you were dying to do a Bleak House readalong, however, no worries -- the Unputdownables blog is doing one.

Dickens poll

The Atlantic has an online book club called 1book140, and they're planning to read a Dickens book in March. You can go here to vote for which one they should read! The choices: Bleak House, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby, and Our Mutual Friend. As I write this, Bleak House has a sizable lead, with David Copperfield in second.

The best of times: Notes from my bicentenary trip

By David Perdue, Guest Blogger

Upon my return from London for events surrounding the Dickens Bicentenary. I received an email from a fellow Dickens Web site owner, Ritva Raesmaa, from Finland. She also attended the events, although sadly I did not meet her. She summed up the few days in London as a “once in a lifetime” trip . . . and I heartily agree!

A celebration fit for a queen

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip will attend a new play full of Dickens characters, starring Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Bond, and Matthew Kelly (who was in the Bleak House miniseries), and will hold a reception in Dickens's honor this evening, where the guests will include Rowan Atkinson (from Oliver! in the West End), Helena Bonham Carter, and Ralph Fiennes (both from Great Expectations).

Mortimer and Eugene: A study in friendship

By Rachel McMillan, guest blogger

Our Mutual Friend is nothing less than a universe unto itself. It twists and turns through mistaken identities, through the social whirl of London’s highest society to the royal Boffins of the dust heap, and through the mire of the Thames where Gaffer Hexam and his ilk sweep corpses for pillage from the river’s murky depths.

Our Mutual Friend is set in a London of smoke and fog: where the malevolent Bradley Headstone mazes through the streets to trail his arch rival, where the body of John Harmon remains a constant mystery, where Jenny Dolls barks at her father and where Bella Wilfer reconciles the toil of her previous life with her newfound riches.

Rarely has there been such a melodramatically winding path of wrongful identities, cross-purposes, unintentional evil and the redemption of love. Only Dickens, the complex author of Bleak House and Little Dorrit, could help us excavate the mysteries and riddles deeply embedded in London’s belle époque. And so much of this, fortunately for us readers, is handled by the good-natured pair of Eugene Wrayburn and Mortimer Lightwood. They are the middlemen and our guides through a confusing tunnel of mysteries and darkness. They offer good-natured banter, a healthy dose of slacker attitude, and a friendship so true and inspiring it makes us wish they’d invite us to dinner at a coffee house with them.

7 Quick Takes Friday

• The Royal Mail will release 10 Dickensian stamps in June.
• A first edition of David Copperfield will be on display at the California International Antiquarian Book Fair this weekend. It's estimated to be worth about $12,500.
• Rochester Cathedral is hosting screenings of the 1946 Great Expectations film this weekend, along with the premiere of a short film called Magwitch, to raise money for the cathedral's upkeep.
• The Examiner has a listing of Dickens-related historical blue plaques around Britain.
• The (Portsmouth) News is hosting a writing contest for schoolchildren, in honor of Portsmouth's favorite son.
• Austenprose is hosting two Dickensian giveaways: They're offering a copy of The Charles Dickens Devotional, and a copy of Jean Shepherd's new novel The Solitary House, a murder mystery inspired by Bleak House. (We may be having another giveaway here before long, so stay tuned!)
• And finally, a few bicentennial-related articles of note -- from Language magazine, Radio Prague, and NPR. I like this from the latter: "I can think of only one living author capable of inspiring a collective global audience to stay up, put on costumes and talk excitedly about fictional characters: J.K. Rowling, a writer who is definitely not having a problem with readership. If, two centuries after his birth, Dickens can still inspire that kind of frenzy, the pro-reading lobby has no reason to do anything but celebrate."

7 Quick Takes Friday

• BBC News names six things that Charles Dickens gave the modern world. A couple of them are debatable, or at least could be worded a little more carefully -- e.g., Dickens may have enjoyed white Christmases, but I don't think he had any hand in inventing them. However, on the whole it's a very interesting and thought-provoking list.
• In the New York Times, Simon Callow reviews four books about Dickens. There's a nice little sidebar piece here about Callow and his history with Dickens.
• Here are new interviews with Miriam Margolyes and Robert Webb about the Dickensian shows they're starring in. Margolyes's new book, Dickens' Women, will be released February 1. And Webb's Bleak Old Shop of Stuff debuts Monday on BBC Two.
• An audio recording of Dickens descendant and fellow novelist Monica Dickens reading A Christmas Carol has been made available for sale, with part of the proceeds going to the charity she founded. Like the performances that Gerald Dickens does (and that Charles Dickens himself did), this is a dramatic reading, rather than a word-for-word reading of the book. The recording also includes an interview with Monica.
• Speaking of audio recordings, a new collection of Dickens BBC Radio Dramas is available, briefly reviewed here. The recordings are of Oliver Twist, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. The CD set is pretty pricey, but the complete mp3 download is only $23.97.
• New reviews of the Christmas Carol-based Batman: Noel are here and here.
• Courtesy of a Brazilian site (I don't speak Portuguese, so please don't ask me to translate the text!), we have a promo picture of Matthew Rhys, Tamzin Merchant, and Freddie Fox in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
  
  
  

Part 1 of the new 'Edwin Drood' miniseries: A review

By Amy Hoisington, guest blogger

(Please note that the review contains major spoilers.)

On Thursday, the 8th of December, I attended a preview of the first episode of The Mystery of Edwin Drood (airing on BBC2 this January) at the BFI Southbank in London. They had been previewing other BBC productions like Great Expectations and Sherlock earlier in the week.