Dickensblog

Buy a book, help a good cause

We're selling a brand-new copy of Gary Colledge's book God and Charles Dickens: Recovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author. I'm currently reading this book, as I mentioned the other day, and recommend it highly. Here's your chance to get it before the official release date of June 1!

The price is $10 (on Amazon it's going for over $13) and the money will go to the charity of your choice from our Dickens Bicentennial Fundraiser list of charities. If you want the book, leave a comment in the comments section or e-mail me at gdalfonzo AT verizon DOT net. First one to contact me gets it. I'll then get in touch with you to arrange the payment. And I'll pay for shipping.

Thanks to Ruth Anderson of Booktalk & More for donating this book to our fundraiser!

(Image copyright Brazos Press)

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.)

Hot properties

Over at Deadline.com, the Great Expectations feature film and Mister Pip are listed as two of the "Hot Film Titles for U.S. Buyers" at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

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.

From the book pile, part 2

A Child's Journey with Dickens by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin (Nabu Press, 2010. Originally published in 1912.)

Kate Douglas Wiggin would become well-known as the author of the children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. But in 1868 she was a child of eleven, longing to see her idol, Charles Dickens. (She and her family had named "almost every living thing" on the farm "after one of Dickens's characters.")

When he came to America, her mother went to hear a reading, but Kate wasn't allowed to go. She did go to town with her mother, but the tickets were so expensive ("there was a general feeling in the community that any one who paid it would have to live down a reputation for riotous extravagance forever afterward") that no one even thought of taking her along to the reading."If any martyr in Fox's 'Book' ever suffered more poignant anguish than I, I am heartily sorry for him," Wiggin writes, "yet my common sense assured me that a child could hardly hope to be taken on a week's junketing to Charlestown, and expect any other entertainment to be added to it for years to come."

Can you imagine? I think our cultural philosophy about children and pleasures has changed considerably since then -- fortunately for the children!

Anyway, little Kate had the last word in that situation, because on the train to Charlestown . . . guess who she ran into? And ended up sitting next to, and had a wonderful conversation with?

From the book pile, part 1

Becoming Dickens by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011).
Rather than write a conventional biography, Douglas-Fairhurst focuses on Dickens's early years, up through 1838 and the beginning of Nicholas Nickleby, in order to explore the making of him as a man and an artist. Through Dickens's works, he traces the various forces -- his culture, his family, his education, and so forth -- that shaped his life and his voice. It's an interesting approach and works pretty well on the whole, though sometimes it leads the author to give far too much weight to trifling details. Thus, from a passing reference to a mouse that drowned in ink in Dickens's essay "Our School," we get this: ". . . The detail about drowning in black ink carried far more troubling associations. The mouse that might have achieved greater things was like a small dark shadow of the boy who might have achieved far less if his life had taken a different turn."

. . . Really? I'm all in favor of an approach that helps us remember not to take Dickens for granted, but too much of this sort of thing starts to look like pure melodrama.

But when he's not straining too hard for effects like this, Douglas-Fairhurst provides a lively and readable account of Dickens's development. In particular, his emphasis on the work (as opposed to spending the bulk of the time on the life) is the kind of thing I happen to enjoy in a biography, so I can recommend this one.

(Review copy obtained from the publisher.)

Tomorrow: A Child's Journey with Dickens by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin.

From the book pile

By Selenia, guest blogger

The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright; illustrations by Barry Moser (Peachtree Publishers, 2011).

Skilley is an alley cat who has the chance of a lifetime—to live at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a hot spot for writers and home of the finest cheese in London. But Skilley also has a secret—one that sends events into motion and ultimately shows him to be unlike any other alley cat anyone has ever come across.

With a wide array of animal and human characters, each with their own unique and interesting personalities (not to mention several with secrets of their own), The Cheshire Cheese Cat reads similarly to a Dickens novel, and contains a suspenseful climax involving several of the characters. The beautiful illustrations enhance the book’s value and help the reader gain a better picture of the world of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

What initially interested me in the book, aside from the title, was the mention of Charles Dickens as a character in the book. The only other book I’ve read that includes Dickens as an actual character is The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewis Buzbee. I must say, the creators of The Cheshire Cheese Cat did a wonderful job portraying Dickens. In my mind, if I had been lucky enough to meet Dickens, he would have been just as he was described in this book. For that alone I would recommend it, although the story, its characters (Queen Victoria even makes an appearance!), and its pace are more than enough to recommend this book.

In all, I would give the book a 4.5/5. (The extra .5 that I kept from the score has to do with a small plot point that I didn’t know what to make of, but that I won’t mention because it involves the backstory of one of the characters, and the book is fairly recent so I will avoid spoilers.) I think young people are very lucky to have literature such as this available for them. I found myself wishing this book had been written when I visited the children’s area more often in the library, but then I realized I could enjoy the book just the same, and I did!

Selenia is a contributor at Junto 2.0 and blogs about books and libraries at Shelving Cart.

(Image copyright Peachtree Publishing. Review copy obtained from the reviewer's local library.)

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."

Party on!

I love this from Jenny Hartley, editor of The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens and author of Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women:

"Charles Dickens loved birthdays and always celebrated his own in style. So, in the face of those who are complaining about being Dickensed-out already, my view is that we can’t party enough."

She also observes that Dickens's extravagant birthday parties, both for himself and for others, stand in stark contrast to the birthdays that some of his characters experience -- and some of the birthdays that he knew as a neglected, overworked child. It's just like Dickens, having known an unhappy experience, to strike back by creating a wonderful one.

As the clock ticks down . . .

The big day is tomorrow, and the news is pouring in faster than I can type! I'll share just a few highlights with you:

• Some 350 Dickens descendants will be at Poets' Corner on Tuesday for the wreathlaying! The Telegraph's Nigel Farndale, a friend of Adam Charles Dickens (one of the great-great-grandsons), has the story.
• Two Rivers Press has just published A Mutual Friend: Poems for Charles Dickens, a new collection edited by poet Peter Robinson. Today the Guardian is running one of the poems, "I Am Greatly Changed," by Richard Price, as its Poem of the Week.
• An Australian radio station has compiled a mix tape (or what we might call a fanmix) for Dickens.
• Newsweek and the Telegraph have heartfelt new tributes. The latter is written by Simon Callow. And CNN has a report on the celebrations around the world, with a nice photo gallery including pictures of Dickens, his family members, and some of his books and his belongings.
• A peal of bells and a lecture in Southwark, and a booksigning in Washington, D.C., have been added to the celebrations.
• The Times of India has a brief report on celebrations going on in that country. And the BBC World Service is running a radio documentary called Dickens and India -- Mutual Friends.
• The Washington Post tackles "five myths about Charles Dickens." I am, of course, vastly pleased to see them debunk that ridiculous old "paid by the word" smear. However, I must take issue with their assertion that Great Expectations is not a good novel to teach high school students. After all, if a certain ninth-grade student hadn't had it in her syllabus many years ago, this blog might never have existed!