Dickensblog

Dickens and the press

Charles Dickens and the Mid Victorian Press, a collection of papers from last year's Dickens Journals Online Conference, will be published later this spring by the University of Buckingham Press.

Getting literary in Liverpool

Some of Britain's most prestigious writers will be on a panel in Liverpool this December to discuss Dickens. More information is here.

7 Quick Takes Friday

• A conference called "Tales of One City: Charles Dickens and London" will be held October 6 at Chancellor's Hall, Senate House, in London. Go here for details.
• Penguin is putting out a series ("inspired by typography") called Penguin Drop Caps, featuring new editions of classic novels, and Great Expectations is included. Details and photos are available here.
• Simon Callow, currently performing his one-man show The Mystery of Charles Dickens in London, opines that Dickens would likely have been diagnosed as bipolar, were he alive today. As I've hinted before, I tend to think there may be something in that idea.
• Speaking of Callow's show, the Evening Standard reviews it here.
• Eugene Wrayburn makes Huffington Post's list of snarky literary characters to enjoy; blogger Dave Astor describes him as "nicer than he initially seems." 
• The collection of creatively titled fake books that Dickens designed and kept in his library has been recreated for the New York Public Library's new Dickens exhibition.
• Selina Scott of Malton, England, is trying to raise £30,000 to help the town buy an inscribed first edition of A Christmas Carol. (You may recall that Scrooge's counting house is said to have been based on a building in Malton.) Best wishes to her!

Dickens Fellowship Conference photos, part 4

Dickens characters in the windows of the Portsmouth City Council building in Guildhall Square. These are based on the Chris Riddell cartoons that ran in the Guardian.

Dickens Fellowship Conference photos, part 3

More photos from the birthplace:

Dickens Fellowship Conference photos, part 2

Here are two views of the Naval Pay Office where John Dickens worked when the family lived in Portsmouth.

From there, we went to the Charles Dickens Birthplace. Many, many photos below the cut!

Dickens Fellowship Conference photos, part 1

I'm going to do a few posts for these, so as not to stuff all the photos into one post! We begin with Thursday evening, when, for our first activity, we Dickensians gathered in Guildhall Square to greet Gerald Dickens and his brother Ian.

 

At last, a 'Great Expectations' trailer!

I almost feel like I ought to put a spoiler warning with this -- it pretty much shows the whole story! Someone needs to go to "Trailer-Making 101" class. But at least we get a good look at the movie, and I must say, I LOVE the look of it.

(Oh, and I'm back from the Dickens Fellowship Conference in England! Pictures and reports coming very soon!)

Bicentennial updates

• Gad's Hill Place is opening to the public for the first time today!
• A new memorial plaque will be unveiled in Grantham, England, on Friday.
• The Dickens Fellowship website has information about London's "Dickens Day in the City" on August 16. They also have a list of various other special events and exhibits going on. And the University of London is hosting a Dickens Day of its own in October, focusing on "Dickens and Popular Culture."
• And speaking of the Dickens Fellowship . . . I'm going to their Bicentenary Conference in Portsmouth next month! This will be my first Dickens Fellowship conference. I'll try to blog while there, but if I can't manage it, I'll be sure to blog about it when I come back!

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.