Dickensblog

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.

Happy Dickens year!

It's 2012, and the Dickens bicentennial is officially upon us!

That means that the Dickens Bicentennial Charity Fundraiser has begun. I've set up my personal fundraising page here. My own goal is to read 72 chapters of Dickens this year to raise money for the Somaly Mam Foundation. As I've read all the novels, I'll be doing my reading in Sketches by Boz, Selected Journalism 1850-1870, Selected Short Fiction, and possibly in other books of essays and short stories.

You can sponsor me, or you can choose your own charity from the official list and do your own readathon! (Remember, you don't have to start today; you can start any time during the year.) When you get your page set up, please put the link in the comment section below so we can keep track of everyone's efforts.

And don't forget, for every Dickensblog guest post that you write this year, I'll give $10 to any charity you pick from that list. (I had originally said $5, but I've since changed it to $10.) Ideas for guest posts may also be submitted in the comment section. For those of you with artistic gifts, we'll also do some graphics challenges to raise money. So get those creative juices flowing!

Happy New Year and happy reading!

Oh, and by the way: This is the 1000th post at Dickensblog.

Charles Dickens, clairvoyant?

The Guardian has a weird tale of how Dickens published a ghost story remarkably similar to one that was about to be published in another magazine, without having seen it.

Dickensidence? You make the call

(For those who are new around here, a "Dickensidence" is our word for a Dickens-like coincidence that happens in real life.)

Weeks ago, I sent for a review copy of The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens from Persephone Books. A few days ago, I ordered Charles Dickens on London from Amazon.

Today they both arrived in the mail.

Since Charles and his great-granddaughter never got to meet in life, I think it's rather nice that they showed up together.

Miss Havisham walks the runway

Not one but two different fashion designers have chosen Miss Havisham as the inspiration for their new collections. 

No, I'm not kidding.

Vogue calls this -- wait for it -- "the most unlikely of coincidences." Wouldn't Dickens be pleased? Not so much by the fashion collections, I mean, as by the coincidence.

A very merry Christmas Carol

It's safe to say that Charles Dickens's legendary energy and high spirits did not die with him, but were passed all the way down to his great-great-grandson. Gerald Charles Dickens's performance of A Christmas Carol, which I saw last night in Occoquan, Va., is ample proof of that.

The Ebenezer Church ("They even named it after me!" announced "Scrooge" proudly late in the show) was very small and crammed full of people, but that was no deterrent to Mr. Dickens. He leaped and sprawled and marched and sidled around the tiny space, pulling audience members into the show, coaxing sound effects from the crowd, coaching us when we came in too early or late. He brought many of us literally to tears at the vision of Tiny Tim's future, and a few minutes later had us shrieking with laughter as Scrooge danced around for joy. It was a performance worthy of the name of Dickens!

Before the show, Mr. Dickens did an autograph signing at the Golden Goose store, and it did my heart good to see how many people, of all ages, were there with various Dickens books in hand to get his signature. Here's a picture of the two of us, taken by a store employee:

And here's his signature on my copy of A Christmas Carol:

By the way, it was not just the church that was named after Scrooge. Earlier in the day, I had run over to Staples for supplies to make Dickensblog business cards to take with me. The employee who came over to help me in the store was named . . . I am not kidding . . . Ebenezer.

Charles Dickens, are you up there playing games with me??

At last!

I've been looking this for years: Disney's Mickey's Christmas Carol is being released on DVD. (This article says that it's been released before, but I never heard about it; Disney's always releasing so many things that it's hard to keep track.) I believe this was my first exposure to the story -- probably my first exposure to Dickens in any form, come to think of it -- and I used to watch it obsessively on the old Beta machine on which we'd taped it off the TV. I realize this is a highly controversial opinion, but Goofy is my favorite Marley's ghost of all time.

In other Christmas Carol news, the train pulls into my local station this Tuesday! It was originally going to get here in October, but I guess they must be running ahead of schedule.

And get this: Both of these events, the DVD release and the train's arrival, are taking place on my birthday.

How's that for a Dickensidence?*

*A word I just coined. If this kind of thing is going to keep happening, as seems likely, we need a term that's a little easier to use than Dickens-like coincidence.