Dickensblog

7 Quick Takes Friday

• Naxos is releasing all 16 of Dickens's major novels as audiobooks, in both abridged and unabridged versions, for the bicentennial. Visit their page for more information and to download their Dickens podcasts. And The Dabbler blog is exclusively serializing their abridged version of The Pickwick Papers.
• Actor Stephen Fry gave away free copies of A Tale of Two Cities on the set of his new film for World Book Night, earlier this week.
• Speaking of free books, the library system in Sheffield, England, is giving away 1500 free copies of Oliver Twist in honor of the bicentennial. Very nice, but since it's Sheffield, shouldn't it be David Copperfield instead? (You know, "Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!")
• And speaking of Oliver Twist, Robin Stone of the Globe and Mail tells a terrific story about how she got both herself and her nine-year-old son hooked on the children's edition of that book. Kudos to both of them!
• Here's an interesting tale about why Dickens gave away his personal copy of David Copperfield.
• Rabbit Run Theater in Madison, Ohio, is going to be doing three different Dickens plays this summer and fall, and the nearby Lodge at Geneva-on-the-Lake is offering special packages that include overnight stays and tickets to see the performances. Read all about it here.
• Filming has started on The Invisible Woman. Can't say I'm too thrilled about seeing Dickens get the National Enquirer treatment, which is what I'm afraid this is going to be. In other movie news, the new independent film Nancy, Please tells the story of a graduate student who gets into a violent conflict with his old roommate over, of all things, a copy of Little Dorrit. Here's an interview with the director.

Is 'Person of Interest' a Dickensian show?

I know what some of you are thinking: My Dickensian obsession has finally run away with me and made me start seeing echoes of Dickens everywhere. No, that's not it.

Or maybe you're thinking that I'm so excited about PoI becoming a success and getting renewed that I'm celebrating it everywhere, even on a blog about a totally different subject. That's not it either. (Well, maybe just a little.)

I actually first had the thought a few weeks ago. More and more on PoI, it's becoming clear that all institutions -- government, the military, the police, the business world -- are riddled with corruption, and that it's up to a few good individuals to counter the massive institutional evil. Sounds a lot like mid- to late Dickens, don't you think?  Think of "They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and in shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted, and chafed, and made their usual uproar."

And we do know that J. J. Abrams is interested in Dickens, and that he and the other minds behind LOST worked references to Dickens into that show. It really does make me wonder if there are some Dickensian ideas at work here.

It's all conjecture right now, of course. But should we one day spot Michael Emerson's bookish Harold Finch with a copy of Little Dorrit under his arm -- let's just say, I won't be surprised.

Guess what came today?

My review copies of Great Expectations and Edwin Drood, thanks to the helpful folks at PBS! Which provides a good opportunity to remind everyone that GE starts in just two-and-a-half weeks now. PBS's Masterpiece Classic page has the info. I'll be doing the review/recap thing again, as I did with Little Dorrit and the other Dickensian movies that ran back in 2009. Looking forward to hearing all of your thoughts as well!

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.

Dickens takes over the TV

Fortunate British TV viewers will have lots of Dickens to watch this week. Spoof series Bleak Old Shop of Stuff starts tonight. And tomorrow night Great Expectations begins (here's a new interview with Gillian Anderson about that, by the way). We'd be happy to hear our British readers' thoughts on both programs!

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, we have the final TCM Dickens night of the month. Tonight's offering is the six-hour Little Dorrit from 1988, which I once referred to as "Dickens on acid." If you're in the mood to have your mind boggled, tune in at 8 p.m. EST.

7 Quick Takes Friday

• The A.V. Club reviews three versions of A Christmas Carol: the 1970 animated version with the voice of Alastair Sim, the 1984 adaptation with George C. Scott, and my childhood favorite Mickey's Christmas Carol. Reviewer Zack Handlen observes: "There’s a reason this story gets told again and again: It just makes sense, in a way that’s hard to pinpoint, the way some stories seem to have existed long before anyone ever thought to put them down in words." Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times has a photo gallery of both film and stage Scrooges through the years.
• Here's a nice story about a family who really, really love A Christmas Carol.
• Thanks to James Clarke for letting us know that another of his short films about Dickens has gone online.
• The Guardian's John Mullan names Miss Wade from Little Dorrit one of the 10 best literary governesses. Um . . . define best.
• Salvation Army volunteer John Garenkooper had the brilliant idea of dressing up as Dickens to collect donations.
• Speaking of donations, here's another plug for our bicentennial charity fundraiser. If you're interested in participating, don't forget to get your page set up and start recruiting sponsors. The kickoff date for the readathon, January 1, is just a little more than a week away!
• On a personal note, I had the good fortune of seeing Gerald Dickens perform A Christmas Carol again, for the third year in a row. (And got my picture taken with him for the third year in a row -- see below.) He signed my copy of A Tale of Two Cities this time; I told him I'm going to keep coming back until I have a complete set of Dickens novels signed by him! While at the Golden Goose store for the signing, I picked up this adorable Dickens Village figurine. I've never bought one of those before -- but a figurine of a Dickens booksigning for sale at a Dickens booksigning? It was just too perfect!
  
  

 

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.
  
  
  

'Little Dorrit' fan video

We haven't had one of these in a while! Here's a short but sweet one I just found. The song is "Songbird" by Eva Cassidy and the video was made by YouTube user TheMeganWitt.

 

Stump the genie!

Had some fun this evening playing this game. Basically, you think of a character and the genie tries to guess who it is. I stumped him with Eugene Wrayburn; then I tried Amy Dorrit and he got that one, but only after first guessing Jane Eyre and Anne Elliot! Might be fun to see what other Dickensian characters he knows and doesn't know . . .

(Note: You want the "Play" button on the left, in the purple lamp. The silver one tries to make you download a file or something.)

7 Quick Takes Friday

• It's been determined that the fire at one of Dickens's favorite pubs was caused by arson.
• Lucinda Hawksley (great-great-great-granddaughter of Dickens) has been giving talks about her famous ancestor in India, where she was taken by surprise at the amount of interest in him.
• A new exhibition at the Coningsby Gallery in London, "London's Underworld Unearthed: The Secret Life of the Rookery," features excerpts from the writings of Dickens.
• In addition to his cat's-paw letter opener, the New York Public Library also has the marked-up copy of David Copperfield that Dickens used for public readings.
• Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg writes about the importance of Dickens's ideas in education and business.
• Jacobs School of Music student Ari Fisher has been chosen to write a new score for the 1922 silent film adaptation of David Copperfield. The score will premiere at a screening of the film on Dickens's 200th birthday.
• Last but not least . . . actor Edward Hardwicke died today at the age of 78. He was perhaps best known for playing Dr. Watson to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, but Dickensians will also know him as Mr. Wickfield (2000) and Mr. Brownlow (2005). R.I.P.