Dickensblog

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.

Dickens onstage

A few items of theatrical news from around the world:

• Reviews of Simon Callow's Dr. Marigold and Mr. Chops are here, here, and here. Interviews with Callow are here and here.
• Speaking of Callow, Whatsonstage.com has a special members-only offer for his upcoming Christmas Carol.
• Here's an article about the Young Shakespeare Players' 10-hour production of Our Mutual Friend in Madison, Wisconsin. Dickensblog reader David gives his review here.
• Charles Dickens Ghost Stories, a play based on several short stories, is currently running in Arvada, Colorado.
• The Haunted Bride, based on a Dickens short story, is coming to Hartlepool, England.
• The full five-hour version of Nicholas Nickleby recently played in Newcastle, England. Another production is currently running in Toronto, Canada.
• Here's an interview with the author of Scrooge 2070: The Reboot, a new musical that will open next month in Palatine, Illinois.
• The musical version of A Tale of Two Cities is currently running in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A nonmusical version recently had a run in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England; a review with very spoilery remarks and pictures is here.
• Auditions are underway for a production of Barnaby Rudge in Southsea, England.
• Finally, Stageplays.com is offering 10 percent off the script of The Haunting, a play based on Dickens's ghost stories, until Monday night.

7 Quick Takes Friday

• The Morgan Library & Museum is busy putting together its Dickens bicentennial exhibit. Details are here and here.
• The Museum of London will also feature a bicentennial exhibit.
• Works by Dickens will also feature in upcoming exhibits at Australia's National Library and Tennessee's Vanderbilt University.
• Simon Callow, who has both written about and played Dickens, will play Scrooge this winter at the Arts Theatre in London. Also, in November, he will star in Dr. Marigold and Mr. Chops, based on two of Dickens's stories, at the Chichester Festival Theatre.
• The Snowlion Repertory Company in Portland, Maine, will stage a musical called The Christmas Bride, based on Dickens's story "The Battle of Life."
• Gerald Dickens will perform at the Sefton Celebrates 2011 Writing Festival. (Amusingly, the article misidentifies him as "Nicholas Nickelby.")
• The estate in Cumbria where Dickens wrote part of David Copperfield (see caption for image 5 at the link) is up for sale.

Happy birthday, Fanny Dickens!

Today is the bicentennial of Charles Dickens's older sister, Frances "Fanny" Dickens Burnett, born October 28, 1810.

During their difficult childhood, Michael Slater writes, Fanny was Charles's "dear companion and confidante." She was also a musical prodigy who began attending the Royal Academy of Music at age 13, and at 14 won their silver medal and second prize for piano. She later taught there herself. (At one point she studied with a pupil of Beethoven's.)

Although young Charles felt bitter and envious that his parents were able to scrape together enough money for Fanny's education but not for his own, he still loved her dearly. Some of his female characters, including Florence Dombey, Fanny Scrooge, and the little girl in "A Child's Dream of a Star," are said to be at least partly based on her. And her son Henry Burnett, Jr., was the model for Tiny Tim and Paul Dombey.

Fanny died of consumption at age 38. A few weeks before her death, Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster, "I asked her whether she had any care or anxiety in the world. She said No, none. It was hard to die at such a time of life, but she had no alarm whatever in the prospect of the change; felt sure we should meet again in a better world; and although they had said she might rally for a time, did not really wish it. She said she was quite calm and happy, relied upon the mediation of Christ, and had no terror at all."

Things that go bump in the night

Discussion question that came to mind the other day (and seemed appropriate for the approach of Halloween!):

Dickens used ghosts and spirits and supernatural happenings freely in his shorter works, most notably A Christmas Carol . . . but not in his longer works. Occasionally in the novels you get someone telling a ghost story, as in The Pickwick Papers, and you get lots of references to God and angels and demons and their activities. You even get some events that seem caused by divine judgment, like spontaneous combustion or the fall of the old Clennam house. But not ghosts.

Why do you think this might have been? Was it by accident, or design?

And a follow-up: If Dickens had written a novel with ghosts, what do you suppose it might have been like? Very different from the novels the way they are now? Or would they have been seamlessly woven into the story?

If you're in London, Panama, or California . . .

. . . you have a chance to see a Dickens play!

Dickens and Andersen onstage

There's a new play preparing to tour England, about Hans Christian Andersen's famous (infamous?) visit to the Dickens household:

Max Stafford-Clark directs Andersen's English, a new play by Sebastian Barry set in the home of Charles Dickens as celebrated children's writer Hans Christian Andersen arrives unannounced for an extended stay.

To the lonely and eccentric guest, the members of Dickens' household seem to live a life of unreachable bliss. But with his broken English, Andersen fails to recognise the storms brewing within the family.

Andersen's English is a haunting new play, rich in characters and touched with a wistful humour.

Sounds interesting, but sad.

And speaking of Dickens onstage, here's an approving review of Simon Callow's Dr. Marigold and Mr. Chops.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

(Don't forget to come back tomorrow and Saturday to enjoy posts by some special guests!)

A Dickens of a deal

(I know, I really need to lay off the puns . . .)

Here's a great deal for you Brits: Head over to Nibs's site for a discount on tickets to see Dr. Marigold & Mr. Chops, two one-act plays based on Dickens stories and starring Simon Callow. The description reads: "A Christmas treat, these plays haven't been seen in London for over 150 years, yet remain as imaginative and compelling as they were in the Dickensian era." If you go, enjoy -- and tell us all about it!

And if you need something to do with the money you save, we have a few more days to go with our effort to raise money for books for Filipino schoolkids. ;-) We're at $140 total right now and we could definitely use more. Even a few dollars would be a big help. Thanks so much!