Dickensblog

Don't even JOKE about that!

"Lost Dickens Manuscript Revealed to Be a Fake"

This is obviously a satire. They say it's a satire; it runs in a publication called The Spoof; and . . . The Winds of the Cauliflowered Egg? Um, yeah.

But, geesh, it's not nice to joke about these things! Do you have any idea what words like "lost Dickens manuscript" do to my heart rate??

7 Quick Takes Friday

• Twist the musical is coming to the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Information is here and here.
• The unabridged audiobook of David Copperfield read by Simon Vance made Audible.com's list of top sellers in November. It's currently available for free when you subscribe to one of their plans, along with two weeks of free service. They also have a dramatization of The Chimes, which made their bestseller list for the first week of January.
• Troops and their families got to see a performance of A Christmas Carol at Chicago's Goodman Theatre for free in December, when the theater donated 500 tickets.
• Historians fighting to save a workhouse in London have produced evidence that it was the basis for the depiction of the workhouse in Oliver Twist. (One wonders if Dickens would have been quite so eager to save it.)
• The Riverside Dickens Festival in Riverside, California, begins January 21 with "Mr. Pickwick's Pub Night Dinner Theater." The Festival's featured book this year is Barnaby Rudge. Info is here and here.
• The Pickwick Papers has been translated into Turkish for the first time.
• Second-graders at Westminster Academy in Memphis, Tennessee, got to enjoy a "Dickens Breakfast" before seeing a performance of A Christmas Carol.

Because werewolves weren't enough . . .

. . . We now have zombies.

Dickensblog Pledge Drive: The final tally

Thanks to everyone who donated their time and efforts and everyone who bought something in the pledge drive! We made $65 for the manuscript restoration effort. I'll be sending the museum a check. A few stories and drawings are still in the works, but I believe everything will be finished up soon. (And I just got my icons from birdienl -- you can see them here! Aren't they lovely?) Again, thanks.

Make your voice heard!

We have a new poll! Vote to let me know what kind of posts you'd like to see more of this year. (You can choose up to two options.) And if I left out any option, or if you voted for "other" and would like to specify, please comment below.

Dickensian resolution

Writer Daniel Arizona blogged at The Economist, "Find me someone who claims to have read 'Martin Chuzzlewit' and I will show you a g________d liar."

It's odd that he should have mentioned the one Dickens novel I've never read -- although I think he's solidified my New Year's resolution to read it. But many of you have said you've read it, and I KNOW you're not g_________d liars!