Dickensblog

Dickens in America

Still playing a little bit of catch-up here! This thoughtful and comprehensive article from City Journal's Autumn 2018 issue deals with Dickens's complicated relationship with the United States. A sample:

To Dickens and British radicals, the United States was a land of hope and freedom—freedom especially from the dominance of class. In a celebrated Boston speech, Dickens confided to his audience that he had “dreamed by day and night for years, of setting foot upon this shore, breathing this pure air.” But after visiting the “prisons, the police offices, the watch-houses, the hospital, the workhouse,” he began harboring doubts about the prospects for the American experiment. . . .

The “Emperor of Cheerfulness,” as Boston publisher James T. Fields called Dickens, became thoroughly disillusioned after he saw other city institutions for the broken, the criminal, and the mad. 

BBC Dickens miniseries news

My friends, I've failed you badly. I promised you book reviews, and then I left you dangling. For that I sincerely apologize. I have so many books that are due (overdue, really) for reviews, I couldn't seem to get all the reviews written! I haven't given up on that project, but today I have something else to share: news of the upcoming series of BBC Dickens adaptations.

Steven Knight, who will co-produce these with Tom Hardy, has told Collider that their Christmas Carol script is "largely done," that Hardy will star (whether as Scrooge or another character is not known), and that they're aiming for Christmas 2019. He also had some general thoughts on the other adaptations they plan to do. Like most adapters these days, he speaks of wanting to make them "modern" and gritty and so forth; as with most adapters, we'll have to wait and see exactly how these particular projects end up interpreting those terms.

We've been having a good discussion of the news in the Dickensblog Facebook group (thanks to Art for getting that started). Which reminds me, if you're a fan of this blog and you're on Facebook, please come join us there!