Dickensblog

For services to humanity

Heartfelt thanks to Colin Dickey, whose essay in The New Republic (excerpted from the book Scratch, edited by Manjula Martin) debunks the egregious Dickens-was-paid-by-the-word myth -- which needs to be as debunked as often and as loudly as possible, considering how pervasive it is. Not only that, but Dickey shows one major reason why it's so egregious: "Once I’d formed this picture of Dickens in my mind, it became an easy way to discount his novels as superfluous."

Definitely worthy of the Dickensblog Order of Merit!

And the Dickensblog Order of Merit goes to . . .

Katharine and Ryan Taylor, who named their new daughter Ada Clare! (Katharine is a Facebook/LiveJournal friend of mine.) Both Ada and Clare are family names, and Katharine says, "It didn't hit me until after we'd already settled on the name that Ada Clare (even spelled the same way) is the name of Jarndyce's beautiful and virtuous ward in Bleak House. But that's a fine literary association to have." 

Congratulations and blessings to them! And thank heaven Tattycoram wasn't a family name. ;-) 

And the Dickensblog Order of Merit goes to . . .

Congratulations to Kenia Coyoy and Karen Molina, high school students from Los Angeles who won trips to Dickens Universe with their essays on Our Mutual Friend! They're the first students from their school district to win the essay contest, and this fall, each will be the first member of their respective families to go to college. Says Karen, "I hope people see that Hispanic children from South L.A. can not only read Dickens but relate to it and become one with the literature."

Ideas for teaching Dickens

Sounds like the English department at South Nottinghamshire Academy is doing it right -- and successfully avoiding the creation of yet more cases of "Poor-me-I-had-Great-Expectations-shoved-down-my-throat!" Syndrome. Well deserving of the Dickensblog Order of Merit!

Now that's dedication

To raise funds for the Alzheimer's Society, 61-year-old Iain Dempster will run the London Marathon dressed as a Victorian gentleman and reading aloud from the works of Dickens.

We haven't given out a Dickensblog Order of Merit in a while, but if Mr. Dempster doesn't deserve one, I don't know who does. Consider it bestowed. And on a more practial note, if you want to sponsor him in the marathon, you can do so at this link.

(Speaking of fundraising, watch this site for a new opportunity in the Dickensblog Charity Fundraiser, coming in the next few days!)

7 Quick Takes Friday

• A production of A Christmas Carol in Great Massingham, Norfolk County, England, raised £2,791 for East Anglia Children's Hospices. A Dickensblog Order of Merit to them for their hard work and kindness!
• A fifth-grade class in Garden City, New York, made their own movie based on A Christmas Carol.
• Linda Grant calls Bleak House a "book of a lifetime." Not a bad article, though I think she's a little off the mark in her remark about religion.
• Actor Lloyd Lee will play Dickens and several of his characters in the one-man show Educating Charlie -- Mr. Dickens Looks Back this April on the Isle of Wight.
• The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press has some interviews with the cast of a local production of Oliver! This is the first production of the show I've heard of where a girl has played the title character.
• "When theatre director Edward Lam was invited to create a piece for Hong Kong at the recent World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, a Charles Dickens novel popped up in his head." And why not?
• Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, released as a four-volume work in the 1860s, has been re-released. The Washington Post reports, "In Mayhew one encounters the real-life equivalents of such Charles Dickens characters as Fagin, the Jewish receiver of stolen goods; Krook, the rag-and-bottle-merchant; Jo, the sickly crossing sweeper; and the Artful Dodger, leader of a band of youthful pickpockets."

7 Quick Takes Friday

• Twist headed for Broadway? Could be . . .
• Singer/songwriter Morrissey likes Dickens "because he was a terribly gloomy character, embittered, and quite depressed." Um, okay.
• Dickens makes another best-of list. This time it's Dick Datchery landing on a "Best Disguises" list -- even though we don't know for certain that he was wearing a disguise!
• Apparently Dickens was quite sarcastic about the pre-Raphaelites -- and a little paranoid (as was already hinted in Pictures from Italy) about Catholicism. Interesting, coming from the author of Barnaby Rudge.
• Over the Christmas holidays, you can get a good deal on a stay at a London hotel that was once Dickens's dwelling.
• Here's another in our ongoing list of teachers who made Dickens exciting. A Dickensblog Order of Merit goes to the unnamed teacher whose "spirited and dramatic reading of 'Oliver Twist'" changed a dyslexic student's life.
• And while we're at it, how about another one, for the teacher who "said that anyone who voluntarily read Charles Dickens in the eighth grade was going to one day be a college professor"? (Too bad I didn't get to that point till the ninth grade!)

Dickens across America

• Residents of Mansfield, Texas, are reading Matthew Pearl's The Last Dickens for their annual Mansfield Reads! event. At the end of this month, they'll get a visit from Pearl, who will sign books, answer questions, and conduct a writer's workshop. Go here and here to find out more.
• Here's a review of the theatrical version of Great Expectations now playing at the Contra Costa Civic Theatre in El Cerrito, California.
• Casting has been announced and tickets are now on sale for the musical version of Great Expectations at the Utah Shakespeare Festival this summer. (The book was adapted by a 92-year-old English teacher from Iowa! Good for her! How about a Dickensblog Order of Merit?)
• A new musical version of Oliver Twist (titled simply Twist) will open in Georgia this fall, directed by stage and screen veteran Debbie Allen.

'Edwin Drood' (1935): Meet the cast

When you watch as much Turner Classic Movies as I do, you soon realize that for a significant portion of the twentieth century, Claude Rains was in everything. I mean everything. Doesn't matter what genre -- you can turn on any old drama, comedy, fantasy, thriller, epic, whatever, and whoops, there's Claude again. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. That voice of his . . . it does things to me.

But it was only recently that I discovered that Rains starred in a 1935 film version of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I'm sorry to say it's become an incredibly rare version; it hasn't come out on DVD, and the VHS version is no longer in print. But fortunately, Amazon has a handful of copies available, so I got myself one and sat down to watch it.

Rains (with a head of very dark hair; I missed the silver mane!) plays John Jasper in much the same way as he would play the Phantom of the Opera years later, all swirling capes, brooding glares, and gloomy pounding on pianos and lurking in corners. He's definitely the star here, but the rest of the cast is also very good, and there are several performers of interest to Dickensians.

Francis L. Sullivan (Septimus Crisparkle) is, says IMDb, one of the few actors to play the same role in two different films: He was Mr. Jaggers in both the 1934 and 1946 versions of Great Expectations. Valerie Hobson (Helena Landless) was also in the 1946 GE, playing the grown Estella, and Forrester Harvey (Durdles) was Pumblechook and Harry Cording (opium addict) was Orlick in the 1934 one. D'Arcy Corrigan (another opium addict) played the Ghost of Christmas Future in the 1938 A Christmas Carol. E. E. Clive (Sapsea) had an uncredited role in the 1935 David Copperfield. And then there's Walter Brennan -- yes, the Walter Brennan, the only other person in the cast who would become as big a name as Rains. He has a small role as a milkman here and an uncredited role in the 1934 GE.

And several of them made it into A Tale of Two Cities in the same year as Edwin Drood. Walter Kingsbury (Grewgious) played Victor. (Victor? Hmm. I must be overdue for another viewing, because I certainly don't remember any Victor.) Harvey and Clive both had uncredited roles. That makes three Dickens films in one year for E. E. Clive, which I'm guessing is a very rare if not unique accomplishment. Let's award him the Dickensblog Order of Merit!

. . . Well, shoot. I didn't mean to get all caught up in Six Degrees of IMDb, but I got so interested in introducing you to the cast and their Dickensian credentials, I've run out of time to write the review. (Actually, there are a bunch more Edwin Drood cast members, but they're all uncredited and I'm not going to bother with them, or I really would be here all night.) Tune in tomorrow for the scoop!