Dickensblog

Honoring Dickens with a new generation

Today marks the 154th anniversary of the death of Charles Dickens. On Friday, members of the Dickens Fellowship gathered to lay a wreath of geraniums on his grave, along with another wreath sent by Gad's Hill School. Marion Dickens Lloyd, a great-great-granddaughter of the author, gave the oration, and among those gathered were two of her grandchildren, who, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley writes, "were allowed off school to visit their 4x grandfather's grave for the very first time." Reports and pictures from Lucinda Hawksley, the Dickens Fellowship, and Ian Dickens are here, here, here, and here. Thanks to the Dickens family for sharing these tributes with all of us who love their inimitable ancestor!

Dickens celebrated on the Isle of Wight

Last month, Ian Dickens, great-great-grandson of the author and former president of the Dickens Fellowship, hosted a celebration of the 175th anniversary of Dickens's summer visit to the island. Several Dickens cousins, including Mark Dickens, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, and Ian's brother Gerald Dickens took part in the festivities, which included a museum exhibition, a children's writing competition, and performances by Gerald. Gerald has an enthusiastic and enjoyable writeup of the event on his blog. 

Happy 212th birthday, Charles Dickens!

Shortly after his birthday in 1868, Charles Dickens wrote to his daughter Mamie, "I couldn't help laughing at myself on my birthday at Washington. It was observed as much as though I were a little boy. Flowers and garlands (of the most exquisite kind) bloomed all over the room; letters radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a handsome silver travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a set of gold sleeve links were on the dinner-table."

Living near Washington, D.C., myself, I'm pleased to know that we gave him such a good celebration. Whether you raise a glass to the Inimitable today, or wear a geranium, or reread a favorite passage, or eat a free brownie at the Dickens Museum, or just think a kindly thought of him, I hope you enjoy his birthday too!

Portsmouth prepares for Dickens's birthday

The Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth will host a birthday celebration tomorrow and offer free entry all day. Click here for details!

Happy 200th birthday (belated), Wilkie Collins!

Dickens's fellow author, friend, and occasional collaborator had his bicentennial yesterday. (My apologies for posting a day late!) As Jane Clinton writes in the Camden New Journal, "A moustache-growing competition and a dramatic mountain rescue -- there was rarely a dull moment in the friendship of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins."

The Dickens Museum has announced it will extend its exhibition on Collins to April 21, "enabling more people to come and discover the personal side of these two great Victorian writers, as well as their collaborative stories.”

Happy 50th anniversary, Dickens on the Strand!

That's right, the annual Dickensian Christmas festival in Galveston, Texas, turns 50 this year! The Houston Chronicle reports that nine members of the Dickens family will be on hand for this year's festivities, taking place December 1-3. Go to the official Dickens on the Strand website to learn more. And here's wishing them a very happy anniversary!

Dickens, Collins, and the mystery of the missing reviews

In honor of Wilkie Collins's bicentenary, the Dickens Museum is about to open a new exhibition, "Mutual Friends: The Adventures of Charles Dickens & Wilkie Collins." But there's something missing: a copy of John Forster's biography of Dickens, in which Collins wrote some not-so-flattering notes about a few of Dickens's novels! The "notorious book," as journalist Ian Mansfield puts it, was sold at auction after Collins died, and now no one knows where it is. But the Dickens Museum would like very much to add it to the exhibition if it can be found. Everyone start checking your attics!

A somber anniversary

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Dickens's entry into the workforce -- but not as a writer. 1823 was the year he was sent to work as a child at Warren's Blacking Factory. Though this was an anniversary he wouldn't have enjoyed celebrating, the episode would indelibly influence his writing, and so the Dickens Museum is marking the occasion with by exhibiting artifacts that include a Warren's Blacking bottle, a letter from young Dickens's father soliciting employment for his son, and more. The Guardian, BBC News, and Yahoo have more details. 

Thirty years of 'A Christmas Carol'

Gerald Dickens is celebrating a milestone anniversary -- he's been performing his great-great-grandfather's A Christmas Carol for 30 years now! In a new interview, he tells the Powys County Times why this work translates so well to the stage.

When Dickens crossed the bar

Today marks the 153rd anniversary of Charles Dickens's death. His daughter Mamie later wrote of it in her book, My Father As I Recall Him: 

"The room in which my dear father reposed for the last time was bright with the beautiful fresh flowers which were so abundant at this time of the year, and which our good neighbours sent to us so frequently.  The birds were singing all about and the summer sun shone brilliantly.

'And may there be no sadness of farewell
         When I embark.
For though when from out our bourne of Time and Place
         The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
         When I have crossed the bar.’

"Those exquisite lines of Lord Tennyson’s seem so appropriate to my father, to his dread of good-byes, to his great and simple faith, that I have ventured to quote them here."