Dickensblog

'Little Dorrit' group read

I'm a bit late with this announcement, but better late than never! Edward Pettit, who runs the Facebook page Reading Charles Dickens, has started a group read of Little Dorrit, reading it in the original monthly installments until June 2021, and you can still join in. Just e-mail him at readingcharlesdickens@gmail.com to receive the first PDF installment! (Remember, if you've already read it, no spoilers are allowed!)

R.I.P. John McEnery

The British actor played John Harmon in the 1976 TV adaptation of Our Mutual Friend (click here to read a short reminiscence by co-star Jane Seymour); Mr. Mantalini, William the Waiter, and Mr. Snevellicci in the celebrated stage and television versions of Nicholas Nickleby in the early 1980s; and Captain Hopkins in the 1987 feature film of Little Dorrit. McEnery passed away April 12 at the age of 75.

Hard times for the 'Little Dorrit' church

The Church of St. George the Martyr in Bermondsey -- the model for the church in which Amy Dorrit was baptized, spent a night when locked out of the Marshalsea, and was married -- is in such poor shape that it has been declared "at risk" by the group Historic England.

'Little Dorrit' radio drama available online

The 2009 radio dramatization of Little Dorrit, with Jasmine Hyde, Julian Wadham, and Ian McKellen, is currently available on BBC iPlayer Radio, and will remain available for the next month or so. As you'll see from this old review, I was pretty lukewarm about it, but give it a listen anyway -- maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did! Thanks to Kristy for the tip!

2017 Dickens Universe recap

The University of California Santa Cruz's Newscenter has a writeup of this summer's Dickens Universe, which threw attendees a curve by focusing on George Eliot's Middlemarch (though "in relation to Dickens"). Next year, Newscenter reports, the conference will go back to studying a Dickens novel -- this time, Little Dorrit.

Mapping Dickens

The Dickens Society is launching the Charles Dickens collection at the Placing Literature site. The Society's Facebook page explains:

TCM alert

The six-hour 1988 adaptation of Little Dorrit (or as I like to call it, "Dickens on Acid") airs tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. Eastern. 

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. ;-) 

A request

Simonetta Falchi, an Italian researcher in English literature, is taking a survey on Little Dorrit fanfiction and has asked me to pass the word along to Dickensblog's readers. You can go here to take it! Let me know if you have any trouble with it.

Making a library

Msantimacassar on LiveJournal requested a quote from Little Dorrit.

"They were very near the end of their walk, and they now came out of the gateway to finish it. Nothing would serve Maggy but that they must stop at a grocer's window, short of their destination, for her to show her learning. She could read after a sort; and picked out the fat figures in the tickets of prices, for the most part correctly. She also stumbled, with a large balance of success against her failures, through various philanthropic recommendations to Try our Mixture, Try our Family Black, Try our Orange-flavoured Pekoe, challenging competition at the head of Flowery Teas; and various cautions to the public against spurious establishments and adulterated articles. When he saw how pleasure brought a rosy tint into Little Dorrit's face when Maggy made a hit, he felt that he could have stood there making a library of the grocer's window until the rain and wind were tired."

Book 1, Chapter 9