Dickensblog

News roundup

Just wanted to share a few news items before beginning the book reviewing:

• The Dickens Museum is, unsurprisingly, closed indefinitely, but remains active on social media. Actor Dominic Gerrard, who has performed a one-man Christmas Carol there, has done a reading of the first chapter of A Tale of Two Cities to raise money for the Museum.
• The joint Dickens Fellowship/Dickens Society Symposium in London in July is still scheduled to go ahead, but organizers are monitoring things and will make a final decision in May.
• In the New Yorker, Amy Davidson Sorkin argues, "Esther Summerson is one of the great heroines of literature, in part because she understands the vital importance of social distancing and isolation, even when it is hard."
• Phyllis Rose is re-releasing her 1983 book Parallel Lives, which focuses on five Victorian couples, including Charles and Catherine Dickens. In an interview with the Guardian, Rose argues that "is disappointing, and incredibly small-minded" to "cancel" great writers like Dickens over their bad behavior. The new edition of her book can be ordered here.   
• The TV series "Great British Menu" has a children's literature theme this year, in honor of the 150th anniversary of Dickens's death. (Seemed like a bit of a stretch to me too, but apparently it has something to do with Oliver Twist being the first child protagonist. Anyway, I'd never carp about a show honoring Dickens for any reason!)
• Dr. Pete Orford is beginning a Hard Times readalong on April 1.

Purse dogs are out, purse letters are in

If you'd told me that the next Dickens scandal would involve designer handbags containing small pieces of a letter he wrote . . . I'd probably have doubted you.

And yet, here we are.

(Just in case you should want one of these, all you have to do is scrape together 2,750 Euros!)

Happy 208th birthday, Mr. Dickens!

Just in time for the author's birthday, the Charles Dickens Museum has announced the acquisition of a "treasure trove" of letters and other memorabilia from a large private collection. Among other things, the letters -- like all his letters, "immediate, always passionate, often very funny and gloriously descriptive," according to museum director Cindy Sughrue -- include instructions to his butler about the gin punch, which he made himself and which could be "quite strong."

I hope you'll all raise a glass of gin punch -- or the drink of your choice -- to the birthday boy today!

The Lost Portrait goes home

The Dickens Museum has raised enough money to purchase Margaret Gillies's "Lost Portrait" of Dickens! It will be on regular display in the Museum, beginning in October.

A fashionable tribute to Miss Havisham

Now that's how you handle a breakup! Young Australian designer Madison Hislop was inspired by her own romantic troubles to create a collection in honor of Miss Havisham, which won her a scholarship to study design in New York. According to Broadsheet, "In the new designs, weighty felted cloth contrasts with sheer flowing fabrics, while high collars, exaggerated cuffs and low hemlines echo Miss Havisham’s Victorian origins." Photos of the collection can be seen at Hislop's website.

Dickens and van Gogh

Did you know that Dickens was Vincent van Gogh's favorite author? Tate Britain is getting the word out with its exhibition "Van Gogh and Britain." In its review of the exhibition, The Guardian explains, 

Van Gogh loved Dickens and Eliot for the way they took the everyday details of modest lives and elevated them into something luminous. Here was social realism, in all its unloveliness, transformed into a kind of moral grandeur. A few years later, and on his way to becoming the artist who would invest old shoes, ragged sunflowers and potato-eating peasants with powerful feeling, Van Gogh wrote to his brother: “My whole life is aimed at making the things from everyday life that Dickens describes and these artists draw.”

In fact, the paper reports, van Gogh's beloved Starry Night is said to be based on one of the most powerful scenes in Hard Times.

The Economist adds, "In a number of the paintings in 'L’Arlésienne', a series made between 1888 and 1890 . . . van Gogh carefully inscribed 'A Christmas Carol' on the spine of a book. The choice of title and author was deliberate: he had read the novel every year since childhood. When van Gogh moved back in with his parents in 1879 they complained that he did nothing but devour Charles Dickens from morning to night."

Sounds like our kind of guy!  

A closer look at the lost portrait of Dickens

As I mentioned earlier, Margaret Gillies's recently rediscovered portrait of Dickens is on display this week at the Dickens Museum. London Live has a video showing the portrait in its current surroundings and giving more background information on it.

'Lost portrait' to go on display at Dickens Museum

The recently rediscovered Dickens portrait by Margaret Gillies will be on display at the museum April 2-7, to aid in the efforts to raise enough money to purchase it. The Guardian has more. If any of our U.K. readers stop by to see it, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Birthday festivities

Dickens's birthday is coming up, and the Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth will offer free admission to celebrate! Go here to learn more. In the meantime, Dickens fans in Philadelphia held their annual birthday bash by the Dickens statue in Clark Park. Philly Voice offers a glimpse into their hallowed tradition.  

Happy 175th birthday to 'A Christmas Carol'!

The tributes and honors have been pouring in from all over! Here's a roundup:

• The Paris Review, Vox, and The Christian Science Monitor all have articles about the anniversary. BuzzFeed has a Christmas Carol quiz. BBC News offers suggestions of celebratory Dickensian food and a gin punch recipe in honor of the day.
• The Dickens Museum held an unabridged reading of the book, hosted by Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, and also asked various Dickens experts to weigh in on the question of which movie adaptation is the best. 
• The New York Public Library is hosting an exhibition on the book and also released an Insta Novel version.
• And finally, here's my own tribute.

It's lovely to see Dickens's "ghostly little book" still so loved and appreciated all these years later for all it's given us. If you've seen any tributes that I missed, please post them in the comments!