Dickensblog

Musical 'Marley' coming to the big screen

I'm thinking seriously of changing this blog's name to Christmas Carol News, as reports of new adaptations of the book just keep coming and coming! This time it's writer/director Bill Condon (Chicago, Dreamgirls, Beauty and the Beast) and composer Stephen Schwartz (Pippin, Godspell, Wicked) creating a musical film version for Disney, titled Marley. The new project does have an impressive pedigree, but how about adapting something else for a change? (No, not Oliver Twist, either!)

'Christmas Carol' and 'Twist' images

Photos from both productions hit the Web today! Entertainment Weekly gives us our first official look at Guy Pearce as Scrooge, Andy Serkis as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and more from the upcoming miniseries, plus some short interviews. (Incidentally, it seems the Ghost of Christmas Future was recast; Jason Flemyng took over for Rutger Hauer shortly before the latter's death.)

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has some lively set photos of Rita Ora as "Dodge" and Rafferty Law as Oliver in the Oliver Twist update I posted about the other day.

New 'Twist' film coming to theaters and TV

The adaptations just keep on coming! Britain's Sky is planning a modern-day version of Oliver Twist, to be simultaneously released in theaters and on pay TV. Michael Caine is set to play Fagin, with Raff Law as Oliver, "reinvented as a streetwise artist living on the streets of modern-day London." Lena Headey and Rita Ora will play female versions of Sikes and "Dodge," respectively. Variety has more.

Oliver Twiss and Martin Guzzlewit

We've all heard of the widespread literary plagiarism and piracy in Dickens's time, but a new biography of publisher Edward Lloyd suggests that it was even more widespread than we knew. Biographer Rohan McWilliam explains, “What’s particularly interesting is that many Victorian readers may have first encountered Dickens not through his own work, but through one of these imitations. There were many titles produced, which indicate that they were incredibly popular. And in some ways the plagiarisms could be seen as the original form of fan fiction, as they took familiar characters and did different things with them.” For more on Oliver Twiss and other plagiarisms of Dickens, go here.

TCM alert

Oliver! airs on TCM today at 2 p.m. Eastern, as part of the channel's 31 Days of Oscar celebration.

TCM alert

The 1948 version of Oliver Twist is on Wednesday night at 9:45 Eastern.

Recent Dickens mentions

A number of good new "books about books" have recently come out, quite a few of which offer Dickens recommendations. (I've read all the way through the first two -- with the others, I've just read the Dickens sections so far!)

• My friend Karen Swallow Prior, author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me, has a new book out called On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, in which she uses various novels and short stories to highlight different virtues. A Tale of Two Cities illustrates the concept of justice. (I got to read an early version of the chapter and offer feedback, which was an honor and a treat!) Karen's excellent book recently was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by Publisher's Weekly.
• In I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life, Anne Bogel (who blogs at Modern Mrs. Darcy) names David Copperfield as one of the books that helped her to come of age as a reader.
• Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life  by Sarah Clarkson states, "There is no one quite like Dickens" and names him one of the author's "most beloved" writers. Clarkson pays tribute to David Copperfield for its striking imagery and understanding of human nature, Bleak House for its quietly faithful heroine, and Oliver Twist for its suspense. And she quotes a friend who recommends Dombey and Son and Martin Chuzzlewit. 
• James Mustich's 1,000 Books to Read before You Die: A Life-Changing List has a great chapter on Dickens. "It's as if the author has not set out to write a novel," he observes, "but has been dropped into a pulsing reality he has to write his way through, much in the way we must construct a life." Mustich specifically recommends David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol, Dombey and Son, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations.

 

Dickens in the comics

'Tis the season for Dickensian graphic novels, it seems. I've already mentioned Olivia Twist, and now (or rather, in January) comes OLIVER, a "steampunk interpretation" from Image Comics. Meanwhile, British graphic novelist Posy Simmonds has written what the Guardian calls "a loose reworking of Charles Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol, which casts an elderly female art dealer as Dickens’s muttering male misanthropist." Her book Cassandra Darke has not yet been published in the U.S., but Amazon has a few copies available from international sellers.  The Guardian has an excerpt here.

R.I.P. Fenella Fielding

The British actress has passed away at the age of 90. She appeared in A Parish Boy's Progress, a 2008 Oliver Twist adaptation shot in Keighley with a cast of people with learning disabilities. She also appeared in the 1985 BBC version of The Pickwick Papers.

A preview of the 'Olivia Twist' comic

Paste has the cover image and a few pages from the "gender-bent (and dystopian) take on Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist." The comic hits stands on September 19.