Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World, by Simon Callow, London: Harper Press, 2012, xiii + 370pp, £16.99 (Hardback), ISBN 978 0 00 744530 1 Dickens’ Women, by Miriam Margolyes and Sonia Fraser, London, Hesperus Press Limited, 2011, 96 pp, £8.99 (Paperback) ISBN 978 1 84391 351 1 Reviewed by Gillian Piggott. Gillian Piggott is visiting lecturer at Middlesex University and Associate Lecturer in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her book, Dickens and Benjamin:
Read moreTag: Charles Dickens
A Joke in Dickens
Alfie Bown (University of Manchester) In his relatively recent book on humour Simon Critchley writes that ‘it is important to recognize that not all humour is [liberating], and most of the best jokes are fairly reactionary, or at best, simply serve to reinforce social consensus.’[1] Thus, for Critchley, as for much other joke theory, there are two types of joke; the reactionary on the one hand and the radical or liberatory on the other. Dickens’s jokes, I argue, complicate this
Read moreWho the Dickens is Nick Nickleby?
Emma Curry (Birkbeck College, University of London) You could be forgiven for being a little tired of hearing Dickens’s name in this bicentenary year. Since the BBC’s new adaptation of Great Expectations last Christmas, there has been a veritable explosion of Dickens-related events jostling for attention throughout the year, including new biographies, documentaries, radio programmes, tours, walks, lectures, conferences, exhibitions, read-a-thons and much, much more. As a Dickens researcher (and particularly one who has received an almost daily phone call
Read moreReview: Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold
Girl in a Blue Dress, by Gaynor Arnold. Birmingham, Tindal Street Press: 2011 (2008), 438 pages, £7.99 paperback, ISBN 978-1-906994-15-0 “My husband’s funeral is today. And I’m sitting here alone in my upstairs room while half London followed him to his grave.” So begins Gaynor Arnold’s Girl in a Blue Dress, a novel which traces the story of Dorothea Gibson following the death of her estranged husband, famous author Alfred Gibson. Narrated from Dorothea’s perspective, the novel sees her look
Read moreWalking “Dickens’s London”
Charlotte Mathieson explores “Dickens’s London” through a series of walking tours about Dickens’s literary and biographical connections to the city.
Read moreHappy Birthday, Dear Edward
by Victoria Ford Smith Rice University As celebrations of Charles Dickens’s bicentenary continue past the great author’s February 7th birthday, I find myself turning from the parties and panels, the symposia and biographies, to find Edward Lear. He’s 200 this year, too, after all. Today, in fact. I suspect that he is not a man to make a fuss about his birthday, but surely I’ll find him somewhere at the edge of the crowd, sketching a parrot on a spare
Read moreBloggers Fair: Novel Readings
At Novel Readings I write about my reading, teaching, and research, much but not all of which is Victorian. Blogging is a way to make my academic work more transparent and accessible, and an opportunity to experiment with different kinds of critical writing. Novel Readings has become an indispensable part of my intellectual life, not only for the intrinsic challenges and rewards of writing for it, but because of the community of other readers and writers it has brought me
Read morePeter Ackroyd’s brief account of Wilkie Collins
I have recently left one university (Swansea) for another (Liverpool John Moores). Before I departed, I decided to offer some final pearls of wisdom to my personal tutees, along the lines of ‘Try thinking about how you might engage with your module outside the classroom; why not read a novel from the period, watch a film or documentary, or maybe find a blogger who frequently comments on some area of historical interest?’ Whether or not they have taken up my
Read moreIn Search of Dickens’ Workhouse
By Rohan McWilliam To King’s College London on 23 February for the launch of Ruth Richardson’s new book, Dickens and the Workhouse, produced in an extremely handsome edition by Oxford University Press (don’t even think of reading it on a Kindle). The Anatomy Theatre at Kings is packed out for the party and Ruth delivers a wonderful speech making clear that the book is the product of her lifelong love of Dickens. Dickens and the Workhouse (I’ve now read the
Read more“Can you show me the places?”: Dickens 2012 and literary tourism
Dr Charlotte Mathieson, Associate Fellow Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick The bicentenary of Charles Dickens’s birth on 7th February 2012 has prompted a wide range of celebratory responses across the world, with some prominent themes emerging in the proceedings: unsurprisingly, an emphasis on film adaptations and a biographical focus on Dickens’s life and works feature highly; and in Britain, neither is it unexpected to find events around the notion of “Dickens’s London” recurring throughout the
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