Dickens

A collection of letters from one of Charles Dickens’ most valued confidantes will go on display in London for the first time this week to mark 212 years since the literary giant’s birth.The letters were written by Dickens’ sister-in-law turned housekeeper and executor Georgina Hogarth, who was instrumental in preserving the author’s legacy after his death in 1870.Acquired by the Charles Dickens Museum, the correspondence offers an illuminating insight into a woman who “had a huge impact both within Dickens’ life and after…

Following last year’s starry adaptation of Oliver Twist, Audible has pushed the seasonal boat out again with a beguiling version of David Copperfield, executive-produced by Sam Mendes and featuring an all-star cast. It opens at The Rookery, where newly widowed Clara (Ebony Feare) gives birth to a boy she names David, after his late father. Here we also meet the donkey-intolerant Betsey Trotwood (a formidable Helena Bonham Carter), who, having been abandoned by her husband as a young woman, dislikes men and is aggrieved to…

Charles Dickens’ classic novella, A Christmas Carol, has been adapted time and after, ever since its original publication nearly 180 years ago, with countless film and TV adaptations having been released over the course of the past century. Decorated actors like Albert Finney, George C. Scott, Michael Caine, and even Bill Murray have played some version of Ebenezer Scrooge over the years, introducing the timeless story to audiences all over the world.As part of CinemaBlend’s partnership with Plex, where you can find…

Two years after Charles Dickens’s death in 1870, his closest friend, John Forster, published the first volume of his Life of Charles Dickens. Based on letters Dickens had written to him and stories he had told him, it was, in effect, an authorised biography. For Dickens buffs, it has always been both a matchless source and an untrustworthy narrative. By Helena Kelly’s account, it is more misleading than the most sceptical biographer has supposed. Far from Forster being Dickens’s hagiographer, he was his dupe. We have…

What is it about Great Expectations? Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight’s new dramatisation of Dickens’s novel is the seventh BBC adaptation – the first appearing on screens in 1954. Cinema has loved it too. David Lean’s 1946 film remains the most celebrated but there were three earlier film versions and have been five more since. The 1974 adaptation starred a youngish Michael York as Pip, Dickens’s self-deluding protagonist, obsessed with the unattainable Estella; the most recent was Mike Newell’s 2012 version,…

I’m aware that this must hardly be the first time you’ve had David Copperfield pressed on you. Not that I have any compunction about recommending such a masterpiece again. This novel has not yet been praised enough, even though we are approaching 175 years since it first appeared between two covers, in 1850.To list all the virtues of the work Dickens himself called “his favourite child” would require a volume as long as the actual 250,000-word doorstopper. Instead, let me just focus on just one: Betsey Trotwood.David…

“Please Sir, I want some more” is among the most famous lines in English literature, and its power is undiminished in this new recording of Oliver Twist featuring an all-star cast and produced by Sam Mendes. It begins as a baby is born in a workhouse to an unmarried woman who dies shortly after, leaving the orphaned child to be named by Mr Bumble (Adeel Akhtar).Nine years later, and we find Oliver (Emilio Villa-Muhammad) being goaded by the other orphans to ask for a second helping of gruel on his birthday. His request is…

Arguably the greatest writer of his time, Charles Dickens shaped the way we see Victorian Britain. His distinctive, quirky characters – many of them versions of people he encountered – have not only endured, but given us brilliantly expressive ways to refer to people in the modern day, whether they’re an Artful Dodger, a Miss Havisham or a Scrooge.As well as 15 novels – his last, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, remains unfinished – Dickens wrote five novellas, a number of plays and many short stories. His novels are mostly…

Is there anything that Dolly Parton cannot do? Singer, songwriter, actor, author, philanthropist and, in her most generous stab at superwoman status, Covid vaccine-funder, she was also recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was an honour she initially declined, but went on to accept in a respectably metal fashion by donning a black PVC catsuit and duetting with Judas Priest’s Rob Halford in what will surely become known as the definitive version of Jolene.The country music icon’s latest trick is to go…

Two letters described as written by Charles Dickens in the 1850s have been withdrawn from a forthcoming auction after a leading academic dismissed them as forgeries.Dr Leon Litvack, an expert analyst of Dickens’ letters and manuscripts, told the Guardian: “The handwriting is wrong. It’s the signature that is always the giveaway. I have letters from the same period that will confirm that these are forgeries.”The letters are dated 29 March 1855 and 13 November 1858. The recipients were Dickens’ young love, Maria Beadnell,…