Dickens tackles social issues (I)

At our first TOCS reading group meeting today, we talked (among many other things) about the fact that Charles Dickens used his novels to address specific social problems - and that the awareness his novels created often led to the solution (at least partially) of these problems. In Oliver Twist (1838 - full text and Kindle here), one of Dickens's most famous works, he describes the ghastly living circumstances of workhouse labourers. As a boy, Dickens of course spent time in a workhouse himself, while his father was in the debtors' prison - a horrible experience which influenced this author's work greatly.

British historian Ruth Richardson has just published a new book called Dickens & the Workhouse: Oliver Twist & the London Poor (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Photo: Celebrating Dickens 2012

In this book she describes her discovery of the actual workhouse Dickens worked in as a child, and the building's astonishing proximity to a residential house Dickens lived in for years. See her enthuse about her discovery in this video clip:

(full version here)

or read about her petition to save this historical workhouse from demolition here. (It worked, by the way, and the building was saved.)

The pleasures of rereading

Victorian literature is filled with authors whose works merit - in fact, almost require - rereading. David Gates elaborates on the pleasures of rereading in his wonderful article "Now, read it again" from Newsweek magazine.



(Image from here)

The Victorian swimsuit edition

Ever wondered what naughty photo shoots looked like in the Victorian era? Check out these vintage photographs collected by Charles H. McCaghy from Bowling Green State University, Ohio.

According to the article in the Daily Mail, these images "reveal just how different beauty was 120 years ago than it is today". Something to think about!

Read more here.

See what's in the Charles Dickens Museum!

While we can't all go to London right now, we can at least get a glimpse of all the treasures in the Charles Dickens Museum there by watching this clip:


The Charles Dickens Museum from martinib.eu on Vimeo.

The museum, like life in the Victorian era, centres around the home. "Our refurbishment programme here," says museum director Dr Florian Schweizer (02:51), "has been mainly designed to bring back the kind of domestic atmosphere - the home atmosphere - of Charles Dickens's home. [...] So we can really recreate a setting that Dickens would (probably) recognise if he came back and visited this house once more."

The video clip features a wonderful painting by Robert William Buss called Dickens's Dream (1875), which shows the slumbering author in his study, surrounded by the spirits of his characters.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

"Please, sir, I want some gore"

Oliver Twisted (2012) by JD Sharpe is a gruesome but fascinating reimagining of the classic Dickens novel (without the -ed at the end).

(Image from Egmont UK)

The novel is classified as horror/thriller and intended for teen readers, but anyone with a knowledge of the original and a stomach for the macabre is sure to enjoy it. Read a review by Martin Chilton here or visit the book's official site. You can also buy the hard copy book here or the e-book here.

Hardly sensational?

Read history lecturer Lucinda Matthews-Jones's lukewarm review of Peter Ackroyd's new short biography on Victorian sensation novelist Wilkie Collins here.

(Image courtesy of The Journal of Victorian Culture)

Is this something you would be interested in reading? Have you heard of Wilkie Collins? If you'd like to read what sensation novels are all about, you can find the full text to his two best-known novels here:

The Moonstone

The Woman in White

And yes, they are available for Kindle. For free.

Trishna of the d'Urbervilles

A film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891 - full text here) by British film director Michael Winterbottom was released at the end of last year. The intriguing part is that it's set in contemporary India and stars a heroine called Trishna instead of Tess.

Watch the trailer here and let us know what you think: