Influence of Dickens


Literary Explorations are Just a CLiC Away! Dr Michaela Mahlberg on the CLiC Dickens Project


This review is contributed by Mads Golding, a playwright, writer, and independent scholar who focuses on Charles Dickens and the long 19th century. She is a staff writer for The Dickens Society. Dr. Michaela Mahlberg spoke at the 28th annual Dickens Society Conference to announce...

The Tale of a Jug


This post is contributed by David Clement Davies, an author, sculptor, and visual artist. As a writer, he has won the Family Award and 76 Selections in the US. His website is dcdsculpture.com, where you can contact him directly about sales or commissions. If you...

Dickens isn’t dead. At least, not to begin with. Thoughts on Zadie Smith’s “The Fraud”; A Book Review 


This review is contributed by Mads Golding, a playwright, writer, and independent scholar who focuses on Charles Dickens and the long 19th century. She is a staff writer for The Dickens Society. Zadie Smith’s “The Fraud” can be purchased at The Seminary Co-op, Barnes and...

Through the Coffee-Room Glass: Dickens and the Origins of Modern Fantasy


This post is contributed by Dr. Christian Dickinson, Assistant Professor of English at Brewton-Parker College. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the England described by Shakespeare as “This other Eden, demi-paradise”, had been completely transfigured (855). Factories covered the landscape, eradicating the once natural...

“Out With Time”, a book review


Out With Time, a prequel to Oliver Twist, is available through Barnes & Noble. This review is contributed by Mads Golding, a playwright, writer, and independent scholar who focuses on Charles Dickens and the long 19th century. Out With Time is a delightful, speculative prequel...

“Forget Charles Dickens”: Navigating the Dickensian at The Workhouse, Southwell


This post is contributed by Dr Charlotte May who is a Heritage Learning Officer and Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the University of Nottingham. She specializes in eighteenth and nineteenth-century correspondence and is currently transcribing the letters of the subject of her PhD thesis, Samuel Rogers....

Illustrating Bleak House


This post is contributed by Gerry Mooney, a (now retired) commercial artist and illustrator from New York. Mooney is also a longtime Charles Dickens fan and he has embarked on a project to illustrate Dickens’s great Bleak House. Mooney can be found online https://gerrymooneyillustratingdickens.com/  ...

Great Expectations and Furnace Creek: A Serendipitous Match


Contributed by Joseph A. Boone, PhD, author of Furnace Creek and Professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. Great Expectations crossed with the American South of the 1960s? Pip as a proto-queer youth, caught pleasuring himself on a Civil War relic...

“In Defense of Scrooge:” A Brief History


Contributed by Spencer Dodd, PhD Student, Louisiana State University. In early December, a screenshot of a fake London Times article by “Dickie Canine” circulated on social media for a few days. The “article” in question featured an image of Jim Carrey as Scrooge clinging to...

Connecting the Dots…


This post is contributed by our new blog co-editor, Michelle Crowther. Michelle is a Learning and Research Librarian at Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent and also a PhD candidate. She can be found on Twitter at @HumLib_cccu. My research is in writing groups and...