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    ENG 329: Novels of Charles Dickens

    Fall 2012 ENG 329Course description

    Resources for researching and writing about Victorian Literature.  I have put together a web page with links to many websites and books that will help you to conduct your research as well as write the paper, including putting everything into MLA Style.

    Introduction to Charles Dickens

    Simon Callow's video tour of Dickens' London, for The Guardian

    Charles Dickens Documentary (from Biography channel) YT 45 min

    Claire Tomalin, Whitbread winning author and Dickens biographer, in a short video introducing Dickens, from Penguin UK.  [One hour discussion with Tomalin on 200th anniversary of Dickens birth, in Berlin.]

    Students' Dickens quotation books

    Dickens curio cabinet, created in Japan

    Charles Dickens in Popular Culture

    "Pip" South Park episode. Wikipedia entry on "Pip" episode.Dickens' study in his newly renovated home.

    Dickens Village Christmas houses from Dept. 56.

    The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff. A BBC Victorian comedy adventure in the style of Charles Dickens following shop owner Jedrington Secret-Past.  BBC page.  Wikipedia entry.  Launch Trailer on YouTube.

    "Why are we still reading Dickens?" by Jon Michael Verase in The Guardian. 4 Sept. 2009.

    "Charles Dickens' former London home re-opens." The Washington Post. Dec. 5 2012.

    Huffington Post blog on Dickens at Christmastime. Dec. 2012

    "Icons of Pop: Charles Dickens." by Montague Kobbe from The Daily Herald.  4 March 2012.

    Dickens Dinner at Collins Living-Learning Center a tradition at Indiana University for 30 years. YouTube video about the 2009 Dickens Dinner.

    San Francisco's 34th annual Dickens Fair.

    Dickens' Christmas in Skaneateles, 19th year.

    Franklin, Tennesse, Dickens of a Christmas.

    Galveston, Texas, Dickens celebration

    Smike The Musical, 1973 BBC production.  YT. highlights 1 min. Smike' a pop musical freely based on "Nicholas Nickleby", is the story of a group of restless school-children who go back in time to the world of Charles Dickens and see for themselves that there are advantages in living in the twenty first century.

    John Forester's Life of Charles Dickens 

    Important Charles Dickens websites

    Our Mutual FriendAlfred Bryan (1852–1899). Caricature of Charles Dickens, 18--.Our Mutual Friend, autograph manuscript, 1862–65. Image courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum.

    Selected video clips Our Mutual Friend

    Our Mutual Friend on the Dickens Project

    Our Mutual Friend wikipedia entry

    Notes from the Masterpiece Theater presentation

    Philip Hensher's essay in The Guardian on why Our Mutual Friend is his favorite Dickens novel

    Our Mutual Friend on the TV series Lost

    Notes on Marcus Stone illustrating the taxidermist 

    Our Mutual Friend blog for student actors performing the play.  Interesting notes. The post "A virtual ramble of Our Mutual Friend" includes map for London of key sites in book. The sifting process at a dust-yard in nineteenth-century London; Mayhew, 1862

    Dickens reportedly wrote much of Our Mutual Friend in South East London (in this building) and was probably incorporated the location into the novel.

    Our Mutual Friends blog: Four newly commissioned online artworks that take Dickens’ final novel as an allegorical tale with numerous echoes in the present. Related Facebook page for artists' group about re-imagining dust, garbage and debris as art in present day London.

    Take present day tours of places from Our Mutual Friend via the artists' Our Mutual Friends tumblr blogs.  Photos, detailed description in .pdf

    Artists' Twitter feed. Article about the artists' group inspiration from Dickens.

    "Mortimer and Eugene" A Study in Friendship

     Our Mutual Friend BBC version. Episode 3, part 1. YouTube

    Italo Calvino writes about Our Mutual Friend

    David Sedaris on "Understanding Owls" from The New Yorker. essay in pdf format

    Great Expectations

    from 1946 film

    Great Expectations film from 1946.  Watch entire film.  Opening scene.  Visiting Miss Havisham (chapter 8).

    Great Expectations by BBC One. Miss Havisham interogates Pip. Great, short mashup video of Miss Havisham. Brief interview with Gillian Anderson portraying Miss Havisham. "Why Dickens is still relevant" short video connected to BBC production.

    Great Expectations with Gwenyth Paltrow (1998).  Preview trailer of the modernized version. "This is my heart and it's broken" Miss H and Pip.

    Great Expectations 2012 version with Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter.  Short Trailer. Longer (4 min) trailer.

    The Changing World of Charles Dickens, documentary segment (1:29 min)Great Expectations, contemporary version from 1998 with Gwenth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke

    Charles Dickens: From Books to Film from Mojo video (3 min)

    Victorian Web's Links and Articles on Great Expectations.  Thorough and interesting like everything on the Victorian Web

    Charles Dickens: The Life of the Author by Kenneth Benson, from the NY Public Library website

    Oprah's website about Great Expectations, which was one of her Book Club Picks.  Date with Charles Dickens.  Includes Jane Smiley talking with Oprah about the book.  Discussion forum about Great Expectations,   Notes for reading the book  Character Guide. 

    60 Second Recap.  Go to this website for informatively, lively videos on Great Expectations  (Also check out her good, basic videos on writing a paper)

    PBS' series about Charles Dickens.  Includes a quiz about Dickens and an interactive tour of Dickens' London

    John Forster's The Life of Dickens, biography by a friend.  This section is about Great Expectations

    Review in The Atlantic Monthly of Great Expectations from Sept. 1861. 

    "What larks, Pip" a re-reading of Great Expectations by Alison Light in The Guardian. (Sept. 21, 2002)

    List of characters in Great Expectations

    Penguin's reading guide to Great Expectations

    Great Expectations quiz.  How well did you do? 

     

    Child laborers in Victorian England

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Great Expectations in the news, in our culture:

    In a line from Great Expectations, Charles Dickens  perfectly captures the sensations associated with the beginnings of spring, "It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." ("Elementary My Dears: Getting Ready for Spring")

    Great Expectations (and serialized novels like it) were as close as Victorian England got to Gossip Girl, Grey’s Anatomy, or Lost. People waited anxiously every week for the next "episode" to arrive in the newsstands and on the shelves. (from Schmoop)

    'Of all the many Dickens tea scenes, I’m most fond of the tortured interactions between Pip and Estella in 'Great Expectations.' " Read the rest of the article about tea in literature "The Book Bench: Tea: A Literary Tour from The New Yorker, Nov. 24, 2010.

    After presenting a sportswear-driven collection for spring 2010, Prabal Gurung delivered an about-face with his Valentine's Day show (2011) inspired by Miss Havisham, the jilted spinster from Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. The glamorous fall collection — complete with corsetry, ostrich feathers, fur, and washed silk — was a critical success for its fabric treatments and gorgeous draped gowns. (from New York Magazine, March 8, 2011)

    A Christmas Carol

    A Christmas Carol in 4 minutes. YTMr. Fizziwig's Ball

    David Perdue's Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol

    A Christmas Carol manuscript exhibit at the Morgan Library. The manuscript is also available on The New York Times website.  Article on the BBC about the manuscript

    University of Glasgow library online exhibit on A Christmas Carol

    For fun: A Lego Christmas Carol in 5 minutes. YT

    Comparisons of Christmas Carol and Scrooge film and TV versions, in detail

    BBC resources for teaching A Christmas Carol, including a 9-part audio version.

    How many questions can you answer before going on these Dickens-related internet scavenger hunts?  

    For Fun:  Interactive BBC game:  Can you survive as a child in Dicken's London?

    Hard Times

    Murdering the Innocent - An Adaptation of Hard Times by C. A. Cooper. YouTube.  5:46 min.

    "Facts" from 1977 production. YouTube. 1:37 min

    Thomas Gradgrind, animated version YT. :41

    "The Changing World of Charles Dickens" clip YT 1:29

    The Illustrated Hard Times, a 12 min sample video. YT

    David Perdue's Hard Times page

    Videos from the Manchester (U.K.) Library Theatre Co's fascinating version of Hard Times which they performed in an old mill factory that they reinvented in a space where the audience walked through the performance.  Video 1: The factory space.  Video 2: Rehearsals.  Video 3: Mill transformed with actors.  Video 4: Final rehearsals.

    David Copperfield

    David Copperfield on film

    Oliver Twist

    David Perdue's Oliver Twist section.

    "More please" illustration by George Cruishank

    David Lean's Oliver Twist film (1948). YouTube.  3min segment.  "Please sir, I want some more" 11 sec. ["Some more" segment, longer 7 min. in Japanese or Chinese]

    Oliver! 1968 film. Dir. Carol Reed.  "You're got to pick a pocket or two"  with English subtitles. YT 3:47 min  "I'd do anything for you" YT 4:34  "Food Glorious Food" YT 2:59 min  "Please sir, I want some more" YT 3:31 (skip ad)

    Oliver Twist (2004) Dir. Roman Polanski.  Trailer 2:11 min YT.  Segment with Fagin teaching Oliver. YT 1 min

    BBC 2007 version. Dir. Coky Giedroyc.  Segment shows Oliver eating with boys and Fagin. YT. 9:59 min.  PBS Masterpiece Theater site for this Oliver Twist version. 

    West End revival production. 2009.  Oliver!  "Food Glorious Food" YT (a little flashy)

    William Hogarth's illustrations on Industry and Idleness from 1740s. Notes on the illustrations from the Tate museum in London.Plate from Hogarth's Industry and Idleness (1747).

    Isaac "Ikey" Solomon (1785–1850), who was the model for Fagin and a notorious British criminal.

    "Oliver Twist or the Parish Boy's Progress" a preface by Charles Dickens, in .pdf format

    The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest.  "It was a dark and stormy night..."

    A Transcription of Charles Dickens's "Frauds on the Fairies" (1 Oct. 1853)  on The Victorian Web.

    "The Children Who Built Victorian Britain" BBC part 1. You Tube 15 min Part 2.

    George Cruikshank, Victorian illustratorAn early scene, in color, from Cruikshank's "The Bottle"

    Illustrations for Oliver Twist by Cruiskhank section.

    "The Bottle" illustrations by Cruikshank for an 8-page cautionary cartoon in 1847.

    YouTube video of "The Bottle" illustrations. 1:04 min

    Short essay on Cruikshank by Ted Stanley from a presentation at the American Institute for Conversation in 2000.

    "More than 100,000 copies sold in first few days" about the publication of Cruikshank's "The Bottle" from the Graphic Arts Collection blog at the Princeton University Library.  And more blog postings on the Graphic Arts Collections at Princeton University library about George Cruikshank

    Dickens at 200 on BBC videosDickens Museum in London

    Dickens World Theme ParkThe Dickens theme park

    Dickens on Film

    A life in photos of Charles Dickens

    Dickens at 25, from an 1837 drawing by Samuel Lawrenc

    Young Charles Dickens

     

     

     

    Dickens performing his works, on tour. 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Author Charles Dickens (1812-1870) pictured with his wife, Catherine Dickens (1815-1879), and two of their daughters, seated in a horsedrawn carriage, circa 1850.

    Inscription on his tomb in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey:  "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world."

    Schedule change.  Please read!

    Tuesday. Sept. 4.  No Class:  Reading assignment: Oliver Twist, chapters 1-5.  Work on film paper.

    Thursday, Sept. 6.  No Class.  Reading assignment: Oliver Twist, chapters 16-31.  Also, in the book's criticism section, read essays by Hollingsworth, Stone, and Marcus. Work on film paper.

    Tuesday, Sept. 11.  There will be class!  Reading assignment: Oliver Twist, chapters 32-45.  In the book's criticism section, read essays by Kincaid, Engel. Work on film paper.