Overheard, just the other day, near Marble Arch while having lunch, the following conversation ( Read more... )

Sadly, the weather, as of easing me in to my departure, remained on the cold and cloudy side, so I paid the Dickens museum a visit, where, as with the Tower, I hadn't been since I was 21. It is as a I dimly remembered a really well reconstructed Victorian house, and the three things which struck me most this time were ( Read more... )

As a postcript to yesterday's review, something I mentioned very briefly but which tickles me so much that I have to provide a lengthier quote to the general public: Dickens' attitude towards France and all things French, which for a 19th century novelist wasn't just refreshingly non-jingoistic (which is rare), but was openly admiring (which for a ( Read more... )

Barring special subject cases like serial killers and/or genocidal dictators, biographies tend to err on one of two extremes: either they're hagiographies, blending out much if not all that's disagreeable about the subject, or they're bashfests magnifying the flaws to the nth degree and hardly bothering with anything not contemptible the person in ( Read more... )

As Yuletide nominations are almost upon us again, it occurs to me that clearly the thing to ask for this year is Shakespeare RPF. As in, starring Will from Stratford. A good start has been made, and welll, if it's good enough for Shaw, Stoppard and Oscar Wilde ( Read more... )

Yesterday was mostly spent helping with the laundry and starting the daunting package of mail around after three weeks of travelling, but I did manage to squeeze some of the tv I missed in, to wit, one Doctor Who episode. I still don't dare reading my flist for fear of being spoiled until I've caught up, but here is a link I got from reading online ( Read more... )

Quote of the day: "If you could make the public understand that my father was not a jolly, jocose gentleman walking about the earth with a plum pudding and a bowl of punch you would greatly oblige me." Kate Perugini, nee Kate Dickens, to George Bernard Shaw about her father Charles.

Moving on to comics: Wil Wheaton blogs about favourite comic ( Read more... )

Found via
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Because the recent novel brought Dickens to mind, here's my absolutely favourite essay about Dickens as a writer, by George Orwell. It's not just insightful about Dickens' novels, it reminds me how literary criticism, or, to use an internet term, meta can be - neither bashing rant nor uncritical rave, but with an appreciation for the qualities and ( Read more... )

Five years ago, in a post on biopics and the way they depict relationships , I wrote: I pity the inevitable Charles Dickens biopic or tv series. (There isn't one already, right?) It won't have that Wildean out, and besides, Dickens' marriage ended so appallingly that The Genius excuse won't wash unless they leave out that part of his life ( Read more... )