OMG! We haven't had a Dickens thread!!! [shock]

ooops; used the word sort twice in one sentence; unforgivable at the best of times, but even more so in a thread about Dickens.....oh for an edit button...

The only thing I remember about Martin Chuzzlewit is 'The Circumlocution Office'. I have worked in many circumlocution offices [local govt, civil service, nhs] and think it's probably Dicken's greatest creation..not out of place then and even more applicable today.....in fact, my whole life has been a sort of circumlocution offices, of sorts.

I never got on with MC either, despite my fondness for Dickens. How you enjoy "Barnaby Rudge" a little more, petallus

Oh dear Chuzzlewit has already bitten the dust, deleted from my Kindle. I spent 10 minutes wading through the preface where Dickens explains (going all round the houses) that his characters might seem extreme but they aren't and something about America. I'm going to try again with something else, maybe Barnaby Rudge.

Yes Jacey I only really mentioned this Dickens story as its 200 Birthday Celebration I also put it on my Facebook just of interest( but got 2 comments of Amazing from 2 History Teachers) Otherwise younger members didnt take any notice although 12 comments to someone who put on their page that they had Fillet Steak for Supper!!!

Isn't oral history wonderful swansong

I wonder how many Gnetters have thought to pass on, to their grandchildren, the oral history that they heard from their grandparents?? think t
that's how things stay alive and of interest!!

I certainly wish my grandparents had shared more of their life stories with us ...once they'd passed, so much family history was lost.

I suppose we need to look to bagitha and the purloined thermals for Knickerless Nickleby???

Try
www.fathom.com/course/21701768/session3.html
for a description of his reception on that lecture tour. The paragrqph
'How they cheered: Dickens in America' is like the reception of the Beatles!

By the way he really didn't like that steamship, and came home on a sailing ship.

Yes absentgrana good old days!! lol

Connections to what seems a dim and distant past are sometimes just a touch away aren't they Swansong?

David Copperfield- Mr Micawber says with an intake of breath "Windsor Terrace City Road" I live there,- Yes and so did I! from 1943 - 1955 when houses were then demolished.
As a small schoolgirl I had to do shopping for Mrs Dale who was in her 90's her late husband was a ships captain and when he died she fel upon hard times and had rented rooms in Windsor Terrace ground floor number 17 my aunt and uncle lived above her and I lived at number 15 with parents and granparents. You know the nursery rhyme up and down the City Road in and out of the Eagle (pub was just around corner)
Mrs Dale told me when she was a child she knew Charles Dickens and she always told me to remember this as passing down some history!!
Houses now are blocks of flats !!!

In these Hard Times, Gransnetters, has anybody bought anything at all, curious or not?

Or something with an unusual (*Oliver*) Twist?

Sorry about the typos

Or has anybody bought anythin worthy of scrutiny late;y---from The Old Curiosity Shop perhaps ?

Thanks Goldengran glad somebody gets it! Now how about someone who's just back form globetrotting (*absentgrana*?) telling us her Tale of Two Cities ?
Or maybe you could tell us abut your Christmas, Carol ?

And Billy Mitchell!

Andrew that's an interesting thought - what he'd be writing today. Yes. I think 'enders is a strong possibility. Peggy and Phil could well be modern day Dickens characters!

andrew - Dickens wrote his novels in serial much like the TV soaps of today...so I'm sure he probably would have enjoyed being a soap scriptwriter. ( I think I'm right in saying that you could by each episode for a penny) Stephen King paid homage to Dickens by publishing one of his books in a similar serial format, The Green Mile.
I'll stop now as I may be boring you all [yawn emoticon]

I love reading Dickens....but I also love reading Shakespeare too. If you want to start off with some short stories try Three Ghost Stories....it's free for Kindle users. It also includes The Signal-Man story.

Goldengran I was laughing all through my (late!) bath-time at your Great Expectations remark! It is so spot on!.

# popular ( Dickens of the spellcheck i'm not!)

I was always under the impresssion that he was the first well known author and liked the publicity this brought. He was poular at the time due to the way his work was published and promoted but i think its a bit strong to describe him as a "hyped up superstar". Its often said that if he was alive today he'd be writing scripts for "eastenders"!! i don't get that one myself, surely he would be adapting his own books for the small screen or producing things like "Luther"?

Nogracesmun I think they have Great Expectations of us getting off our bums and doing something constructive

Oh dear, what a Bleak House,come on Grans!
Dotheboys know what we do all day on the computer?