Dickensian Birthday Celebration

Feb7

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens!

Born on this date in 1812, Mr. Dickens has been delighting readers for over 150 years.

Dickens Novels I’ve Read: David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend

DIckens Novels I Have Yet to Enjoy: Hard Times, Dombey and Son, Bleak House, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Little Dorrit, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Favorite Dickens Hero: Pip, Great Expectations

Favorite Dickens Villain(ess): Madame Defarge, Tale of Two Cities

Favorite Tragic Scene: Mr. Peggotty searching for Littel Em’ly (Is that a scene or an episode?)

Favorite Comic Character: Mr. Micawber, David Copperfield

Favorite Comic Scene: Miss Betsy Trotter chasing the donkeys out of her yard, David Copperfield

Strangest Dickens Christmas Story We’ve Read: “The Poor Relation’s Story”

Best Dickens Novel I’ve Read: A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield is a close second.

Dickens-related posts at Semicolon:

LOST Reading Project: Our Mutual Friend by Charles DIckens.

Scrooge Goes to Church

Dickens Pro and Con on his Birthday.

Quotes and Links

Born February 7th

Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley

A Little More Dickens

Other DIckens-related links:
Mere Comments on Dickens’ Christianity.

A DIckens Filmography at Internet Film Database.

George Orwell: Essay on Charles DIckens.

Edgar Allan Poe Meets Charles Dickens.

An entire blog devoted to Mr. DIckens and his work: DIckensblog by Gina Dalfonzo.

And finally, here’s a re-post of my own Dickens Quiz. Can you match the quotation with the Dickens novel that it comes from?

1. “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

2. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

3. “I would rather, I declare, have been a pig-faced lady, than be exposed to such a life as this!”

4. “It’s over and can’t be helped, and that’s one consolation as they always says in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man’s head off.”

5. “If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass–a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience–by experience.”

6. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”

7. “We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.”

8. “It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,” said he, “to be looking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to feel that I no more hold a place among the living than these dead do, and even to know that I lie buried somewhere else, as they lie buried here. Nothing uses me to it. A spirit that was once a man could hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognized among mankind, than I feel.”

(HINT: these come from the eight DIckens novels that I have read. Which is from which?)

16 thoughts on “Dickensian Birthday Celebration”

  1. Thanks for this — I love Dickens! I agree with your saddest scene — that one almost makes me teary just thinking about it. But my favorite hero is Sidney Carton — though he doesn’t start out as a hero.

    I’ve read most of his novels that you have, but I didn’t realize I had so many unread! I need to remedy that.

    Of the quotes you mention, I know #1, 2, 5, 6.

  2. Very interesting post. I’ve only ever read two of his novels and I was 12 at the time, Great Expectations and Two Cities. I did reread Tale of Two Cities as a young adult but I wonder what I’d think of Dickens writing now that I’m older. I must try something this year.

  3. I also love Dickens, but I am ashamed to say that I have only read three of his books so far: Great Expectations – Tale of Two Cities – Oliver Twist. There are so many others that I truly want to read, but just need to find more hours in the day.

    Thanks for the link to the Dickens blog. I know I will enjoy reading those posts as well.

  6. I am reading Bleak House at the present time. I finished The Olde Curiosity Shoppe last month. I enjoy them all..but my favorite has been David Copperfield.

  7. I definitely can’t get most of that quiz, but it makes for a great tribute to Dickens. If interested, I blogged about Dickens’s connection to Edgar Allan Poe. Take a look!

  8. Thank you so much for the mention! You’ve put up a lovely tribute to Dickens here. I’ll link to it in a day or two.

  11. Sorry a little too quick on the posting. I think the only quote I can say for sure is #6. The others I have some guesses, but I’m not very good at those types of things.

  13. Nice post. Dickens is the greatest. I’ve read all of the novels, most of the short stories and a few of the articles from Household Words and All the Year Round. On my list, Dombey and Son is the third best novel (1. Great Expectations, 2. Our Mutual Friend) and I think that The Mystery of Edwin Drood would have been the best, if it had been finished. The solution or lack thereof, haunts me. Favorite Heroine: Estella Havisham.

  14. Just like caribookscoops, I posted a little too quickly, I should not have said that Dombey is the third “best” C.D. novel, I should have said that it is my third favorite C.D. novel. Everyone has their favorites. Estella may not be the “best” Dickens heroine (Lizzie Hexam probably deserves that title.) Estella just happens to be my favorite. And the truth is, that my favorite Dickens novel, is usually the one that I happen to be re-reading at the time. What really floored me, when I read these posts, is that there are still people (surprisingly, some, who are much younger than me) who love Dickens as much, if not more so, than I do. So weird. There’s more than one of me!

  15. Pingback: Many Happy Returns: February 7th | Semicolon

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