Well, just in time! – Wishing Mr. Dickens a very Happy Birthday! – as his 200th is celebrated all the world over…

Here are several of the events going on, already posted in my Penny Post Weekly Review, and a few more besides:

First you must begin with the Dickens 2012 website.  

And then these various exhibits, etc…

*Dickens in pictures at the Telegraph :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/charles-dickens/8954312/Charles-Dickens-in-pictures.html

*A tour of Dickens birthplace:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/8947295/A-tour-around-the-house-where-Charles-Dickens-was-born.html

*“Celebrating Mr. Dickens” a symposium at the University of Delaware, February 18, 2012: http://www.udconnection.com/saturdaysymposium

*“Dickens in Lowell”: an exhibit [opens March 30, 2012] ,and symposium celebrating Dickens’s historic visit to Lowell, Massachusetts in 1842 – http://www.uml.edu/conferences/dickens-in-lowell/

*The Yale Center for British Art begins its 2012 film tribute to Dickens with the first film in the series “Dickens’London”, a 1924 12-minute silent film:

http://calendar.yale.edu/cal/ycba/week/20120123/All/CAL-2c9cb3cc-333ca412-0134-477237d9-00000988bedework@yale.edu/

– followed by The Pickwick Papers, from 1952: http://calendar.yale.edu/cal/ycba/week/20120123/All/CAL-2c9cb3cc-333ca412-0134-477bda0c-00000991bedework@yale.edu/

*The DeGoyler Library at Southern Methodist University is hosting a Dickens exhibit:

Charles Dickens: The First Two Hundred Years. An Exhibition from the Stephen Weeks Collection. January 19-May 12, 2012 – a catalogue is available for purchase: http://smu.edu/cul/degolyer/exhibits.htm

* A bookseller’s list of some of his works that they have for sale [Tavistock Books]: 
 http://tinyurl.com/7c2t2y3

* This one is very exciting as it combines my love of Dickens and my love of London and makes full use of my iphone capabilities: Dickens Dark London from The Museum of London:

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Resources/app/Dickens_webpage/index.html

*The Free Library of Philadelphia’s Dickens exhibit:  http://libwww.freel library.org/dickens/

*Dickens Christmas Tour at National Gallery: http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/event-root/december-2011/a-dickens-christmas-tour.php

*Dickens at the British Library: A Hankering after Ghosts: Charles Dickens and the Supernatural, British Library,London, until March 4 2012

at: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/cdickens/index.html

And here: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history%20&%20heritage/literature%20&%20music/art370174

* Dickens and London at the Museum of London:

http://www.visitlondon.com/events/detail/21973327-dickens-and-london-at-the-museum-of-london

*There is also the Dickens Exhibition at The Morgan Library.  Here is the online component you can visit without leaving home: you can view 20 pages of A Christmas Carol and read a letter penned by Dickens…

*Penelope Wilton [a.k.a. Mrs. Crawley in Downton Abbey!] reading Claire Tomalin’s Dickens biography at the BBC:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017v88v

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* Dickens World – March 7-8, 2012. and online event free for all: http://dickensworld.wordpress.com/ 

*The Dickens Dictionary – John Sutherland
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dickens-Dictionary-Z-Englands-Greatest/dp/1848313918

 * Dickens’ real life characters drawn from life? [with thanks to Tony G!]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/01/charles-dickens-real-character-names

* and see Tony’s post on Dickens on his blog London Calling, with a good number of photographs of Dickens’ homes and haunts…
http://general-southerner.blogspot.com/2012/02/charles-dickens-200years.html

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And as Masterpiece Theatre never disappoints, mark your calendars for these upcoming Dickens on Masterpiece Classic: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/greatexpectations/index.html 

• February 26, 2012 at 9pm   (Check local listings)
  The Old Curiosity Shop
  One 90-minute episode
  A teenage girl and her grandfather lose everything to a maniacal moneylender and flee his relentless pursuit. Derek Jacobi (I, Claudius) stars as Grandfather, with Sophie Vavasseur (Northanger Abbey) as Nell and Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) as Quilp.
  

  Gillian Anderson - Great Expectations

• April 1 & 8, 2012
  Great Expectations
  Gillian Anderson, David Suchet and Ray Winstone star in this new adaptation of Great Expectations, widely considered one of the greatest novels by Charles Dickens. Great Expectationsfollows orphan boy Pip as he rises from an apprentice to a gentleman.
  

  Masterpiece - Edwin Drood

• April 15, 2012
  The Mystery of Edwin Drood
  The Mystery Of Edwin Drood is a psychological thriller about a provincial choirmaster’s obsession with 17-year-old Rosa Bud and the lengths he will go to attain her. The cast includes Matthew Rhys (Brothers & Sisters) and Julia MacKenzie (Miss Marple).

*And these resources at the Masterpiece website from the 2009 series of movies:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/dickens/index.html

 Further Reading: [with endless links to biographies, works, criticism – and we think there is a lot on Jane Austen!]

• David Perdue’s Charles Dickens Page
• Charles Dickens at the Literature Network
• Charles Dickens at the Victorian Web
• Dickens Museum in London
• The Dickens Project at the University of California
• Charles Dickens Gad’s Hill Place
• Dickens Timeline

I am currently reading Bleak House, one of those books on my TBR pile literally for the past 40 years! I have signed up for a four-session class on “Dickens and the Law” and figure I should be at least somewhat up to speed on Jarndyce and Jarndyce! – What better gift to an author than this – reading and re-reading their works 200 years after they were born!  Anyone else reading Dickens this year of his bicentennial? Please share!

Copyright @2012 Jane Austen in Vermont