12in12 - My Charles Dickens Birthday Project

Charles Dickens' books have been adapted so often we don't need to read them any more. Discuss.

Next month, February 2012, is a big birthday for Charles Dickens. How big? Two hundred. Two centuries since the birth of Charles Dickens. He won't be around for it, of course; he's been dead for most of those two hundred years. So we'll have celebrate the day without him (again). It's February 7th, since you ask.



Dickens has spent nearly two hundred years as one of Britain's foremost writers, Well, one of the English-speaking world's foremost writers, certainly of those last two hundred years. That's quite an achievement, and he's left a wide-ranging legacy, second only really to Shakespeare in the English language. What makes it more impressive is that Dickens wrote in so many genres, not just the novels he's famous for: short stories, travel writing, journalism, plays, poetry and general non-fiction.

His work has been adapted and reworked over and over again, working its way into the collective consciousness of the English-speaking world, again rather like Shakespeare. Dickens' Christmas stories have come to define the Victorian Christmas for those of us too young to remember the reality, made the festive season the popular holiday it now is, and still strongly influences our modern perception of Christmas. Adaptations of A Christmas Carol abound toward the end of every year, and Scrooge has come to be a widely-recognised term for someone like Dickens' infamous character.

Even before the BBC started rummaging through the Dickensian back catalogue for their current season of work devoted to Charles (or Boz, as he sometimes preferred), he was frequently the subject of adaptations. Not only have Dickens' books been adapted, but he himself often appears for public readings (as the man himself did while still alive) – the most famous perhaps being Simon Callow's portrayal alongside Christopher Eccleston in the new Doctor Who.

In fact, Dickens seems to have been adapted so often that it seems we don't really need to read his books any more. I've certainly seen A Christmas Carol on stage enough times that I know the story and characters as well as if I'd read it. And that's the curse of the writer of 'classics', of members of the canon of 'great' writers; people don't actually read their books any more. As Mark Twain quoted a Professor Winchester: a classic is something everybody wants to have read, but nobody wants to read. Mind you, I'm always wary of Mark Twain quotes; they're prone to being greatly exaggerated.

I thought I'd celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of Dickens' birth by actually reading some of these books that made his name and legacy. My birthday present to him will be to read twelve of Dickens' books in a year (I'm aiming for one in each month, of course). That's roughly eleven more Dickens books than I've managed to read in my life to date (1988-2011). For someone with an English Literature degree, I consider that a pretty poor effort.



To kick off my Dickensian effort (see what I mean? Dickens is sufficiently well-established that we have an adjective for him and his work which immediately conjours up a certain type of character and location, usually something Victorian and in London), I'll be starting with a Christmas short story: The Chimes.

So, welcome to my Dickensian sort-of extravaganza (can an extravaganza take place over twelve months? is that over doing it?). I call it 12in12, and I hope you stick around until the (bitter?) end.

So far I've covered:
January - The Chimes
February - Hard Times: For These Hard Times
March - Bleak House
April - The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
May - American Notes for General Circulation(coming soon...)

Thanks to Will Clayton for the birthday cake image.

The other images depict Dickens at a reading of his own, and Fringe Festival stalwart Pip Utton playing Dickens.

Then we've got the cover of the Complete Dickens Kindle edition, 99p from Amazon.