Portal:Charles Dickens/Selected article
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
These are selected articles related to Charles Dickens which appear on Portal:Charles Dickens.
Oliver Twist (1838) is Charles Dickens's second novel. The book was originally published in Bentley's Miscellany as a serial, in monthly installments that began appearing in the month of February 1837 and continued through April 1839. George Cruikshank provided one steel etching per month to illustrate each installment.
Oliver Twist is the first novel in the English language to centre throughout on a child protagonist and is also notable for Dickens' unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives. The book's subtitle, The Parish Boy's Progress alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and also to a pair of popular 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, "A Rake's Progress" and "A Harlot's Progress".
An early example of the social novel, the book calls the public's attention to various contemporary social evils, including the Poor Law that states that poor people should work in workhouses, child labour and the recruitment of children as criminals. (more...)
Ebenezer Scrooge is the main character in Charles Dickens' 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. He is a cold-hearted, tight fisted, selfish man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness. A quote from the book reads "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and he spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice ..."
His last name has come into the English language as a byword for miserliness and misanthropy, traits displayed by Scrooge in the exaggerated manner for which Dickens is well-known. The story of his transformation by the three Ghosts of Christmas (Past, Present, and Yet to Come) has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday. Scrooge's catchphrase, "Bah, humbug!" is often used to express disgust with many of the modern Christmas traditions. (more...)The Frozen Deep was a play, originally staged as an amateur theatrical, written by Wilkie Collins along with the substantial guidance of Charles Dickens. Dickens's hand was so prominent -- adding a proem, altering lines, and attending to most of the props and sets -- that the principal edition of the play is entitled "Under the Management of Charles Dickens." Although its original audience, as staged in Dickens's home Tavistock House, was modest, the play grew in influence through a series of outside performances, including one before Queen Victoria at the Royal Gallery of Illustration, and a three-performance run at the Manchester Free Trade Hall to benefit the widow of Dickens's old friend Douglas Jerrold. There, night after night, the play moved everyone -- including, by some accounts, the carpenters and the stage-hands -- to tears. It also brought Dickens together with Ellen Ternan, an actress he hired to play one of the parts, and for whom he would leave his wife Catherine. (more...)
Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens first serialised in All the Year Round[1] from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. The action of the story takes place from Christmas Eve, 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old, to the winter of 1840.[2]
Great Expectations is written in a semi-autobiographical style, and is the story of the orphan Pip, tracing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood. The story can also be considered semi-autobiographical of Dickens, like much of his work, drawing on his experiences of life and people.
Each instalment of it in All the Year Round contained two chapters, and was written in a way to keep readers interested from week to week, while still satisfying the need for resolution at the end of each installment. (more...)
Uriah Heep is a fictional character created by Charles Dickens in his novel David Copperfield.
The character is notable for his cloying humility, obsequiousness, and general insincerity. His references to David as "Master Copperfield" are repeated so often that they quickly seem insincere. He is the central antagonist of the later part of the book. David first meets him when he is living with Mr. Wickfield and his daughter Agnes. Uriah explains in another part of the book that his ambition and greed are fueled by his lack of ability to express it during his childhood because of his father who constantly encouraged him to be "humble". This lack of correct psychological and social development perpetuated by his father led Uriah to become the scheming and greedy person he is as an adult. Uriah works as Mr. Wickfield's clerk, and by blackmailing Mr. Wickfield he gains control over most of his life and business. He eventually succeeds in having himself made a full partner in the business. His eventual ambition is to marry Agnes and gain control of the Wickfield fortune. Like most of Dickens' villains, greed is his main motivation. (more...)
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known as The Pickwick Papers, is the first novel by Charles Dickens. It was originally an idea by Robert Seymour, the illustrator, to which Dickens was asked to contribute as an up and coming writer following the success of Sketches by Boz, published in 1836. Dickens, supremely confident as ever, increasingly took over the unsuccessful monthly publication after Seymour had committed suicide.
With the introduction of Sam Weller in chapter 10, the book became the first real publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books and other merchandise. (more...)
Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly parts between March 1852 and September 1853. It is widely held to be one of Dickens' finest and most complete novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. Dickens tells all of these both through the narrative of the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and as an omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly but depressive John Jarndyce and the childish Harold Skimpole.
The plot concerns a long-running legal dispute (Jarndyce and Jarndyce) which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. Dickens' assault on the flaws of the British judiciary system is based in part on his own experiences as a law clerk. His harsh characterization of the slow, arcane Chancery law process gave voice to widespread frustration with the system, and is often thought of as helping to set the stage for its eventual reform in the 1870s. (more...)Mickey's Christmas Carol is a twenty-four minute animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released in the United Kingdom on October 20, 1983 by Buena Vista Distribution. The film was released in the United States on December 16, 1983 as an accompaniment to a re-release of The Rescuers.
It is an adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, featuring Scrooge McDuck as his namesake and inspiration Ebenezer Scrooge and Mickey Mouse as Bob Cratchit. This film was based on a 1972 audio musical entitled Disney's A Christmas Carol.
Mickey's Christmas Carol was the first new Mickey Mouse cartoon made in 30 years after The Simple Things.
It was also broadcast on TV on NBC from 1984-1989, CBS from 1991-1998, and ABC in 2000 and 2003 and PBS in 2004 - Present (more...)
