Today is the bicentennial of Dickens's birth! To celebrate, I talked with University of the Air hosts Emily Auerbach and Norman Gilliland about Dickens's serials and about "Serial Readers"--you can download that interview through the link (sidebar).
Next week, we'll start reading Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, originally published in forty weekly parts in his new magazine, Master Humphrey's Clock in 1841. I propose a slightly accelerated pace of two installments per week rather than one so that we'll take twenty weeks in all to read this novel. The reading for next week's launch at the bottom of this post. So for next week, February 13-20, chaps 1-2! If you click on the image of MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK at the top of this screen, you'll go to a website with the installments of the novel--chapter one is waiting for you!
Serially celebrating still,
Susan
1 comment:
This message is from Leora with news of her musical tribute to Dickens on his 200th! Can you answer her trivia question about why Handel for Dickens?
On a personal note: I host a daily classical music program and paid tribute to Dickens on Feb. 7th with a couple of short works inspired by his characters (e.g., Debussy wrote a prelude subtitled "Mr. S. Pickwick, Esq."), and a 12-minute wind symphony piece entitled "Master Humphrey's Clock" -- four character studies from three novels -- by a British composer named Malcolm Binney. I also learned that Dickens mentions the "College Hornpipe" in at least two novels, so I played a delightful version of that with Yo-Yo Ma and friends, and some music of Handel. Trivia question: can you guess why I played Handel (due credit -- I learned this from my colleagues at WQXR that very morning, so changed my program to include Handel). I'll give the answer later.
Looking forward to reading The Old Curiosity Shop with all of you.
Leora
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