Dickens Adapted

From their first appearance in print, Dickens's fictions immediately migrated into other media, and particularly, in his own time, to the stage. Since then Dickens has continuously, apparently inexhaustibly, functioned as the wellspring for a robust mini-industry, sourcing plays, films, television specials and series, operas, new novels and even miniature and model villages. If in his lifetime he was justly called 'The Inimitable', since his death he has become just the reverse: the Infinitely Imitable. The essays in this volume, all appearing within the past twenty years, cover the full spectrum of genres. Their major shared claim to attention is their break from earlier mimetic criteria - does the film follow the novel? - to take the new works seriously within their own generic and historical contexts. Collectively, they reveal an entirely 'other' Dickensian oeuvre, which ironically has perhaps made Dickens better known to an audience of non-readers than to those who know the books themselves.

The Chimes A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, a short novel by Charles Dickens, was written and published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of Christmas books five short books with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840's.

Using only Charles Dickens’ extraordinary words and a chameleon ensemble of actors, Neil Bartlett's powerful stage versions of Dickens have gathered wide critical acclaim. This collection includes: Great Expectations: From its opening image of little Pip, alone on the windswept marshes, to the haunted darkness of mad Miss Haversham's cobweb-strewn lair, this adaptation takes its audience on a journey right to the heart of Dickens’ great exploration of childhood terrors and hopes – and of adult dreams and regrets. This version was recently directed by Bartlett himself to great acclaim at the Bristol Old Vic. A Christmas Carol: Dickens's story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by a series of ghostly visitors, has proved one of his most well-loved works, and has profoundly influenced our attitude towards the season. Oliver Twist: Bartlett’s powerful version of Oliver Twist brings the dark underbelly of nineteenth-century London back to bold theatrical life. The unforgettable characters inhabit a world filled with images of danger and fear, innocence and hope; a world seen through the eyes of an astonished child. Between them, these adaptations have had over a hundred productions. They have been widely performed by schools, universities and community theatre groups throughout the English-speaking world and theatres that have produced them include London’s Lyric Hammersmith, the Bristol Old Vic, the Southwark Playhouse, the Glasgow Citizens, the American Repertory Theatre in Boston and the La Jolla Playhouse (USA).

One of Charles Dickens’s most fascinating novels, Great Expectations follows the orphan Pip as he leaves behind a childhood of misery and poverty after an anonymous benefactor offers him a chance at the life of a gentleman. From the young Pip’s first terrifying encounter with the convict Magwitch in the gloom of a graveyard to the splendidly morbid set pieces in Miss Havisham’s mansion to the magnificently realized boat chase down the Thames, Great Expectations is filled with the transcendent excitement that Dickens could so abundantly provide. Written in 1860, at the height of his maturity, it also reveals the novelist’s bittersweet understanding of the extent to which our deepest moral dilemmas are born of our own obsessions and illusions. This edition includes Dickens’s original, discarded conclusion to the novel, the 1907 Everyman preface by G. K. Chesterton, and twenty illustrations by F. W. Pailthorpe.

NOW A NETFLIX SERIES • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • TWO PEOPLE. ONE DAY. TWENTY YEARS. • What starts as a fleeting connection between two strangers soon becomes a deep bond that spans decades. • "[An] instant classic. . . . One of the most ...emotionally riveting love stories you’ll ever encounter." —People It’s 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. They face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. Dex and Em must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself. As the years go by, the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed. "[A] surprisingly deep romance...so thoroughly satisfying." —Entertainment Weekly

Discusses and compares American and British versions of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and shows how these interpretations reflect changing cultural values

Among professional storytellers whose works have been adapted for cinematic dramatization, mid-19th century English novelist Charles Dickens stands in a class of his own. In addition to his most well-known works such as A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, which are unrivaled for their sheer number of film adaptations, each of Dickens' other major works have been adapted for the screen multiple times, and many remain accessible for viewing on a variety of platforms. This survey highlights the most popular adaptations of each Dickens book, spanning from the films of the silent era through the 21st century. The survey also includes a critical examination that compares the adaptations to the original texts. An analysis outlines the many connections between the fictional narratives and the novelist's own frequently misunderstood biography.

This comprehensive survey of the screen adaptations of the works of Charles Dickens covers the worldwide film, television and video dramatizations from 1897-1993. It contains a catalog of more than 350 TV productions with cast lists and credits.

Great Expectations has had a long, active and sometimes surprising life since its first serialized appearance in All the Year Round between 1 December 1860 and 3 August 1861. In this new publishing and reception history, Mary Hammond demonstrates that while Dickens’s thirteenth novel can tell us a great deal about the dynamic mid-Victorian moment into which it was born, its afterlife beyond the nineteenth-century Anglophone world reveals the full extent of its versatility. Re-assessing generations of Dickens scholarship and using newly discovered archival material, Hammond covers the formative history of Great Expectations' early years, analyses the extent and significance of its global reach, and explores the ways in which it has functioned as literature and stage, TV, film and radio drama from its first appearance to the latest film version of 2012. Appendices include contemporary reviews and comprehensive bibliographies of adaptations and translations. The book is a rich resource for scholars and students of Dickens; of comparative literature; and of publishing, readership, and media history.