The World of Hercule Poirot

The World of Hercule Poirot
[photograph: Bronwyn Lloyd (2023)]

We didn't really intend to make a tradition out of it, but at the beginning of 2022 I posted a piece about finishing a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle called The World of Charles Dickens; then, in 2023, another about completing a new puzzle called The World of Dracula to usher in the New Year:

Barry Falls: The World of Charles Dickens (2021)

Adam Simpson: The World of Dracula (2021)

This year, as you'll have gathered from the picture at the head of my post, we have the world of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot - and here I am starting on the task on (or about) Christmas day:

So why Poirot? I can remember a time when some people adopted a rather sneering attitude towards Agatha Christie. Not a real author, they said (whatever that means) - a mere hack, a penny-a-line writer with no real sense of style of atmosphere.

Agatha Christie (née Miller) (1890-1976)

She was contrasted adversely with more self-consciously literary crime writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers and G. K. Chesterton - wordsmiths for whom detective fiction was simply a day-job, a way to finance their more artistic endeavours. How absurd - and patronising - all that sounds now!

Ilya Milstein: The World of Hercule Poirot (2023)

I guess what did it for me - and, no doubt, for many others - was David Suchet's superlative interpretation of the character in the wonderfully entertaining British TV show Poirot, which ran for a quarter of a century, from 1989 to 2013.

Poirot: 70 episodes (UK, 1989-2013)

I'd read a number of the books as a teenager (my father had a huge collection of them upstairs jammed onto an old wire display frame he'd liberated from a local stationery shop which was going out of business; it made a horrible graunching sound when you swung it around, so we always referred to it as 'the squeaker' ...)

I, however, I tended to prefer such stand-alone mysteries as Crooked House (1949) and The Hound of Death (1933) to what seemed to me then the more predictable puzzles of Poirot and Miss Marple (let alone the egregious Tommy and Tuppence).

Sidney Lumet, dir.: Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

I did enjoy Albert Finney's interpretation of Poirot in the original 1974 movie, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) that of Peter Ustinov in Death on the Nile (1978) and its successors. David Suchet took the character in an entirely new direction, though: away from slapstick to the intensely serious world Poirot himself inhabits.

It's not that the Suchet Poirot isn't funny - it's just that he himself is completely unaware of the fact. Ustinov, in particular, tended to play to the audience on the other side of the camera. Suchet never does that.

Kenneth Branagh, dir.: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Which leads us to the vexed question of Kenneth Branagh's Poirot trilogy (if it actually is a trilogy, that is - there seems little reason for him to stop at three if they're still pulling in audiences). There's no question that they're all sumptuous-looking films, with dazzling casts of A-listers.

They are awfully gloomy, though. Branagh's Poirot is constantly castigating himself for various crimes of omission (and commission), and large slabs of invented biography - his First World War service, for instance - have been rather awkwardly shoehorned into the original plots.

Kenneth Branagh, dir.: Death on the Nile (2022)

It's hard not to admire the durability of stories which continue to invite this kind of reappraisal and reinvention so many years after they were written, though. The ingenuity and originality of Agatha Christie's plots continues to astonish after all this time. She was, it seems, constantly being castigated for offending against the spirit (if not the letter) of the oath sworn solemnly by members of the Detection Club:

Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition , Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God?

It was Monsignor Ronald Knox who codified these rules into a set of Ten Commandments (or Decalogue) for detective writers:

1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
7. The detective himself must not commit the crime.
8. The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.
9. The "sidekick" of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

It was claimed - at least by some - that the central conceit of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), where the narrator is himself the murderer [sorry for the plot spoiler for those of you who haven't read it - but it has been in the public eye for the past century, so I do feel that it's roughly equivalent with revealing that Hamlet dies at the end of the play] was not really an acceptable innovation, but with the passage of time it's Christie's brilliance as a fabulist is what shines out from these early novels, in particular.

Kenneth Branagh, dir.: A Haunting in Venice (2023)

In any case, as the proverb has it, "the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.' Whatever your opinion of Branagh's own innovations, the result is certainly very watchable, if a little too self-consciously Orson-Wellesian at times. In any case, it's very much in the spirit of other modern adaptations of Christie. Such films as Crooked House (2017) and And Then There Were None (2015) showed that there was still lots of room for manoeuvre in these old tales.

For me, The ABC Murders (2018) went a step too far. John Malkovich's portrayal of Poirot as an aging loser suffering from depression at his failing powers was certainly original, but not precisely enchanting - if that's the right word. The joy and zest of Christie's story was lost in a morass of self-pity (together with a truly awful performance by Rupert Grint as an grim and humourless young police detective). But no doubt the book will survive it, and go on into further incarnations in the future ...

That is, if the Agatha Christie Estate can be dissuaded from rewriting all her old books in line with modern sensibilities. It's not that it's not shocking to come across the "n-" word in the original title of And Then There Were None, and the offensively racist and misogynist attitudes of many of Christie's characters might well be a stumbling block to some readers (as they are in that throwaway remark about "Chinamen" in Knox's Decalogue, quoted above).

But Bowdlerising Shakespeare doesn't seem to have done much good in the long run: except to illustrate the absurdity of rewriting an author to fit a completely different cultural context. One of the many reasons we read is to learn about the past: how people lived, how they thought. If we try to recast them in our own (surely equally flawed?) image, then all we're really doing is adding another wing to our own hall of mirrors.

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A Happy New Year to All in
2024!

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Down for the Count

The World of Dracula
[photographs: Bronwyn Lloyd (2022)]

You may (or may not) recall that at the end of last year I posted a piece about completing a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle called The World of Charles Dickens. It was maniacally difficult! So this year we decided to go easy on ourselves by trying to put together, instead, The World of Dracula:

Little did we know that it'd be even worse. Where the Dickens puzzle confounded us with endless little people wandering around mysterious streets with not much to distinguish them from one another, Dracula, by contrast, was all big strokes - lots of versions of the Count, in different poses, in different parts of his castle, surrounded by a seemingly limitless expanse of sky.

If it hadn't been for the bats and the clouds, I doubt if I could ever have pieced that sky together. It was rather canny of Bronwyn to concentrate on the interiors and the action scenes instead.

Adam Simpson: The World of Dracula (2021)

But why Dracula? What is it that attracts me, in particular, to this great repository of folklore and the collective cultural unconscious? It is, of course, by now, far more than a novel: it's been adapted and enacted so many forms in every conceivable medium: comics, film, games, radio, stage, television - you name it, there'll be a version of Dracula there.

Aidan Hickey: Bram Stoker (1847-1912)

I've written quite a bit on the subject already: a piece called "Marginalising Dracula" on the various annotated editions of the book I've collected over the years, as well as the curious scholarly rivalries they enshrine; another piece called "Dracula's Guest" on the prehistory of the novel - not to mention a bibliography of its author, Bram Stoker himself.

Adam Simpson: The World of Dracula (2021)

Perhaps the easiest way to explain its appeal is to go through some of the great showpiece scenes of his masterpiece - as visualised by the designer of this puzzle, Adam Simpson.

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Here I am at the opening stages of the enterprise (apologies for the less-than-glamorous outfit, but you know how it is with getting to work right away on your things-to-assemble on Christmas morning!)

Arrival: This is a novel that starts strong. Jonathan Harker's picturesque tour of quaint old Transylvania is gradually overshadowed by the mysterious warnings of his fellow-travellers, with their muttered refrain of "the dead travel fast", and finally the spectral coach - driven by Dracula in disguise - that picks him up for the last leg of his journey. You can see it all here: the blue flame that guards the gate, and the need for him to state that he enters freely and of his own will before he is able to set foot in Castle Dracula.

Suspicion: Jonathan Harker's stay in the castle becomes increasingly irksome to him the more he explores its hidden ways. Finally, of course, he discovers the Count himself sleeping in his day-coffin, but by then it's apparent that Jonathan has already prepared his own doom by signing so many legal papers and letters on his arrival.

First blood-letting: This is the wonderful scene where the Count is enflamed by the sight of his guest cutting himself shaving. Dracula manages to restrain himself - just - but even to the matter-of-fact Jonathan it's becoming clear that his host is a little more than just ... odd. Why, for instance, is there no reflection of him in the mirror?

The Three Seductresses: Bram Stoker really lets himself go in this scene where Jonathan is seduced by the Count's three vampire mistresses into accepting their "kisses." Their master is able to save him from them, producing a baby in a bag for them to feast on instead. But from now on he is careful to keep Jonathan weak and on the point of death to prevent any last minute interference with his plans for a new life in London.

The Voyage: Jonathan does, rather implausibly, manage to escape - but the Count has already taken ship across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to reach final landfall at Whitby in the North of England. By then he's killed most of the crew, with not enough of them left to sail the vessel. It runs aground, and he's forced to take refuge in the town before making his way to London. (You'll note how the multiple co-existing scenes and time-lines of the jigsaw mesh with the novel's collage of letters, journal entries, newspaper items, and even transcripts of gramophone recordings!)

Fighting Back: Here we see Lucy's three suitors proposing to her, one after another. Further down we see the vampire she has become carrying a small child back to her grave to drink its blood. Her death scene is one step down from that, underneath the imprisoned madman Renfield, Dracula's reluctant collaborator.

Van Helsing's Triumph: There's a lot going on in these two scenes. Below we see vampire-hunter extraordinaire Abraham Van Helsing holding aloft the severed heads of the three brides of Dracula, having dared to break into the monster's den. Above we see our heroes - Jonathan, Lucy's remaining suitors, and Van Helsing - putting an end to Dracula himself, just as he's about to be revived by the setting sun.

The Count: And yet - the rumours of his death may, in the end, turn out to be greatly exaggerated. As H. P. Lovecraft once put it:

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

Dracula continues to preside over the puzzle as he does over the narrative: what can death be actually said to mean to one who's already dead? He's distinctly livelier than any of the other characters in the novel, and his staying-power remains prodigious.

The merits of each new major incarcation - Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman, and now Claes Bang - may continue to be debated, but the plain fact of the matter is that his cultural cachet can only be matched by that of his one true rival, Sherlock Holmes.

Francis Ford Coppola, dir.: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

You can find a good summary of his pop culture appearances on the Wikipedia page here; a filmography here; and a free download of the original 1897 novel here. Enjoy.

For myself, it's time now to turn my attention to another exciting project: the "Book Nook" model which was my Christmas present from Bronwyn this year. I can already foresee a lot of wrestling with bottles of glue and sandpaper in my immediate future!

Cutebee: Eternal Bookstore Book Nook Kitset

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The World of Dracula
[photograph: Bronwyn Lloyd (2022)]

A Happy New Year to All in
2023!

The World of Charles Dickens

The World of Charles Dickens
[photographs: Bronwyn Lloyd (2022)]

For Christmas 2021, Bronwyn gave me a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle called The World of Charles Dickens. It took us almost a week to complete it. Above you can see me putting in the very last piece. Below is an earlier stage of the process.

Opening stages

Mind you, I did have help. Zero was always ready to oblige with advice, and the fact that Bronwyn is holding the camera doesn't mean that she didn't do more than her fair share of wrestling with this fiendish conundrum, either.

Jack & Zero

It was a bit of a relief to get it done, to tell you the truth. I'd forgotten just how tricky it could be to complete a large jigsaw of this kind. My mother used to bring them home for us when we were kids. She volunteered in the local opportunity shop, and it went against her conscience to sell any donated goods which hadn't been thoroughly checked in advance. They almost invariably had a piece or two missing, which has left me with an abiding syndrome about the final stages of assembly.

The field of battle

This particular puzzle - fresh out of the box - did prove to be complete. That hadn't stopped me from anticipating the worst. Bronwyn is of a sunnier disposition, fortunately.

Barry Falls: The World of Charles Dickens. Ed. John Mullan (2021)

A great many of the characters included in the design were obvious enough: Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller (The Pickwick Papers); Lizzie Hexham rowing her father down the Thames (Our Mutual Friend); the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future (A Christmas Carol); Jo the crossing-sweeper being accosted by Lady Dedlock (Bleak House) ...

The World of Charles Dickens

A great many of the others I'd never have guessed, though. I did spot the rowboat with Pip, Herbert Pocket, and Magwitch the convict from Great Expectations, but Estella and Miss Havisham were less clear to me. A great many of the 70-odd characters included just looked like typical Victorians in breeches and bonnets. But an immense amount of ingenuity had been spent on the layout and colouring of the picture - so many windows and roofs to identify! Not to mention fields, bushes and lawns ... In fact, if it hadn't been for the Thames running through it, the puzzle might well have proved insuperable.

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The Oxford Illustrated Dickens (21 volumes: 1987)

It did get me thinking about Dickens in general. In an earlier post about my Grandmother and her book collection, I mentioned the 22-volume set of his works which she and my grandfather painstakingly saved up for in the 1930s, and which has eventually made its circuitous way to my own bookshelves.

I can't claim to have read all of it. I have read his fourteen full-length novels (as well as the unfinished Edwin Drood), and - at one time or another - most of the other miscellaneous fiction he published. But some of the compilations of journalism and other occasional pieces (Sketches by Boz, Reprinted Pieces, and The Uncommercial Traveller, for instance) have hitherto evaded my quest for completeness.

Which is one reason I decided that a good project for Summer might be to remedy that. I recently read a New Yorker article on just such an attempt, by a writer called Brad Leithauser. I'd note, though, that he wrote it while he was "nearly finished [my emphasis]; only The Old Curiosity Shop and The Mystery of Edwin Drood remain."

Given that this admission shows that he hadn't been reading chronologically - which is, in my opinion, the only way of gleaning much profit from a trawl through an author's collected works - and given his almost exclusive focus on David Copperfield at the expense of Dicken's obscurer fiction, I must confess to a certain scepticism about the thoroughness of Leithauser's coverage - not to mention his conclusion that "my favorite Dickens is mostly the world’s favorite Dickens."

His choice of three books - respectively, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, and the above-mentioned David Copperfield - as "all but flawless in their chosen genres" is, I suppose, fair enough. But is it just a perverse taste for the recondite which makes me find that a little disappointing? What of the baroque splendours of Our Mutual Friend? What of the exuberant frenzies of Nicholas Nickleby or Pickwick? What of such proto-M. R. James-like, pared-back ghost stories as "The Signalman" or "The Trial for Murder"?

Dickens's work as a whole seems to constitute - for me at least - a curious combination of social realism and gothic extremity. His actual political opinions had a reactionary tinge which make them less than palatable today - but his emotional engagement with the realities of poverty and want are still powerful and moving even at this distance in time.

He was horrible to his wife, duplicitous about his mistress, dictatorial to his children, and intensely demanding of his friends. He was simultaneously tirelessly productive, endlessly energetic, and immensely self-destructive. It's not so much surprising that he burned out at the early age of 58 as that he was able to last that long in the first place!

One of the few good reasons I've ever heard for wanting there to be a next world, though, is the opportunity to read the conclusion to the unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood, which I presume that he will have cranked around to completing by now.

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Michael Slater: Charles Dickens (2007)

There are many biographies. At times it can seem as if the majority even of bookish people are far less keen on reading him than reading about him. The original Victorian biography by John Forster is still an essential source, and I must confess, too, to a soft spot for Edgar Johnson's exhaustive two-volume account of 1952.

I'm not myself a great admirer of Peter Ackroyd's strange biography-with-fictional-interludes, though it certainly has its moments. A far more significant contribution to scholarship came from Claire Tomalin's The Invisible Woman: a biography of Dickens's mistress Nelly Ternan, which appeared in the same year, 1990.

Claire Tomalin: Charles Dickens: A Life (2011)

She's followed this up since with a full-dress biography of Dickens, perhaps meant as a riposte to Michael Slater's, also pictured above. Slater is, after all, a bit of a Ternan-sceptic, witness his book The Great Charles Dickens Scandal (2012), which takes issue with many of Tomalin's points.

In any case, whatever your views on this or other contentious points, you won't find too much difficulty in finding material to your taste in the vast untidy field of Dickens scholarship. Even the famously critical F. R. Leavis finally decided to admit him to the fold of the 'great tradition' in English fiction.

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Andrew Davies, writ.: Bleak House (2005)

There was a bit of mini Dickens revival in 2005, with Andrew Davies' magisterial TV adaptation of Bleak House. This was a far less mannered and parodic take on the dramatic intensity of Dickens' later novels than had hitherto been seen on British TV.

Andrew Davies, writ.: Little Dorrit (2008)

Davies followed it up with an equally brilliant and star-studded adaptation of Little Dorrit a couple of years later, with a breathtaking performance in the title role by a young Claire Foy. This also had the not unfortunate by-product of supplanting Christine Edzard's ambitious but not entirely successful double-film version of 1987.

Christine Edzard, dir. & writ.: Little Dorrit (1987)

At the time this seemed like the best one could expect when it came to putting one of Dickens' most complex novels on screen. Davies seemingly effortlessly surpassed it, though there were certainly some memorable moments in the earlier version.

I've provided a list, below, of the Dickens films and TV serials I happen to have to hand on DVD. I guess, for me, the highpoints would have to be David Lean's Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). I also enjoyed the Dirk Bogarde version of A Tale of Two Cities (1958), though, as well as some of the classic BBC adaptations of such novels as The Pickwick Papers (1985), Martin Chuzzlewit (1994) and Our Mutual Friend (1998).

Marc Miller & Wolf Mankowitz, writ.: Dickens of London (1976-77)

Another TV show which had a huge influence on me in my teens was the 13-part Dickens of London. Roy Dotrice made a valiant effort to play both the young and older Dickens, but the sheer ambition of the attempt still seems astonishing now. I was very glad to have the chance to see it again. The episode where Dickens meets Edgar Allan Poe, and reenacts with him a strange version of "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar", made a great impression on me at the time.

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Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens ['Boz']
(1812-1870)

Charles Dickens: Little Dorrit (1857)


Collected Editions:


1. The Works of Charles Dickens. 22 vols. Dunedin & Wellington: A. H. Reed, 1931:
   1. Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Everyday Life and Everyday People (1836-39)
   2. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836-37)
   3. Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progress (1837-39)
   4. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839)
   5. The Old Curiosity Shop (1841)
   6. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘80 (1841)
   7. American Notes & Pictures from Italy (1842 & 1846)
   8. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44)
   9. Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol / The Chimes / The Cricket on the Hearth / The Battle of Life / The Haunted Man (1843, 1844, 1845, 1846 & 1848)
   10. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey & Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation (1848)
   11. The Personal History of David Copperfield (1850)
   12. A Child’s History of England (1851-53)
   13. Bleak House (1853)
   14. Hard Times / Hunted Down / Holiday Romance / George Silverman's Explanation (1854 & 1867)
   15. Little Dorrit (1857)
   16. Reprinted Pieces: Also The Lamplighter; To Be Read at Dusk; Sunday Under Three Heads (1858)
   17. A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
   18. Great Expectations (1860-61)
   19. The Uncommercial Traveller (1860-69)
   20. Our Mutual Friend (1864-65)
   21. The Mystery of Edwin Drood & Master Humphrey’s Clock (1870 & 1840)
   22. Christmas Stories: From “Household Words” and “All The Year Round” (1874)

Charles Dickens: The 'Daily News' Memorial Edition (1900-1910)



2. The 'Daily News' Memorial Edition. 19 vols. London: Chapman & Hall, Ld, n.d. [c.1900-1910]:
   1. Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Everyday Life and Everyday People. Illustrated by George Cruickshank (1836-39)
   2. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Phiz et al (1836-37)
   3. [Oliver Twist / A Tale of Two Cities (1837-39 & 1859)]
   4. [The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839)]
   5. [The Old Curiosity Shop (1841)]
   6. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘80. Illustrated (1841)
   7. American Notes / Pictures from Italy / A Child’s History of England (1842, 1846 & 1851-53)
   8. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated (1843-44)
   9. Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol / The Chimes / The Cricket on the Hearth / The Battle of Life / The Haunted Man & Hard Times. Illustrated (1843, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1848 & 1853)
   10. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey & Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. Illustrated (1848)
   11. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Illustrated (1850)
   12. [Bleak House (1853)]
   13. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Phiz (1857)
   14. [Great Expectations / The Uncommercial Traveller (1860-61, 1860-69)]
   15. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Marcus Stone (1864-65)
   16. The Mystery of Edwin Drood & Reprinted Pieces. Illustrated (1870 & 1858 40)
   17. Christmas Stories: From “Household Words” and “All The Year Round” & Other Stories: Master Humphrey’s Clock / Hunted Down / Holiday Romance / George Silverman's Explanation. Illustrated (1874, 1840, 1867)
   18. [The Dickens Dictionary, by Gilbert A. Pierce & William A. Wheeler (1880)]
   19. [Life of Charles Dickens, by John Forster (1872-74)]

The Annotated Dickens (2 vols, 1986)



3. Dickens, Charles. The Annotated Dickens. Ed. Edward Giuliano & Philip Collins. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.
   1. The Pickwick Papers (1836-37); Oliver Twist (1837-39); A Christmas Carol (1843); Hard Times (1854)
   2. David Copperfield (1849-50); A Tale of Two Cities (1859); Great Expectations (1860-61)



Charles Dickens: Penguin Classics


Novels:


4. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. 1836-37. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Penguin English Library. 1972. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
5. Oliver Twist. 1837-39. Ed. Peter Fairclough. Introduction by Angus Wilson. Penguin English Library. 1966. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.
   • Oliver Twist. 1837-39. Ed. Kathleen Tillotson. 1966. The Clarendon Dickens. Ed. John Butt & Kathleen Tillotson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.
6. Nicholas Nickleby. 1839. Ed. Michael Slater. Penguin English Library. 1978. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.
7. The Old Curiosity Shop. 1841. Ed. Angus Easson. Introduction by Malcolm Andrews. Penguin English Library. 1972. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
8. Barnaby Rudge. 1841. Ed. Gordon Spence. Penguin English Library. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.
9. Martin Chuzzlewit. 1843-44. Ed. P. N. Furbank. Penguin English Library. 1968. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.
10. Dombey and Son. 1848. Ed. Peter Fairclough. Introduction by Raymond Williams. Penguin English Library. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.
11. The Personal History of David Copperfield. 1850. Ed. Trevor Blount. Penguin Classics. 1966. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
12. Bleak House. 1853. Ed. Norman Page. Introduction by J. Hillis Miller. Penguin English Library. 1971. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983.
13. Hard Times for These Times. 1854. Ed. David Craig. Penguin Classics. 1969. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987.
14. Little Dorrit. 1857. Ed. John Holloway. Penguin Classics. 1967. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
15. A Tale of Two Cities. 1859. Ed. George Woodcock. Penguin English Library. 1970. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.
16. Great Expectations. 1861. Ed. Angus Calder. Penguin English Library. 1965. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.
    • Great Expectations. 1860-61. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. The Works of Charles Dickens, National Edition, Volume XXIX. London: Chapman & Hall Ltd., 1907.
17. Our Mutual Friend. 1864-65. Ed. Stephen Gill. Penguin English Library. 1971. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.
18. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. 1870. Ed. Arthur J. Cox. Introduction by Angus Wilson. Penguin English Library. 1974. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.



Charles Dickens: Selected Short Fiction (1976)


Shorter fiction:


19. The Christmas Books. Vol. 1: A Christmas Carol / The Chimes. 1843 & 1844. Ed. Michael Slater. Penguin English Library. 1971. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
20. The Christmas Books. Vol. 2: The Cricket on the Hearth / The Battle of Life / The Haunted Man. 1845, 1846 & 1848. Ed. Michael Slater. Penguin Classics. 1971. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
21. The Annotated Christmas Carol: A Christmas Carol in Prose. 1843. Ed. Michael Patrick Hearn. Illustrations by John Leech. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2004.
22. [with Wilkie Collins] The Wreck of the Golden Mary. 1856. Illustrated by John Dugan. Venture Library. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1961.
23. Selected Short Fiction. Ed. Deborah A. Thomas. Penguin English Library. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.
24. Readings from Dickens. Ed. Emlyn Williams. London: The Folio Society, 1953.
25. Sikes and Nancy and Other Public Readings. Ed. Philip Collins. 1975. The World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.



Charles Dickens: Selected Journalism: 1850-1870 (1997)


Non-fiction:


26. Sketches by Boz. 1839. Ed. Dennis Walder. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995.
27. American Notes. 1842. Ed. Patricia Ingham. 2000. Rev. ed. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2004.
28. Pictures from Italy. 1846. Ed. Kate Flint. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1998.
29. The Life of Our Lord: Written Expressly for His Children by Charles Dicken. 1849. Foreword by Lady Dickens. 1934. London: Associated Newspapers Ltd., 1934.
30. Miscellaneous Papers. 1912. The Works of Charles Dickens: Complete Works. Centennial Edition. 2 vols. Geneva: Heron Books, 1970.
31. Selected Journalism 1850-1870. Ed. David Pascoe. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997.
32. My Early Times. Ed. Peter Rowland. London: The Folio Society, 1988.
33. The Dent Uniform Edition of Dickens' Journalism. Ed. Michael Slater. 4 vols. London: J. M. Dent, 1994-2000.
    1. Dickens’ Journalism: Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers, 1833-39. Illustrations by George Cruikshank et al. 1994. Phoenix Giants. London: The Orion Publishing Group, 1996.
    2. Dickens’ Journalism: ‘The Amusements of the People’ and Other Papers: Reports, Essays and Reviews, 1834-51. 1996. London: J. M. Dent, 1997.
    3. Dickens’ Journalism: ‘Gone Astray’ and Other Papers from Household Words, 1851-59. The Orion Publishing Group Ltd. London: J. M. Dent, 1999.
    4. [with John Drew] Dickens’ Journalism: The Uncommercial Traveller and Other Papers, 1859-1870. The Orion Publishing Group Ltd. London: J. M. Dent, 2000.



Charles Dickens: The Plays and Poems (2 vols, 1882)


Poetry & Drama:


34. Dickens, Charles. Complete Plays and Selected Poems. 1970. London: Vision Press Ltd., 1974.



Andrew McConnell Stott: The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi (2009)


Edited:


35. Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. 1838. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: George Routledge and Sons, n.d. [c.1879].
36. Stott, Andrew McConnell. The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi. 2009. Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd., 2010.



The Pilgrim Edition of the Letters of Charles Dickens (12 vols, 1965-2002)


Letters:


37. The Letters: 1833-1870. Ed. His Sister-in-Law & His Eldest Daughter. 1893. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1903.
38. The Letters of Charles Dickens: 1820-1839. Ed. Madeline House & Graham Storey. The Pilgrim Edition. Vol. 1 of 12. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1965.



David Lean, dir.: Great Expectations (1946)


Dramatisations:


39. The Charles Dickens Collection (2012). 3-DVD set:
    1. Great Expectations, dir. David Lean, writ. David Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Cecil McGivern, Ronald Neame & Kay Walsh – with John Mills, Bernard Miles, Finlay Currie, Jean Simmons, Martita Hunt, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson – (UK, 1946)
    2. Oliver Twist, dir. David Lean, writ. David Lean & Stanley Haynes – with Kay Walsh, John Howard Davies, Alec Guinness – (UK, 1948)
    3. A Tale of Two Cities, dir. Ralph Thomas, writ. T. E. B. Clarke – with Dirk Bogarde, Dorothy Tutin – (UK, 1958)
40. Dickens of London: 13-part miniseries, created by Wolf Mankowitz & Marc Miller – with Roy Dotrice, Simon Bell, Gene Foad, Lois Baxter, Christine McKenna – (UK, 1976). 4-DVD set.
41. The Charles Dickens Collection: 8 Classic BBC Adaptations. 12-DVD set:
    1. The Pickwick Papers – with Nigel Stock, Clive Swift, Patrick Malahide – (UK, 1985)
    2. Oliver Twist – with Lysette Antony, Ben Rodska, Miriam Margolyes, Eric Porter, Michael Attwell – (UK, 1985)
    3. A Christmas Carol – with Michael Hordern, John Le Mesurier, Bernard Lee – (UK, 1977)
    4. Martin Chuzzlewit – with Paul Scofield, John Mills, Tom Wilkinson, Pete Postlethwaite, Julia Sawlaha, Maggie Steed – (UK, 1994)
    5. David Copperfield – with Daniel Radcliffe, Bob Hoskins, Maggie Smith, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Cherie Lunghi, Ian McKellan, Ciaran McMenamin – (UK, 1999)
    6. A Tale of Two Cities – with Paul Shelley, Nigel Stock, Sally Osborne – (UK, 1980)
    7. Great Expectations – with Ioan Gruffudd, Charlotte Rampling, Bernard Hill – (UK, 1999)
    8. Our Mutual Friend – with Paul McGann, Keeley Hawes, Anna Friel, Peter Vaughan, Timothy Spall – (UK, 1998)
42. Charles Dickens: 200th Anniversary Collection (2012). 9-DVD set:
    1. Bleak House, dir. Justin Chadwick & Susanna White, writ. Andrew Davies – with Denis Lawson, Anna Maxwell Martin, Patrick Kennedy, Carey Mulligan, Gillian Anderson, Charles Dance, Alun Armstrong, Timothy West, Burn Gorman, Harry Eden – (UK, 2005)
    2. Oliver Twist, dir. Coky Giedroyc, writ. Sarah Phelps – with William Miller, Adam Arnold, Tom Hardy, Timothy Spall, Julian Rhind Tutt – (UK, 2007)
    3. Little Dorrit, dir. Adam Smith, Dearbhla Walsh, & Diarmuid Lawrence, writ. Andrew Davies – with Claire Foy, Matthew Macfadyen, Tom Courtenay, Judy Parfitt – (UK, 2008)
    4. Great Expectations, dir. Brian Kirk, writ. Sarah Phelps – with Ray Winstone, Gillian Anderson, Douglas Booth, Vanessa Kirby, David Suchet – (UK, 2011)
43. The Man Who Invented Christmas, dir. Bharat Nalluri, writ. Susan Coyne (based on the book by Les Standiford) – with Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce – (Ireland / Canada, 2017).



Edgar Johnson: Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph (2 vols, 1952)


Secondary:


44. Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens' London: An Imaginative Vision. London: Headline Book Publishing PLC., 1987.
45. Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. London: Sinclair-Stevenson Ltd., 1990.
46. Butt, John, & Kathleen Tillotson. Dickens at Work. 1957. London & New York: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1982.
47. Chesterton, G. K. Charles Dickens. 1906. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1919.
48. Chesterton, G. K. Criticisms and Appreciations of Charles Dickens’ Works. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. / New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1911.
49. Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. With Thirty-Two Illustrations. 1872-74. London: Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, n.d.
50. Hardwick, Michael & Mollie. The Charles Dickens Encyclopedia. 1973. An Omega Book. London: Futura Publications Limited, 1976.
51. Hibbert, Christopher. The Making of Charles Dickens. 1967. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983.
52. House, Humphry. The Dickens World. 1941. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege / Oxford University Press, 1950.
53. Johnson, Edgar. Charles Dickens. His Tragedy and Triumph. 2 vols. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 1952.
54. Pope-Hennessy, Una. Charles Dickens: 1812-1870. 1945. London: The Reprint Society, 1947.
55. Slater, Michael. Dickens and Women. 1983. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1986.
56. Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens. 2009. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2011.
57. Slater, Michael. The Great Charles Dickens Scandal. 2012. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2014.
58. Tillotson, Kathleen. 'Dombey and Son.' In Novels of the Eighteen-Forties. 1954. Oxford Paperbacks. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
59. Tomalin, Claire. The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens. 1990. London: Penguin, 1991.
60. Tomalin, Claire. Charles Dickens: A Life. 2011. London: Penguin, 2012.
61. Wilson, Angus. The World of Charles Dickens. 1970. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.



Angus Wilson: The World of Charles Dickens (1970)

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The World of Charles Dickens
[photograph: Bronwyn Lloyd (2022)]