I didn’t know Neo-Impressionists did bourgeois interior scenes commenting ironically on the C19 domestic ideal, but there are two superb examples by Paul Signac in the Radical Harmony exhibition now on at @thenationalgallery.bsky.social

😂

Great shout out for Nellie Bly @rs4vp.org

Another candidate for the original of Joe Gargery’s forge in Great Expectations - this one in the high street of High Halstow, just opposite Forge Lane @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

And here are the remains of the Pavilion Hotel, Folkestone, celebrated by #Dickens in his essay’Out of Town’ for Household Words.

Here’s another #Dickens landmark I didn’t know about @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social The British Lion in Folkestone has a Dickens Room where I was told he wrote ‘Little Dorrit’ while he was staying for the summer at Albion Villas.

We have a wonderful line up of keynote speakers for RSVP-Dublin: KATHERINE BODE (Australian National University) will deliver the Wolff keynote and ANDREW LEWIS and TEJA VARMA PUSAPATI will be in conversation for the Colby keynote! And you too can be there - submit a proposal by Nov 1.

Incisive and insightful as ever 👏

Indeed: the populists do make people poorer, but then they blame anyone but themselves: immigrants, unions, foreign wars etc. Poor people are disgruntled. Ripe for exploitation by populists. Rinse and repeat. (As we’re seeing now)

The ‘Showtime’ exhibition now on at the dickensmuseum.com/blogs/all-ev... has playbills, annotated copies of the scripts of Dickens’s reading texts and interviews with adaptors and performers of Dickens and his works and more.

It is a bumper issue and a fitting tribute to mark the centenary of the wonderful Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street.🎉

An curious anticipation of the much later trials of John Jasper @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

A new book about another source for ‘Oliver Twist’ that will interest @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

If your research centrally involves the 19th-c. British press, you should for sure consider applying for a Curran Fellowship. Anybody can apply, and the process is blessedly straightforward. My late friend Eileen Curran would be proud to see all the fine projects that her generosity has assisted in.

Still time to apply!

#RSVPDigiEvents is getting into the back-to-school spirit on Friday, 5 Sept. We'll learn from our experts on how to create standout grant application, just in time for Curran and (upcoming) Peterson Fellowship season! As always, registration is free and open to all: rs4vp.org/digital-even...

Irish history / photo nerd klaxon: thanks to dedicated archivists @librarycongress.bsky.social, I’ve reconstructed the 1907 ‘Ireland through the Stereoscope’ full 100-card set from their archives. It’s the only complete one I’ve found in a public collection - an amazing record of 19th/20th c Ireland

Questions? Ping @matthewleggatt.bsky.social, Hadas, &/or me! We look fwd to reading your submission & to working w/ you!

@lesliehowsam.bsky.social I was pleased to see Eliza Orme heading the list in the brief history of women in the legal profession in the UK in the programme notes for Susie Miller’s new play, ‘Inter Alia’, now on at the NT

So @lydiacraig.bsky.social and myself were guests on @dominicgerrard.bsky.social’s wonderful podcast, Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire recently. Here we are talking about his poetry, including some readings of the best (and worst) bits:

Gail Marshall introducing the 1850s volume in CUP’s Nineteenth Century Literature in Transition series at the launch event in Cambridge.

‘Curtis’s Botanical Magazine’, the world's longest-running, continuously published botanical periodical, bringing gardening to the masses, on display at ‘Unearthed: The Power of Gardening’ events.bl.uk/exhibitions/... until 10 August @rs4vp.org

Listen up, weaklings: there’s no Epstein client list. Why are you so obsessed? Yours, Donald J Trump | Marina Hyde on top form! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This looks amazing!

Lydia Craig presents her discovery of a series of poems by Kate Perugini in the ‘Pall Mall Magazine’ that provide new evidence of her knowledge of a legacy-threatening secret about Dickens’s life. @dickenssociety.bsky.social @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social @rs4vp.org

Diana Archibald presents our wonderful host and brilliant Dickensian Natalie McKnight with Dickensian Society’s award for outstanding service.

Location, dates and theme for next year’s Dickens Society Symposium are announced. Let’s avoid a clash with @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social next year! @dickenssociety.bsky.social

Ed Guiliano introducing Bob Patten with suitably Dickensian flourishes before beginning his interview with him @dickenssociety.bsky.social symposium, Boston University

I am shocked to hear this very sad news. Dickensians around the globe will miss Simon enormously. Such a wonderful scholar and a lovely man. @dickenssociety.bsky.social @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

Priti Joshi channeling her ‘inner John Jordan’ in opening the RSVP Planning Retreat in Chicago @rs4vp.org

'Corner Shop, Canning Town' (1994) by Doreen Fletcher doreenfletcherartist.com 👤: @doreenfletcher.bsky.social

I had no idea either 😯@dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

Great to celebrate the launch of ‘The Verse of Charles Dickens’ and ‘The Plays of Charles Dickens’ with their respective editors - Lydia Craig and @emilyjlm.bsky.social - and - Joanna Hofer-Robinson and @peteorford.bsky.social - at the Charles Dickens Museum.👏

Tell me again how literature is unimportant and irrelevant.

Who knew? Dickens gave us the word ‘butterfingers’

Gyles Brandreth remembering Dickens in Broadstairs at the 50th birthday dinner of the Dickens Pickwick Club in London @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

I’m in London for a dinner celebrating the 50th birthday of the Pickwick Club and staying at a hotel in Smithfield. My window looks onto Cock Lane. Will I see the ghost, I wonder? @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

i learned from Emma Mason that Christina Rossetti asked to have herself buried in a wicker coffin for this reason, which turns this bleak nursery rhyme from *Sing-Song* (1872) into an autoreferential meditation on solidarity with those who have returned to the earth:

Juxtaposition: Cruikshank’s ‘All the World Going to the Great Exhibition of 1851’ and Hiroshige’s woodcut of crowds on pilgrimage to see the treasures at the Enoshima Benzaitem shrine of the same year - currently on display in ‘Hiroshima: Artist of the Open Road’ at the British Museum

Read the whole thread. This is a key takeaway for me:

Starmer's language was deplorable. It was grotesquely offensive, accusing people who have brought their gifts to this country of doing "incalculable" "damage"; & politically foolish, in endorsing Farage's claims of an establishment conspiracy. But bad analogies with Powell miss the key problem. 🧵

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Look out for the forthcoming Summer issue of The Dickensian which celebrates the centenary of the Charles Dickens Museum @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

The wonderful Ruth Richardson, who uncovered the site’s history and its connection to Dickens, wrote a marvelous book about it: www.amazon.com/Dickens-Work...

Today’s #MastheadMonday is the Pen and Pencil (1855). It aimed to tap into several fashions that coalesced in the mid C19th: illustrated newspapers, cheap family papers, & the Crimean War. It lasted only 8 issues. Digitised by the BL & free to view: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/pen-a...

www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/m... This looks interesting @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

Really interesting analysis of the political evolution of UKIP/Brexit/Reform parties. Thanks Chris.

Helen Howe reads from ‘Little Dorrit’ in the church which is known by her name. Little Dorrit appears below St George in the East window, bottom right hand corner, in prayer, her poke bonnet behind her like angels wings.

Dickens Fellowship President, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, begins an afternoon of readings to raise funds for the restoration of Little Dorrit’s vestry at St George the Martyr, Borough High Street @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social