Obit for Michael Slater in the @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

Looking forward to seeing this in the new year! Charles Dickens exhibition to shine light on powerful women in author’s life www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

"Christmas Morning". Charles Green illustration for Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Pears' Christmas Annual 1892 (Day 7 of 7).

Green's image provides an intriguing reinterpretation of John Leech's original illustration, "The Last of the Spirits". Green is slightly more faithful to Dickens's text in representing Scrooge clutching at the Spirit's robe, but the miser's name is not evident on the gravestone as in Leech.

"Scrooge and the Third Spirit". Charles Green illustration for Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Pears' Christmas Annual 1892 (Day 6 of 7).

Hurrah!👏

"Marley's Ghost Appearing to Scrooge". Charles Green illustration for Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Pears' Christmas Annual 1892 (Day 3 of 7).

"Not a knocker,--but Marley's Face!" Charles Green illustration for Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Pears' Christmas Annual 1892 (Day 2 of 7).

😍

It is with deep sadness that the Institute of English Studies reports the death of Michael Slater, MBE. Michael was a world-leading authority on Charles Dickens, who generously shared his enthusiasm, knowledge, understanding, and promotion of all things Dickensian. ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

In the Great Expectations country last Sunday, how’s this for a Dickensian scene @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/education/20... Excellent news

A huge figure in Dickens Studies, his contribution to the field over the last half century is unsurpassed. @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social has lost a champion.

The Chartists, an enduring reminder that change is possible and vitally important, even when (at the time) you don't 'win'.

Hear, hear!

Good piece by @davidsonofaaron.bsky.social on the Prescott memo, which looks very dodgy: observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Written before the BBC resignations but this by @arusbridger.bsky.social is really worth reading. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...

The departure of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness means the BBC is leaderless when it needs leadership more than ever. Where are the people at the head of the BBC standing up for it? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no... A Carol Bollywood style! @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

Jane Harrison discussing George du Maurier’s Mrs Lyon Hunter in Punch, notes her origin in Mrs Leo Hunter, famed versifier of the ‘Ode to an Expiring Frog’ in Pickwick @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

Who was around the Punch table in the first two decades?

The wonderful @patrickleary.bsky.social begins his keynote at ‘Pictorial Punch’ at @britishlibrary.bsky.social . Great to be here with other @rs4vp.org friends!

Farage: epic grifter

Including a fascinating look at the manuscript and Dickens’s reading copy 👏

Just a reminder to join the #RSVPDigiEv team this Friday, 17 Oct. to hear from our Curran Index editors about the "joys and challenges" of archival and attribution research. We'll meet at the usual time, usual place (Zoom). Registration is, as always, free and open to all!

Looking forward to Dickens Day tomorrow, & to talking about Fred Barnard again! This time, I'll be giving a paper (with lots of images) on his Character Sketches from Dickens. A tiny teaser below of Barnard's sketch of Sydney Carton & its remediation in a children's edition by Russell Thorndyke.

At tonight’s meeting of Central DF, at The Charterhouse, London, author Alan Humm will be talking about his novel The Sparkler, published in 2024. All welcome

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