Spotted the rather run-down Great White Horse today in Ipswich. Features in The Pickwick Papers & Dickens himself stayed there. Photos are front entrance & shabby side door to the long-closed 'Nickleby's Restaurant' (1/2) #DickensianOnTour

Need a financial boost for your summer research plans? We can help! There's still time to apply for our second round of Microgrant funding, but applications close *THIS* Friday, May 15. Apply on our website (and NB: awards are up to $300 USD, not £50k 😉) rs4vp.org/awards/micro...

Still 3 more days to get your Dickens on Screen abstracts in! Deadline is Monday 11th - more info 👇

Despite knowing the unsavory details of his divorce, Francine Prose remains a Charles Dickens fan.

Just published! What an honor to be included alongside so many superb critics in this volume, which was so expertly conceived & edited by @denisoff.bsky.social. One funny thing abt collections is that sometimes you don’t get to read the other essays til it’s out—I can’t wait to learn from these. 🌿

A reminder that abstracts for the @dickenssociety.bsky.social Dickens on Screen online event are due in 7 days! 👇✍️🎦

One of my favourites (predictably?) from a recent visit to the new 'Isaac Israels' Europe' exhibition at the Kröller Müller Museum: 'Stock Exchange, London' (1913-14).

This May 4th, I’m very happy to launch the CFP for a major scholarly conference on Star Wars, which will take place at Durham University in 2027. Please share widely across your networks and indeed to anyone who might be interested! starwarsat50.webspace.durham.ac.uk

On Thursday I'll be doing a free talk on Mamie Dickens at the Charles Dickens Museum in London - you can book to come along in person or to watch online. dickensmuseum.com/blogs/all-ev...

📢 Don't forget to send your proposal by May 11th for our upcoming online event: Dickens on Screen! 🎥📆✍️🏻

Just spotted the BBC is doing a new Tale of Two Cities. Interesting choice, within the Dickens adaptation canon at least. Been a while since the last major one.

*Very* excited that vol.1 of New Directions in the Ghost Story, edited by myself, @henrybartholomew.bsky.social & @joanpassey.bsky.social is out! Well done to all the contributors, and thanks for bearing with us! :) Please recommend to your academic libraries! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

CFP: Dickens on Screen – Dickens Society Online Event, Saturday June 6th (Deadline: May 11th 2026) victorianist.wordpress.com/2026/04/20/c...

CFP: Dickens Day 2026 – ‘Dickens and Family’ (Deadline: Monday 15 June 2026) victorianist.wordpress.com/2026/04/17/c...

CFP: Dickens on Screen, Dickens Society Online Event (Abstract Deadline: 5/11/26) navsa.org/News/13624628

A chapter I wrote looking at adaptations of the Flood Story from an ecocritical perspective was published yesterday as part of this fascinating-looking collection edited by Pamela Demory, "Ecoadaptation: Mediating Nature and the Environment". link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

The thing about Victorian studies: you read the best of novels, you read the worst of novels. It is the subfield of wisdom, it is the subfield of foolishness…

To mark the centenary of the 1926 General Strike, Professor Michael Sanders @bronterre1.bsky.social will deliver an online talk on 20 May on the ‘Big Strike’ novels, exploring the works of Ellen Wilkinson and Elizabeth Gaskell. Find out more here: sslh.org.uk/2026/04/20/o...

The CFP for Dickens Day 2026 is live! We warmly invite proposals linked to this year’s theme of “Dickens and family” (both in his life and work). The deadline is 15 June, and the day itsef will be on Saturday 10 October at Senate House, London. All are welcome! www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Award: Literary Encyclopedia Research Awards (Deadline: 5/10/26) navsa.org/News/13622640

Mudie's Select Circulating Library lay at the heart of the Victorian publishing system. Karen Wade's site, now at a new URL, makes it possible to explore the library's catalogues as never before, with an index of 22,000 novels by 6000 authors. curatr.ucd.ie/mudies/ #victorian #bookhistory

Some exciting news: I'm organising an online event on the topic of Dickens on Screen for @dickenssociety.bsky.social! More info on the Society's website 👇. Abstracts of 100-200 words & short bio due by May 11th. The event itself will be on June 6th in the afternoon (East-coast US time).

Once again sharing our upcoming EHU19 PGR & ECR conference as the abstract deadline for 1st May is looming closer! We're very lucky to have @drclaireocall.bsky.social as keynote & running a journal workshop! Send any abstracts or queries to [email protected] ✨️ @ehunineteen.bsky.social

My new (and first) book, The Drunkard in Victorian Fiction and Culture is out in May with @edinburghup.bsky.social. You can now pre-order which is pretty cool. Even cooler is that you can get 30% off with this flyer/code. Recommend to your university library if you think it will be of interest. 🍷

Absolutely thrilled to share the programme for the study day that I am co-organising on the "Critical Age" in Victorian Popular Fiction. Registration link in the comments. All welcome @vpfa.bsky.social @bavs-uk.bsky.social @cncsi.bsky.social

While registration for AAS 2026 at Burman U 🇨🇦 remains ongoing, applications & expressions of interest to host AAS 2027 are now open! Reach out to us here or our Board chairs @cbkenkar.bsky.social & @stinaface.bsky.social to learn more.

Contracts are signed, so I can announce my next book: *Arthur Conan Doyle*, in Liverpool UP's Writers and Their Work series. Or: Southsea resident writes about Southsea resident.

Are you looking for an online global book history festival that features work on ancient through contemporary textual cultures? Look no further! Registration is open now! events.zoom.us/ev/Ap9iEZwmC...

My Other Bennet Sister (p)review has made it to the Edge Hill University website - I stand by its cute framing now the series has ended! I cheered at the final shot of Mary’s conduct book! 🥳

To have carved on the days of our vanity A sun A ship A star A cornstalk Also a few marks From an ancient forgotten time A child may read… —“A Work for Poets”: the final #poem of George Mackay Brown (1921–1996) who died #OTD, 13 April in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon 2021) birlinn.co.uk/product/carv...

Don't forget to register for the upcoming QAQV lecture! Mary Carr – Who Was She Really? Fact, Adaptation & Fictionalities of a Female Victorian Gang Leader A lecture by Emma Woodhouse 🗓 23 April | ⏰ 19:00 CEST | 💻 Zoom Register: qaqv.ia.uw.edu.pl/for-us/

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com #manosphere

Very excited about reading Susanne Kuhlendahl's Orlando: A Graphic Novel, which I picked up serendipitously while browsing on a recent trip to the American Book Center in Amsterdam.

Much better breaking news indeed!

Odds that the Manchester tech bros who created this autonomous AI agent have read any Elizabeth Gaskell?

CFP: The Inaugural International Women’s Writing Association Conference 17- 19th June Falmouth University womenswritingassociation.com The IWWA will elevate & analyse women’s voices & creative practices across a wide range of disciplines, time periods, and texts. @womenswritingassoc.bsky.social

A new special issue of VP on material conditions is out & it’s a banger. It considers what it looks like to interrogate the protocols whereby intellectual production’s insides are quarantined from their constitutive outsides in conversation with Victorian poetry. muse.jhu.edu/issue/56685

If anyone needs an update: it grew on me. And there are a few more Dickensian easter eggs as the series progresses.

The brand new journal ‘Advances in Nineteenth-Century Research’ from @incsa.bsky.social is now LIVE! See here for my editorial which introduces the Forums section, for which I’m the section editor: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Delighted to see my chapter within the newly published Routledge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell. Really proud of how this piece came together with Lizzie and Rebecca's excellent guidance (it's not about trees, for once), & now looking forward to reading the other chapters in the collection.

Come and join the chatter on *The Victorian Short Story: Influence, Innovation and Legacy*, a free Online Study Day by the Victorian Popular Fiction Association Friday 17th – Saturday 18th April Keynote Speakers: Dr Jen Baker, and Dr Victoria Margree victorianpopularfiction.org/the-victoria...

You can get 30% discount on *Theatrical Afterlives: Nineteenth-Century Women’s Novels on the Stage* if you order it directly from global.oup.com/academic/pro... Use the promo code AUFLY30 at checkout! ✨

Designed to look like books, these ceramic objects are actually flasks or hand warmers. They are thought to have been filled with hot water or coal to warm the hands of the wearer on a cold winter's day. They functioned as a sort of ceramic hot water bottle. The perfect gift for book lovers!

Really enjoyed this thought-provoking piece. I grew up in a town with a popular Ghost Tour; although in Stratford a lot of it was unsurprisingly Shakespeare-themed, I'm struck that the guide dressed up in Victorian (rather than 'Shakespearean') attire, which reflects a contextual point made here.

Applications for the 206/27 round of the C19 Matters Fellowship @ljmuofficial.bsky.social are now open! Details and benefits below and here: victorianist.wordpress.com/2026/03/27/n.... Deadline Monday 11 May 2026; please share widely! @bars.bsky.social @bavs-uk.bsky.social @drhorrocks.bsky.social

Anyone else out there watching or watched season 2 of The Artful Dodger? I'm about half-way through, & while it's still entertaining with likeable performances, it's not quite grabbing me like the first one (& is definitely more neo-Victorian than Dickensian this time).

Our 'clue' was clearly rubbish, because nearly everyone guessed it immediately. You can all stop asking, because we're finally doing it--William Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' (1848)!!! Join us for the two-part adventures of Becky Sharp in a few weeks. BOTH episodes will drop the same day: 15 April.

CFP deadline this week for our Brontë Studies special issue on Poetry - the abstracts are starting to flock in - still time to send in yours!

Digital publication day! 🎉 I'm very proud of this little book on a difficult subject, one I take very much to heart (as I try to do with all my work, but especially this one). Gothic Dementia is free to download until April 12th! www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Great news & a much-needed 'Companion'! Can't wait to get my hands on this. 🥳