The Imagination of Charles Dickens

Question: Which is your favorite Dickens novel? Answer: The last one you’ve read!

There’s no writer quite like Charles Dickens. He was once so beloved that readers waited for the latest installment of his serialized novels the way viewers would wait for the next episode of “Game of Thrones” and “The Sopranos” or how eager young Harry Potter fans anticipated the newest tale of his exploits.

Join author and humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson for a discussion of three Dickens novels: Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Nicholas Nickleby. (The first two are relatively short in length, and the third is, well, Dickensian in length.)

In a program that includes clips from superb film adaptations of these novels, Jenkinson offers the serious but playful look at Dickens you’ve always wanted—an exploration of the fabulous and fantastic imagination of a timeless author who could write English prose as if it were iambic pentameter poetry.

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