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Books | The Guardian ([info]theguardianbook) wrote,
@ 2020-05-26 12:29:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Reading group: which book by Charles Dickens should we read in June?

A century and a half since he died, his protocinematic storytelling retains its power to take readers out of themselves. Please help choose one for us to enjoy together

This June marks 150 years since Charles Dickens died. Like so many of his characters, he left the world in tragic and unusual circumstances, having suffered a stroke after undertaking a mammoth series of lectures. (He delivered 87 around the UK in less than a year.) His final words were “On the ground”, perhaps a response to a suggestion that the exhausted writer should lie down. But there’s considerable controversy about where those words were spoken. The public were told that he died in his country home at Gads Hill Place in Kent, but Claire Tomalin, one of his most recent biographers, claims that he actually died at his mistress’s house in Peckham, and his stiffening corpse had to be shipped back to Kent to protect the secrecy of his extramarital arrangements.

Dickens, in short, was a fascinating man up to and including his very last moment. And I’ve been looking for an excuse to revisit him on the reading group ever since 2012, when we had the joy of reading Bleak House. I’ve also been wanting to read one of his books more than ever since the lockdown began. There are few better distractions or sources of solace in art. And his works are available for free on Project Gutenberg, which helps as the lockdown continues in many parts of the world.

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