The transporting effects of plane reading, how not to adapt Dickens, and why I care only for novels
I rarely see anything on television or in the cinema as adventurous as what can be found in a book.
ByCharles Dickens
The BBC’s new Great Expectations is so bad it should be illegal
Steven Knight’s crass, sexed-up version of the novel strips it of all its humour and tenderness. Does he think he’s…
By
Dickens and his demons
How the novelist hid his cruel side – infidelity, bullying callousness, malice – in plain sight in his fiction.
By
Russell T Davies’ Nolly is more than melodrama – it’s a social history
The story of the Crossroads actress Noele Gordon (played by Helena Bonham-Carter) becomes a metaphor for something bigger.
By
Why Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is still so relevant
Really, the only things separating Bob Cratchit from the average 2022 Londoner are electricity and the fact he could afford…
By
AN Wilson: the assembly-line intellectual
The writer’s exasperating new memoir offers a full dinner service of clichés and an insight into the glib fogeyism of…
By
Deyan Sudjic Q&A: “Anybody who isn’t in a state of anxiety isn’t paying attention”
The design critic and curator on Charles Dickens, Roman London and why simple language is often best.
By