The Mystery of Edwin Drood: We Will Never Know Because It's Unfinished

It's taken me more than ten years, but I've finally finished all the major works of Charles Dickens. I had put off reading his unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, because I suspected I'd be frustrated with only half the story. I'm not going to lie, I was absolutely correct, but if you're a Dickens fan it's still worth reading.

Published serially in 1870, Drood is the story of a young engaged couple, the eponymous Edwin, and Rosa Bud. Both orphans, they have been betrothed since children by their parents, who were friends and partners. However, Edwin and Rosa don't really love one another. At the beginning of the novel, Edwin is introduced to a brother and sister, Neville and Helena Landless, who are studying in the town of Cloisterham, where Rosa is attending school. Neville finds himself attracted to Rosa, and Edwin is attracted to Rosa. Neville is also offended that Edwin treats Rosa in an offhand manner, and after several drinks, heated words are exchanged. Neville thus gets a reputation as a hothead with a grudge. 

The two seem to make it up on Christmas Eve, but the following day, Edwin is nowhere to be found. Naturally, suspicion falls on Neville. Eventually, Edwin's watch, chain, and shirt pin are found in a river, but no body. (There is also a pointed reference to a quicklime pit). After several months, Rosa gets a visit from Edwin's creepy uncle Jasper, the Cloisterham choirmaster (and a secret opium addict). He confesses that he's been desperately in love with her for years. Rosa is naturally revulsed and flees to London, to her guardian, Mr. Grewgious, and meets up with the Landlesses again. We also meet some other characters who may or may not be private detectives or spies -- but that's pretty much it. Dickens only wrote half the novel before he suffered a stroke in June of 1870 (after working a full day on Drood). He never regained consciousness and there is no written outline of the story; however, Dickens had discussed the novel with various people so it is generally believed that (highlight for spoiler) Uncle Jasper is indeed the murderer.

Having read many mysteries, (including Dickens' masterpiece Bleak House, one of my all-time favorite novels) I had my own suspicions about the real murderer. Since the fragment was published there have been various film and TV adaptations, most recently in 2012, and a musical. 

Clearly, this is Rosa cowering in in revulsion from Uncle Jasper.

I really liked this story, though it had been some time since I'd read Dickens, I'd forgotten how different his writing style is to Trollope and Hardy. He definitely tends toward more flowery descriptions and over-the-top, eccentric side characters (with particularly descriptive names); and as usual, the young ingenue Rosa has essentially no personality except she's so pretty, men fall in love with her at the drop of a hat (except Edwin, of course). Written just a few years after Our Mutual Friend, I'm sure this would have been among my favorite Dickens novels if it had been finished -- I felt like the story was just starting to get really good when it was sadly over. I'm not sure how the TV adaptations conclude the story but I've requested the 2012 miniseries from the library.

I was thinking about counting this as my Classic Crime novel for the Back to the Classics challenge -- my final category for the challenge. However, I'm a little torn because I don't know how the story is resolved or if there's a crime at all -- what if Edwin just took off or got hit on the head and is supposed to reappear at the end with amnesia? Or if it was just an accident? Bloggers, what do you think? 

Charles Dickens Doesn't Think Much of Italy

A few years ago when I was especially enamored of Dickens, I bought nearly every one of his books I could get my hands on, including his lesser-known nonfiction. I'd been meaning to read Pictures from Italy for several years and since I recently took a vacation in Tuscany, it seemed like the perfect time to read it.

Well, yes and no. I was really hoping it would be a delightful travelogue, and it really isn't. To put it bluntly, it's not a very flattering portrait of Italy. Dickens seems rather fixated on darker, more grotesque aspects. Though he does love some of the historical sites like the Colosseum, he repeatedly describes the darker side of Italy, gleefully describing a tour of a fortress where people were tortured during the Inquisition; several descriptions of cemeteries with mass graves where poor people are buried, and I think there's even an execution. It's almost as if he's reveling in the squalor of the seamier side of Italy. Occasionally, he does describe the beautiful landscape and architecture, but over and over, it's pretty negative. Dickens wasn't too impressed with the Italian people either, mostly describing them as beggars or cheats. It's also pretty clear he didn't think much of Catholicism. 

Basically, I feel like Dickens was showing all his British readers how edgy and daring he was, showing the seamier side of traveling to a poorer country. Characters in Victorian novels often mention that they might move to the continent, where the living is cheaper, and it's also common for them to honeymoon in Italy or take the Grand Tour. It sounds very exciting to me as a 21st century Yank but there's nothing glamorous about this book. I found it to be mostly unflattering and often quite condescending, and it was disconcerting to read this while actually on holiday in Italy, where I had a wonderful time with excellent food and very nice people.

View of Florence from the Boboli Gardens. What's not to love, Dickens?

One wonders why he spent so much time in Italy if wasn't enjoying it! Unfortunately, I couldn't find my print copy with the annotations which I can only assume give more insight to this publication and its reception -- I think it must have been left behind during the big move last year (I ended up reading the electronic version, which was so much more convenient for traveling.) Dickens also published an account of his travels in America, American Notes for General Circulation. I can only imagine the reception it received across the pond, and I don't see myself rushing to track down a copy!

I'm counting this as my Italian read for the European Reading Challenge, and as my Dickens read for the Victorian Reading Challenge.

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

After nearly two months, I've finally completed The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.   For the past few years, I've been trying to work my way through all of Dickens' novels.  This is the penultimate novel on my list; now, I'm only missing The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  

For those who don't know, this is a picaresque tale about Mr. Moses Pickwick, a financially comfortable gentlemen of a certain age, and his three friends (Tupman, Winkle, and Snodgrass) and their adventures and misadventures as they travel around England in the 1820s.  Along the way, Pickwick hires a young manservant, Sam Weller, who in my opinion is the real star of the novel -- frankly, I wish the book was entirely about Sam. 

Published in 1837, it is Charles Dickens' first novel, which began as loosely related comic stories.  Originally, they publishers wanted them written to accompany illustrations of hunting sketches in a monthly magazine.  The stories began to evolve and eventually became a more cohesive novel.  It's interesting to see the transition from vignettes to an actual narrative story with a plot, but honestly, the first third or so were kind of a slog.  After about 200 pages it really began to pick up, but I was tempted a few times to just give up altogether.

I was glad I stuck with it, because it really is worth reading.  Comic characters and caricatures are really Dickens' strength -- this is all the funny bits of Dickens, without the melodrama and the drippy ingenues.  There are some truly hilarious parts in this novel.  Pickwick and his friends get into all kinds of scrapes, and it takes the quick-thinking, streetwise Sam to get them out of trouble.  Apparently Pickwick and Sam are sort of a British version of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.  

Pickwick took a lot longer to complete than I expected.  I listened to nearly all of it on audiobook, and at one point, I had to take a break, because it was starting to drag.  The first third kind of meandered, though there were a few bright moments.  This is one of the few classics on my to-read list that the library owns on audiobook, and it's 25 discs, more than 32 hours total.  My commute to work is about 15 minutes, so unless I go out for lunch or have to drive to another library branch for a meeting, it takes me almost three days to get through a single disc.  Also, I took a break for about a week to listen to Mary Poppins.  (I did read other books in print -- during the time it took me to listen to this audiobook, I finished reading about twelve other novels.  I'm not joking.)

One thing I didn't care much for was the occasional digressions Dickens takes into stories and tales told within the novel, which really just seemed like filler.  I don't know if Dickens was close to his deadline and needed more words, or if they were actually part of the original plan, but some of them really dragged.  The only one I really liked was Chapter 29, "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton," which I found interesting because it seemed like an early version of A Christmas Carol.

There are also hints of future Dickens in the narrative, including long-term residents of debtors' prison, like in Little Dorrit, plus the biting satire of the court system in Bleak House.  Dickens also gets some good digs about lawyers.  I'm glad I finished it, but because it's sort of uneven, I don't think I'd count it among my favorite Dickens works -- it's definitely above Hard Times and Dombey and Son but not nearly as good as Oliver Twist and Bleak House.

I'm counting this as my Very Long Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

I'm nearly finished reading the entire Dickens canon.  For some reason, I'd kept putting off The Old Curiosity Shop, his fourth novel.  Something about the story just didn't interest me (though I did manage to get through Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, and Dombey and Son).  The story of angelic Little Nell just didn't appeal.  

However, a couple of months ago, I signed up for the fourth round of the Classics Spin, and somehow I was convinced I'd end up with Dickens.  I actually was assigned Zola (woo hoo!) but since my library had just purchased an audiobook of The Old Curiosity Shop I decided to give it a try, and I'm so glad I did; it's a classic early Dickens, with some of his best characters.  I do agree that my initial assessment of Nell was pretty spot-on, but it's worth putting up her just because the rest of it is really good.  

So, basically, it's the story of Little Nell, a pure and beautiful golden-haired child, who's about twelve or thirteen, and her grandfather, who owns The Old Curiosity Shop.  Grandfather (whose name is never actually revealed) is not so good with money and is massively indebted to the horrible, evil Daniel Quilp, one of Dickens' most vile creations.  Nell also has an older brother, Frank Trent, who is convinced the old man has pots of money stashed away.  Frank decides to get his hands on the money by persuading his friend Dick Swiveled to marry Nell in a few years, so they can both profit.  However, Grandfather has a deep dark secret, and after Quilp comes to collect, he and Nell escape in the middle of the night.  The pair make their way around the countryside just a few steps ahead of the nasty Quilp, who wants his revenge on Grandfather and to get his nasty hands on Nell as well.  

Meanwhile, back in London, Nell's best friend and worshipper, the good-hearted Christopher Nubbins, also known as Kit, is now unemployed.  He was Grandfather's helper and errand boy, but Gramps and Nell have done a runner and Quilp's taken possession of the shop.  He finds work with the good-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Garland, and later, he and Mr. Garland get involved in the search for Nell by a mysterious stranger.  

Despite my intense dislike of the sickly-sweet Nell, I really did like this book.  Nearly all the other characters are far more interesting and well-developed -- Quilp is deliciously evil, his wife is a sniveling, abused whiner.  There's Quilp's lawyer and minion, the obsequious Sampson Brass, and his sister, the tough-as-nails Sally.  My favorite character was Dick Swiveller, a ne'er-do-well buddy of Nell's horrible gold-digging brother, Frank Trent.  Originally Dick comes on the scene as Frank's sidekick, but he becomes a key figure in the story after Quilp gets him a job as law clerk to Sampson and Sally, the better to manipulate everyone.  Dick's relationship with Sally's downtrodden servant was my favorite part of the book.

But that Nell!!!  Ugh!   Once again, Dickens has created a perfect, angelic wet blanket of an ingenue.  She is so dull as to be completely devoid of personality, other than her Good Qualities.  The story seems to come to a screeching halt when she's in the picture.   She is just so boring, I was constantly tempted to fast-forward through the audiobook and skip her portions.  I couldn't wait to find out what was happening to everyone else.

I listened mostly to the Naxos audiobook version, which is brilliantly narrated by Anton Lesser.  This is by far one of the BEST audiobook narrations I've ever heard -- Lesser created such wonderful, distinct voices for all the characters.  He made the funny parts funnier and the creepy parts scarier.  I was tempted to read the book when I wasn't in the car, but I didn't want to miss any of his performance, so I ended up taking longer to finish the book than I anticipated.  It was absolutely worth it though, and I would listen to just about anything he read.

So -- now I only have two more of Dickens' works until I've finished the whole list -- The Pickwick Papers and The Mystery of Edwin Drood -- his first and last works.  Which one should I read first?  And should I bother with the nonfiction as well?  I still have Sketches by Boz and Pictures of Italy on my shelves.

Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin

Last year was the bicentenary of Dickens' birth, and there were a slew of books published about Dickens -- I can't remember how many I added to my to-read list, but still haven't read (I did celebrate Dickens by completing three of his works in 2012:  Martin Chuzzlewit, Our Mutual Friend, and Barnaby Rudge.)

I bought this book just after Christmas, but kept avoiding it.  Big fat nonfiction books tend to scare me, which is a little stupid.  Some of my favorite reads last year were nonfiction, and one of my favorites was a biography, Becoming Queen Victoria by Kate Williams.  However, I realized it was available in audiobook format, and last year I submitted it to the "Suggest A Purchase" feature on the library's website.  They did buy it, and after months of waiting, it finally arrived in January.

I really, really enjoyed this book -- I used to think biographies were dry and boring, but either I was reading the wrong books, or they've gotten much better lately.  This was fascinating stuff.  I knew the basics about Dickens' life from bits and pieces I'd picked up after reading his books, but to learn about his life from start to finish was quite fascinating.  Of course, many readers know now that he was forced to work in a blacking factory as a child after his father was sent to debtor's prison, the inspiration for his favorite novel, David Copperfield.

I loved learning about Dickens, and having read most of the novels, it was interesting to place them into the context of his life.   Though I've enjoyed most of his books, and absolutely love some of them, I learned some things about him that I didn't like very much.  He was a complicated person.  His childhood was difficult, his father was terrible with money, and even though Dickens seemed to work tirelessly, he was constantly faced with demands for financial support from his father, his brothers, and his own children, most of whom were not terribly successful.

Dickens definitely had faults -- his now-famous liaison with a much-younger actress Nelly Ternan is pretty scandalous, and it seems like he was pretty cruel to his wife, and sometimes his children.  But Tomalin obviously did amazing research and puts it all together in a way that's easy to follow.  Just reading his handwriting alone is a triumph -- I've seen some Dickens' original letters and manuscripts in exhibits, and he's nearly indecipherable.

I think listening to something challenging makes it a little bit easier.  For me, it's a little less intimidating if I start with an audio of a book that scares me.  I can take it in bits and pieces, and then I'm not as scared to tackle the print copy.  In this case, I listened to it a little bit every day while driving to and from work in the car, and I really enjoyed it.  I always try to have an audiobook in the car because the radio here in my city is just dreadful.  (I like NPR but I can't listen to the news too much because I find it too depressing).   Also, I usually have a print copy so I can read the book at home (and sometimes a second library copy at work) -- otherwise I'd sit in the driveway listening!   However, then I find it takes me forever to find my place in the audio when I get back in the car.  This time I resisted because I was really enjoying the audio version.  I listened to almost the entire book, except when I got to the end of the three-week checkout period and I couldn't renew it because there were holds on it.

Anyway, I was sorry when it ended and now I want to read lots more biographies, more books about Dickens, and most importantly, I'm determined to finish the rest of Dickens' novels.  I have three left:
The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  Which one should I read next?  Which other books about Dickens are must-reads?  And how do you feel about audiobooks?

Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

Well.  It's been more than a month since I posted anything -- I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I've just been busy, work and travel and the Jane Austen Society Annual General Meeting, which was fabulous.  I've really been wondering if I need to give up blogging for awhile.  But fear not, I have been reading!

Before I give up on blogging, I need to make a case for Barnaby Rudge, probably Dickens' most least-popular work -- yes, less popular even than Martin Chuzzlewit or Dombey and Son, both of which I've read in the past two years.  It's a shame really, because after I finally gave it my full attention, I actually liked BR better than the other two.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Barnaby Rudge was published in 1841, just after The Old Curiosity Shop (one of the most popular) and before Chuzzlewit, one of the least popular.  Dickens was inspired by the works of Sir Walter Scott to write a sweeping historical story -- his only other historical work is A Tale of Two Cities, and I can definitely see in BR glimmers of the great writing to come.  Barnaby Rudge is "A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty," but it's not just a historical novel.  It's about fathers and sons, a double murder, two feuding families, divided lovers, an abduction, even a talking raven -- tons of great stuff, right?

The real Grip the Raven, Dickens' pet, now on view at the Free Library of Philadelphia

It starts out in 1775, in a small village about ten miles or so from London, and much of the action centers around a inn called The Maypole.  John Willet is the proprietor and his son Joe is much-maligned and dissatisfied; there's also another unhappy father and son, the rich and sleazy Mr. Chester and his noble son Edward.  Edward is in love with the local beauty, Emma Haredale, but a long-time feud between the Chesters and the Haredales threatens to separate them forever.  Also, Emma's father was murdered years before under mysterious circumstances, along with his faithful steward Mr. Rudge, father of the eponymous Barnaby, the local village simpleton with a heart of gold, who owns a talking raven, Grip.  We also meet another family, the Vardens.  Gabriel Varden is a locksmith with a shrewish wife, a beautiful, coquettish daughter Dolly; a scheming apprentice, Simon Tappertit; and a shrieking maidservant, Miggs, who provides most of the comic relief.

The first half of the book sets up all these different characters and gives some back story, along with a mysterious stranger.  Then, about halfway through the novel, the action jumps forward in time five years, to the beginning of the "No Popery" riots of 1780, also known as the Gordon Riots, which I'm sorry to say I knew nothing about.  My sincere apologies to any British readers, but is this a subject that anyone ever learned in school?  My shoddy Yank education regarding the 18th century was much more centered on the American Revolution.

If you didn't know either, the Gordon Riots were a backlash against Catholics, that culminated in anti-Catholic mob violence and riots, including a mob of at least 40,000 that marched on Parliament in June of 1780.  Churches, embassy, and prisons were burned, including Newgate.  (If you want to read more about it, click here).

I really think that's one reason Barnaby Rudge isn't popular -- honestly, a lot of people know enough about the French Revolution and the guillotine to make ATOTC a much more compelling subject.  And Barnaby Rudge is a terrible name, right up there with Martin Chuzzlewit.  I know Dickens has a talent for giving his characters goofy names to reflect their personalities, but surely he could have come up with something better!  Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and even Edwin Drood have mystery, romance, or some other interesting qualities to entice readers.

My biggest problem with this novel is how it shifts.  The first half sets up the mystery and the characters -- there are so many, it's confusing and there really isn't that much development of any of them -- and then -- ta-da!!!  The story jumps forward in time five years, to just before the Gordon Riots, and we get very little information about what's happened to most of the characters.

Don't get me wrong, the part about the riots and the mobs are extremely well-written, and I was riveted -- and I'm normally bored by big action scenes.  Dickens is really good at describing the mobs and the violence, and it's pretty scary.  But I really wanted more about the characters, and the story itself was kind of all over the place.  After the riots, things wrap up very quickly, and I just felt it was uneven.  Having read most of the Dickens canon, I can see hints of all the great stuff to follow -- Bleak House is a great murder mystery, and so many of his later novels have complex plots and multiple characters, plus there's all the great history in A Tale of Two Cities.  (Barnaby Rudge even has a little shout-out to Oliver Twist, with mention of a pick-pockets' gang).

Anyway.  I'm really glad I finished Rudge;  I'm nearing the end of my quest to complete all the works of Dickens -- only three left to go of the major works:  The Old Curiosity Shop, The Pickwick Papers, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Has anyone else read Barnaby Rudge?  What did you think?  Am I crazy to want to complete all of Charles Dickens' works?

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

Welcome to my first post of A Victorian Celebration, hosted by Allie of A Literary Odyssey!   I hope you'll visit her website to see all the Victorians people are reading this summer.  I have a lot of Victorians to read and review, so I'm very excited about it.  I'll be posting all summer long and I'll even be hosting a giveaway of my own, so stay tuned.

On to my book review!  I'm slowly working my way through the novels of Charles Dickens, and with Our Mutual Friend I have finished eleven of his fourteen major completed novels.   It's the last novel Dickens completed before his death, and I was worried it wouldn't hold up to some of my other favorites.  To my delight, OMF is now among my favorites.

Without too many details for fear of spoilers, here's the setup of the novel:

One evening, a man named Gaffer and his daughter Lizzie are out on a boat on the Thames River, when they find a dead body.  Gaffer makes his living basically scrounging whatever he can find floating in the river (frequently, it turns out, from drowning victims).  It turns out this particular dead man is John Harmon, the heir to an enormous fortune.  Harmon had just returned from abroad to claim his inheritance, which came with the strict stipulation that he marry a particular young lady chosen by his father, and whom he had never met.  Instead, the inheritance now goes to Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, faithful servants to the wealthy Mr. Harmon, who made his fortune from garbage heaps.

Now that the Boffins are newly wealthy, a host of people with questionable motives start to circle like vultures, trying to get a piece of their wealth, including Mr. Wegg, a poet who is paid to read to Mr. Boffin; Mr. Rokesmith, his new secretary; and Bella Wilfer, the young lady who was the bride-to-be, now not quite a widow.   It also explores the murder of Harmon and the intertwining fates of the Gaffer family, who become linked with the Boffins and the mysterious case.  This book also includes romance, humor, and satire.

Like Martin Chuzzlewit, much of the plot is based on people's greed, though it's a very different story.  Like Bleak House, it's a murder mystery.  Typically for Dickens, the characters are a mix of the grotesque, the comic, and the angelic ingenues -- this time, there are three young ladies eligible for the part of Dickens' heroine, though I found two of the three much less irritating than Dickens' typical saintly young ladies.  I did end up loving several of the characters, and couldn't wait to find out what happened to them next.  I was lucky enough to get the Naxos audiobook version of this from my library, and listened to quite a bit of it in the car on the way to and from work.  However, I got so caught up in the story I also had a print copy going as well, because some days I just couldn't wait to find out what happened next.

I really enjoyed this novel, though like Dickens' later works, it does have a lot of intertwining plots and characters to keep track of -- at one point I started a list, and I think I lost count at about 40 characters.  There were a few side plots I didn't care much about, but I do believe if I knew more about English politics and history I would have appreciated them more -- they were mostly political satire about the workings of Parliament.

Years ago, in college, I passed up a chance to take a course on Dickens in favor of Tolstoy, simply because of the reading load -- I think there were three or four novels for Dickens, and when I added up the pages it was more than 2000 pages for an eleven week class (we were on quarters).  In the Tolstoy class, it was about 1300 pages for War and Peace and that was pretty much it.   I'd never read any Dickens and was so overwhelmed I chickened out and registered for Tolstoy instead.  I liked War and Peace but I'll always regret not taking Dickens when I had the chance.  

Well, I'm making up for it now.  I loved Our Mutual Friend, and it's now one of my favorite Dickens novels.  I only need to read three more before I've finished them all -- The Pickwick Papers; The Old Curiosity Shop; and Barnaby Rudge.  Then I'm going to read The Mystery of Edwin Drood and I'll have completed them all!

Classics Challenge: April Prompt

This month the April prompt for the Classics Challenge is to discuss book covers of classic novels.  Cover art is always fun, especially since there are so many editions of classic novels available.  I'm actually sort of in between classics at the moment -- I've just started reading Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, just about 20 pages in, so I can't say for sure yet whether the book accurately reflects the story or the characters.

Anyhow, there's quite a few choices available.  First, here's the edition I'm currently reading:

It doesn't tell us much about the story, but the pile of coins is intriguing -- it's about greed and inheritance, so it does tie in nicely with the book's themes.  I know a lot of people swear by Penguins but I'm very fond of Modern Library.  The print isn't too tiny and the pages are really nice and smooth, plus they're not enormously fat. The endnotes are usually good too.  I bought my copy at Borders a couple of years ago, before they went belly-up.

And here's the always-reliable Penguin classic edition:

The book starts out with a Thames boatman finding a body.  The moonlight and the eerie purple light make me think there's something creepy going on here, but doesn't give away too much.  Nice.

Lately I've been reading more Oxford World's Classics.  Their Zola editions are especially good, but I haven't read any of their Dickens editions.  Here's their edition of OMF:

It doesn't really tell me a lot -- I assume she's the standard Dickens ingenue, angelic, one-dimensional, and boring, though she does look a little worried.  She's pretty well dressed, so maybe she's in love with the financially struggling hero (I'm just assuming since I haven't discovered who the hero is yet, but the ingenue is nearly always in love with a guy who's having money problems.)

But this one by Wordsworth Classics is worse:

Who is this girl?  Is she the mutual friend of the title?  And what is she wearing?  Pretty sexy for a Victorian heroine with the bare shoulders -- doesn't strike me as the least bit accurate.  And the grey background is weird.  I've read a few Wordsworth Classics, they're not my favorite.

But finally, here's something much nicer by Vintage:

Vintage has come out with some really nice book covers for classics the last few years.  I especially like their editions of books by Elizabeth Gaskell.  This doesn't really give us much about the story but it's a really nice photo.  If I saw this in the store I would definitely pick it up and read the back cover, but sadly, that's unlikely since there's only one major bookstore in my town these days, and Our Mutual Friend is too obscure for them to carry on the shelves without a special order.  If I wanted this edition I'd have to order it online.  Of course, if I was shopping online, I might buy this copy just because the cover is so nice.  I don't think Vintage has endnotes or any introductions, however.  But if I was purchasing solely because of the cover image, this might be the winner.

Any other great covers I've missed?  What's your favorite classic book cover?  Not just Dickens, but any classic?

My Top 10 Victorians

In my last posting about Dickens miscellany, Anbolyn mentioned in the comments that I should read Our Mutual Friend next because the brilliant author Sarah Waters' included it in her top 10 Victorian novels list.  Well, if you've read this blog, you know how much I love lists, so I had to compile my own Top 10 Victorians list!   I think I've reviewed nearly all of these since I started blogging in 2009.  They're ranked, but really close together, since I love them all.

1.  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte .  The first Victorian I ever loved, so it has to be on the list.  I reread it again last year in preparation for the newest movie adaptation, and I still loved it.  There's something to be said for a novel that you love in your teens and again years later.

2.  Bleak House -- by far my favorite Dickens novel.  It has everything -- satire, comedy, melodrama, mystery, murder, and one of the first detectives in English literature.  It's a doorstop, but so worth it.

3.  Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope.  The second in the delightful Barsetshire Chronicles.   It showcases  the best of Trollope's delightful arch humor, a comedy of manners in a country parsonage.  But do take the time to read The Warden first;  it's a little slow, but it's short, and Barchester makes more sense if you read them in order.

4.  Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell.  The basis of one of my favorite BBC miniseries ever, just the thing when you've finished all of Jane Austen and are in mourning because she only wrote six novels.  Also includes one of my favorite lines:  "I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn't me."  Priceless!  

5.  The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope.   Another Victorian doorstopper, but fascinating.  It's an extremely timely tale of boom and bust in the Victorian era, with a very familiar Madoff-like character.  It's 100 chapters, but an amazingly fast read.  

6.  Three Men in a Boat  by Jerome K. Jerome.  A very funny picaresque novel in which not much happens.  Imagine if Bertie Wooster went on a boat trip with two equally clueless friends, but left Jeeves behind and took a fox terrier instead.  A lot of digressions and amusing observations on life.  I've read it and listened to it on audio multiple time and it still cracks me up.  

7.  Middlemarch by George Eliot.  It's a little dry at first, but the last 700 pages are really good.  Does that sound strange?  A great story about several families in a country village -- sounds a little like Jane Austen but it also includes social commentary about the status of women, politics, hypocrisy, religion and a whole lot more.  Closer to Trollope than Austen.  

8.  Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.  It has all of Dickens' trademark melodrama and it's a great introduction to his early writing. Also fairly short if you have Fear of Dickens.

9.  The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.  A great page-turner of a thriller, one of the first murder-mysteries in English literature.  It's a Victorian sensation novel, but so much more.

10.  Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.  It's not great literature by any means, but a great page-turning story.  It set the standard for the Victorian sensation novel and has never gone out of print.

Well bloggers, what do you think?  Are any of these on your favorite lists?  Which ones make you want to scream and throw the book across the room?  Which Victorians are your favorites?

Dickens Miscellany

After finishing Martin Chuzzlewit in a burst of reading energy last week, I'm worn out.  I need to start working on Zola for an online book discussion I'm leading, and I've now renewed Framley Parsonage TWICE from the library, so I need to get moving on that too.  But here are a few bits about Dickens that I forgot to include last week.

Thanks to Elaine

First of all, many thanks to Elaine of Random Jottings!  I was the winner of her Dickens Letters Prize Draw, which absolutely made my day.  Many apologies for not mentioning it before.  And do visit her delightful blog (which includes lots of related posts, about Dickens, gardens and tons of other fun stuff.)  Can't wait to read this!

My current Dickens rankings.

Now that I've finished Chuzzlewit, I need to look back at all my Dickens reads and re-rank them.  The top has remained unchanged:

Gillian Anderson as Lady Deadlock in Bleak House

1.  Bleak House
2.  Oliver Twist
3.  Great Expectations

The middle four now includes my latest read.  These are in no particular order, all pretty good, but not my favorites for various reasons:  

• David Copperfield
• Little Dorrit
• Nicholas Nickleby
• A Tale of Two Cities

The bottom:

9.  Dombey and Son -- not terrible, but seemed really, really padded.  Could have used some serious good editing.

And at the very bottom. . . .

10.  Hard Times.  Just dreadful.  Preachy, characters unlikeable, nothing funny or interesting about it.  It's the shortest work because all the good stuff was left out.  Of course by comparison, everything else Dickens wrote is pretty good or just plain wonderful.

And for a little bit of Dickens amusement. . . . Doctor Who meets Charles Dickens!

This is the only clip I could find on YouTube.  It's #5 of these top 9th doctor moments, a clip from "The Unquiet Dead" in which Rose and the Doctor go back to Victorian London and meet Charles Dickens.  Fast-forward to about 5:45 for the first meeting with Charles Dickens.  At about 6:40 the Doctor makes a wisecrack about Martin Chuzzlewit that I find really amusing.

Finally . . . which Dickens should I read next?

Now I have six more works by Dickens to complete the oeuvre.  I'm going to take a break, but which Dickens should I read next?  I have four left on the TBR shelf, so I'd like to choose from one of those.  Here are the choices:

• Sketches by Boz
• The Old Curiosity Shop
• Our Mutual Friend
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood

I'm leaning toward Edwin Drood, because the BBC adaptation is showing here in the States pretty soon, plus I also have a copy of Dan Simmons' Drood on the TBR shelf, and I want to read the original first.   Bloggers, what do you think?  

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Well, I have finally finished this nearly 800-page doorstopper, and I have to say I am darn proud of myself -- especially since I finished the last 400 pages in just about a week.  Dickens sometimes takes awhile to get started, but once the story got rolling, I needed to finish it.  I have now finished ten of the sixteen major works by Charles Dickens.  Six more to go!

After struggling for weeks with the beginning of this book, it finally started to pick up and got interesting.  However, the title of this book is very misleading.  There are actually two Martin Chuzzlewits, and neither of them is really the main character.  Basically, it's a book about greed, and selfishness, and loyalty, be it to friends or family.  It's also about how terrible situations bring out the best and the worst in people.  There are funny characters, and grotesques, and the typical Victorian tropes of misunderstandings and unbelievable coincidences.  And it all ends up pretty well, though some people are much happier than others.

I'm not sure why this book is so obscure among the Dickens canon -- it's kind of uneven but it turned out to be a very enjoyable read.  Having read several Dickens now, I can see that it contains elements of both the earlier and the later novels -- it's picaresque like Nicholas Nickelby, yet it also has the beginnings of the multiple storylines of Little Dorrit and Bleak House.  I would categorize it as a transitional novel.

Other than the very slow start to this book (it took nearly 200 pages for something interesting to happen) my biggest quibble with this book is the title.  It's named after Martin Chuzzlewit, but honestly, Martin's part isn't even that big, especially when you compare it to the other Dickens works with eponymous titles.  Oliver Twist and David Copperfield?  Makes perfect sense -- these are the main characters and all the action revolves around them.  Little Dorrit?  Well, she's a little more peripheral to the story, but I guess I can agree with that one.  I haven't read Barnaby Rudge or The Mystery of Edwin Drood yet, so I can't comment on those.  But Martin Chuzzlewit is a terrible name for a book.   I suppose one could make the case that it's really about Martin the elder, whose appearance sets all the book's action in motion, since he arrives and gets all the relatives jockeying for position to see if they're going to get a get a piece of his estate in the event of his death.  Really, he's hardly in the book at all.

And Martin the younger leaves for America, but he doesn't really get that much time in the book either.  There's a lot more time spent on his faithful friend Tom Pinch, his nasty cousin Jonas Chuzzlewit, and the Pecksniff family, and what happens to them back in England during Martin's absence.  It's a good book and the plot and characters turned out to be interesting, but I personally think he could have come up with a better title.

When I begin to think about it, Dickens' other titles aren't all that interesting either.  Great Expectations?  A Tale of Two Cities?  Bleak House is my favorite, and Dombey and Son has great irony, but overall I think Trollope did a better job naming his books.  You can't beat Can You Forgive Her? and He Knew He Was Right, or my personal favorite, Is He Popenjoy?  (What the heck does that mean?)  I still haven't read any of these titles, but they intrigue me. Yet they sit waiting patiently on the to-read shelf while I'm still trying to finish the major works of Charles Dickens.

This book also counts towards three of my challenges:  The Victorian Challenge; The Classics Challenge; and the Chunkster Challenge.

The Classics Challenge: February Prompt

Mr. Pecksniff and Old Martin Chuzzlewit

This month's Classics Challenge Prompt is to write about characters.  I'm currently attempting to read Martin Chuzzlewit, one of Charles Dickens' lesser known novels.  It wasn't my first choice for Dickens but one of my online groups is reading it and it was on the TBR shelf, so I decided to give it a shot.

I've read about 150 pages so far and unfortunately not much is happening -- I don't even know enough about any particular character to really write about, so I'll give a bit about each one, as well as I can remember.   Dickens tends to throw a lot of different characters and situations at the reader in the first parts of his books; eventually, everything will tie up together somehow and all will be revealed.  Well, sort of.

Right now there are a lot of unpleasant characters, and a lot of them are named Chuzzlewit.  There are in fact two Martin Chuzzlewits in the story, Martin the elder and Martin the younger.  Martin the elder is a cantankerous old man with a lot of money, and an incomplete will.  He's traveling with a young woman Mary who is some kind of ward, when he appears to fall ill.  Suddenly the relatives appear out of the woodwork, to kiss up and try and ingratiate themselves.  They all show up at the inn where Martin is staying and start arguing amongst themselves.  It's kind of like a contest to see which one is the most revolting and annoying.

Meanwhile, another Chuzzlewit shows up in the vicinity, unbeknownst to the other relatives.  He's Martin the younger, a grandson who has fallen out of favor with Martin the elder.   By a complete and utter coincidence -- lots of these in Dickens novels -- young Martin has just arrived in the village to study architecture with his cousin, Mr. Pecksniff.  Like his name implies, Pecksniff is an annoying character, very full of himself, scheming, and hypocritical.  He has two unmarried daughters and is hoping to marry one of them off to Martin.  It also appears that he's going to get Martin to do all his work, then take all the credit.  I anticipate lots of horrible behavior from him based on his name alone -- Dickens is brilliant at giving vile characters such appropriate names!

The character I like best so far is Tom Pinch, who works for the Pecksniffs.  I'm not exactly sure what he does.  He seems to be an all-around helper, definitely some sort of servant, and the Pecksniffs are very condescending to him.  However, he's kind to young Martin and seems generally good-hearted.  Because he's nice, I predict that something terrible will happen to him before the book is out.

This post probably doesn't exactly fit the parameters of this month's prompt -- it's taken Dickens so long to introduce all these characters and set the scene, and as much as I love him, he is so very awfully wordy.  His descriptions are great and sometimes very funny, but doggone it, I really wish something would happen already!

Bloggers, have any of you read Martin Chuzzlewit?  Does it get better?  It's not terrible so far but I'm just not excited about it yet.

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Austen vs. Dickens: two of my favorite British authors.  It was a tough choice, but I've finished all of Austen, so I chose Dickens this time around -- nothing against my beloved Jane, but I'm trying to work my way through the Dickens canon.  For this edition of the Classics Circuit, I'm reading my tenth Dickens novel:  Dombey and Son. 

(Crickets chirping).

Yes, Dombey and Son : one of Charles Dickens' classic novels. . . . the one that nobody's ever heard of! Because, honestly, nobody ever reads it anymore!  Compared to Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and even my beloved Bleak House, Dombey and Son is one of Charles Dickens' least read works.  Even Hard Times is more popular.  I suspect people read Hard Times because it's Dickens' shortest novel, though I personally think it is the least good of his novels.  My library system -- which includes more than 1 million items --  does not own a single copy of this book.  Not one!  Along with Martin Chuzzlewit (the one where the main character goes to America) and Barnaby Rudge (the one about "the Riots of 'Eighty"), Dombey and Son belongs to the trio of works which are probably only read by the hard-core Dickens fans.  

Anyhow, for those of you who are not familiar with the story, here is the setup, without spoilers.  The novel begins with Mr. Dombey (the father), holding his new baby (the eponymous son); sadly, his wife is dying in childbirth. (Mr. Dombey's sister explains it's all the wife's fault, "because she wouldn't rally" -- i.e., she didn't have the character not to die.  Riiiight.)  Dombey has another child, a daughter,  named Florence, about whom he could not care less; his hopes and dreams are all pinned on his son Paul, who will grow up and take over the family business. Mr. Dombey is some sort of business magnate, so little Paul has some big shoes to fill.  

Needless to say, things do not work out as planned regarding his big plans for his beloved son.  I don't want to give anything major away, but basically, this novel is about Mr. Dombey's relationship (or the lack thereof) with poor Florence, who essentially fills the role of the orphan in this novel.  As you may remember, there's an orphan in every Dickens novel, or someone who is had a terrible childhood without loving parents, if you haven't noticed this already.  

Apparently, this is Dickens' attempt at a feminist novel, though I wouldn't say he's really promoting the rights of women as far as work or property are concerned.  Poor little Florence is rejected by her father at every opportunity, and it seems like he goes out of his way to get rid of anyone who might show her affection, because he's aware of what a jerk he is and he doesn't want anyone else to show him up.  Dickens does make a point about the sad lot of marriageable women.  [Mild spoiler alert!]  

For example:  Mr. Dombey is looking for a second wife and he's courting a beautiful widow, Edith, whose mother is one seriously manipulative gold-digger.  The fact that Edith and Mr. Dombey don't really love each other is irrelevent.  Edith has spent her life looking for husbands and not for love, and she blames her mother:

"What childhood did you ever leave to me?  I was a woman -- artful, designing, mercenary, laying snares for men -- before I knew myself, or you, or even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I learnt. . . . There is no slave in a market: there is no horse in a fair: so shown and offered and examined and paraded, Mother, as I have been, for ten shameful years," cried Edith, with a burning brown, and the same bitter emphasis on the word.

As usual, Dickens fills this book with minor subplots and eccentric side characters, which sometimes disappear for hundreds of pages at a time.  I really wanted to like this book (which I admit I haven't finished; I have about 250 pages to go), but I don't think this is going to rank near the top with my favorites.  I'm finding it terribly uneven -- some parts are just great, and I could easily read eighty or a hundred pages in a day, and some parts dragged glacially.  I found the parts about the wretched Mr. Dombey to be just depressing and rather boring.  Dickens seems to go out of his way to show that Dombey is a cold, heartless, bastard, but after a while it got tiresome. Things really perked up when the fun supporting characters were in the picture, but I've always found them to be Dickens' best writing.   I haven't given up on the book yet -- I'll stick with it to the end and see if it gets better.  Florence may be one of Dickens' typical ingenues, but I do find myself caring about whether or not her story is going to have a happy ending. 

UPDATE:  I did finish the novel, and the ending was extremely satisfying, so I'm really happy that I read it.  I wouldn't rate this novel in the same tier as Bleak House or Oliver Twist, but it's still a good read and worth sticking with if you're a Dickens fan -- if you're new to Dickens you might try another one first.  But it's still a good book overall.

Upcoming Classics Circuit: Austen vs. Dickens!

In honor of the upcoming Classics Circuit duel, I'm posing the question to all my friends in the blogsophere:  Who is your favorite 19th century author, Jane Austen or Charles Dickens?    On the one hand, we have the beloved Ms. Austen, whose works include spunky heroine in domestic situations, looking for love (sometimes in the wrong places).  Her works have inspired countless sequels, prequels, alternate versions, and lots of movie and TV adaptations.  Dickens' works are some of the most popular in publishing history.  Which would you choose?

Honestly, I don't know if I can decide.  As a lifetime member of JASNA (the Jane Austen Society of North America) I should automatically go with Jane.  Lizzie!  Darcy!  Anne Elliot!  Regency costumes!  I've already made my hotel reservation for the 2011 JASNA meeting this October, which is hosted right here in Texas!

But on the other hand, Dickens created some of the most memorable characters in literary history.  Seriously, who doesn't know the most famous line in Oliver Twist: "Please, sir, I want some more."  And A Tale of Two Cities:   "It was the best of times, it was the worst of time."  And Bleak House, one of my favorite novels (and favorite TV miniseries) of all time.  It has everything -- romance, satire, mystery, social commentary.  And Inspector Bucket, possibly the first police detective in English literature.   And I am determined to go to the annual Dickens on the Strand in Galveston in December.

As much as I love Jane Austen (except for modern sequels), I think I'm going to go with Dickens for my Classics Circuit choice.  I've been wanting to read Dombey and Son for several years, so this is my first choice.  Of course I have about six other unread Dickens works on the TBR shelves.  Even though some of them are shorter, I decided it was better to go with a longer book that I want to read, rather than a shorter book, just because I feel I ought to read it.

If you want to participate in the Dueling Authors Classics Circuit tour, sign up here through Tuesday, April 19.  The link has lots of information about the authors and many of their works.  I look forward to reading all the posts!

Final Comments on Bleak House and My Favorite Dickens Novels

I have finished Bleak House -- all 28 discs of the audio version, alternating with nearly 1000 pages of the print version.  We're nearly finished with the eight-week readalong, and again, I'd like to thank Amanda for organizing this -- it's nice to see so many participants.  I know not everyone is as big a Dickens fan as I am, so I'm especially impressed with the bloggers that have stuck with it this far, considering the length.  It's a big reading commitment, especially if you're not enjoying it.  I did enjoy this just as much this time around as my previous read, and even more than my multiple viewings of the excellent BBC adaptation.  If you're intrigued by the story but put off by the length of the book, please, do yourself a favor and watch this -- believe me, you will be hooked.  It may even inspire you to attempt reading it.

I'm not even going to attempt to recap the plot thus far -- it would take too long and include far too many spoilers.  I love Bleak House because of the memorable characters, the fascinating, twisty plot, the great cliffhangers, and the brilliant way in which Dickens ties everything together while including social commentary, mystery, humor, tragedy, and romance.  Seriously, this book has everything.  It will remain one of my favorite books of all time.  If I was going into outer space for a year and could only bring ten books with me, this would be one of them.

Like Bleak House, most of Dickens' works are a commitment.  They are long.  His prose is flowery and sometimes challenging.  His plots can be labyrinthine.  Some of his characters (especially the women) can be irritating.  I also find that he's elitist -- good characters, even if they are criminals, are usually nice looking and come to a happy end, and they are usually well-born, even if they are miserable orphans and don't realize they are From a Good Family.  Many of the poor, unhappy characters are uneducated, unloved, and unattractive, and they suffer sad fates.  Those that are not rarely rise above their station.

However, this does not deter me, because Dickens is really and truly worth it.  I read my first Dickens work, Great Expectations, back in college and then basically ignored his oeuvre until 2007, when I read A Tale of Two Cities with an online classics group.  It wasn't until I watched the BBC miniseries adaptation of Bleak House that I was seriously hooked on Dickens.  I've now read about half of his major works.  I'm ranking them below in order of preference.

Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock

1.  Bleak House.  Still my favorite.  Maybe it was the miniseries, but I am captivated by the tragic story of the Jarndyce court case.  The lives of the Jarndyce heirs are intertwined with the heroine, Esther Summerson, as well as the mysterious Lady Dedlock.  This book has everything -- romance, blackmail, murder, the brilliant Inspector Bucket (the first detective in English fiction!) and a host of side characters that are both grotesque and charming.

2.  Oliver Twist.  The quintessential Dickens orphan.  By now, the trope of the Poor Orphan is a little hackneyed, but little Oliver manages to survive the workhouse and a gang of thieves and still be sweet and saintly.  Also one of Dickens' shorter works, so it's a great starting point for the Dickens novice.

3.  Great Expectations.  My first Dickens, read in my last semester of college.  I took a fifth class, Introduction to Fiction, on a whim.  I can't remember any of the other books we read except this one.  I was sure I'd hate it but I was blown away, it was so enjoyable!  It contains some of Dickens' most memorable characters -- Pip, the hero; his kindly but hapless stepbrother Joe, and his shrew of a sister.

4/5.  Little Dorrit and David Copperfield -- tied for fourth place.  Copperfield started out so well, vying with Bleak House for my favorite, but the middle gets really slow, and the story doesn't seem to go anywhere.  And David's True Love Dora is one of his most annoying ingenues EVER, so it slips in the ranking.  Little Dorrit has a lot of the colorful characters for which Dickens is famous, but somehow the story isn't quite as enchanting.  Young Amy Dorrit was born and raised in the Marshalsea Prison, where her father has spent years imprisoned for debts.  Dickens was pointing out the injustice of this vicious cycle.  The hero, Arthur Clennam, is trying to help the Dorrits and falls in love with Amy.

6.  A Tale of Two Cities.  This one gets big points for being fairly short, and also for having the BOTH the best first line and the best last line in a book EVER.  Lots of great books have great first lines, but to have both is pretty impressive.  Also, one of the best female villains, Madame DeFarge.  However, points are taken away because, once again, Lucie Manette, the beautiful ingenue, is so boooring.  Why is everyone so in love with her?  Apparently Dickens believes that since she is young, innocent and pretty, no character development is therefore necessary. Snore.

7.  Nicholas Nickleby.  Poor Nicholas has to get a teaching job at a terrible school to support his widowed mother and sister, and along the way he has some adventures.  It was okay, but the characters didn't appeal to me nearly as much as those in Bleak House, Oliver Twist, or even Great Expectations.

8/9.  Hard Times and A Christmas Carol.  Bleah.  They're short, but I just don't see the appeal.  Hard Times is often read in schools because it's one of Dickens shortest works -- because he left out all the good stuff!  Seriously, I cannot recall a single element of this book that I liked, or a single interesting character.  It seems like Dickens had a novel all planned out and hadn't added any of the funny and/or grotesque side characters, but he was in a rush to publish something so he just handed it off to the publisher.  A huge disappointment.

And A Christmas Carol -- it's so popular, and I've seen so many adaptations -- there's even a Disney adaptation with Mickey Mouse and Scrooge McDuck.   When I finally got around to reading it, I didn't see what the big deal was.  I suppose I would have enjoyed it more if a TV version hadn't scared the crap out of me when I was about six or seven.  (What was my mother thinking, letting me watch this?  I was so scared of the Ghost of Christmas Future I slept under the bed for a week).  I finally got around to reading it a few years ago and was seriously underwhelmed.

So, now that I'm nearly finished with Bleak House I have to think about which Dickens to read next.  My top choices are Martin Chuzzlewith, Dombey and Son, and Our Mutual Friend.  Bloggers, have you read any of these?  Which one should I read next?  I'd love to hear your comments and also your thoughts about other Dickens novels.