The life and work of Dickens is regularly celebrated in festivals and outdoor activities around the world. In 2012, Dickens-themed activities are expected to bring together millions of people worldwide with new events and special editions of key annual festivals being staged to mark the bicentenary. In addition, the year of the bicentenary will see new long-lasting commemorative initiatives including exciting legacy projects and heritage trails.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.
A word in earnest is as good as a speech.
Injustice breeds injustice
Accidents will occur in the best regulated families
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some
The sun does not shine upon this fair earth to meet frowning eyes, depend upon it.
Treachery don't come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy,--they do, thank God!
Festivals & Outdoor
What the Dickens! Super Saturday
Discover what it was like to grow up in Victorian times and how Dickens’s own childhood had an impact on his writing, all at the Museum of Wigan Life
aBOut Dickens festival in Bologna
Year-long festival in the Italian city starting with a literary and musical tribute to Dickens’s characters and novels
25 Feb 2012
Museum of London Docklands, West India Quay, Canary Wharf, E14 4AL
Using Victorian photos and prints, discover the difference between the Docklands of Dickens's time and the Docklands we know today. Use simple paper techniques, folding, cutting and collage to make a clever pop-up picture of Victorian Docklands. 5+
12.30-1.30pm & 1.30-2.30pm
FREE
Discover what it was like to grow up in Victorian times and find out how Dickens’s own childhood had an impact on his writing. Dress up as Victorian child, play with Victorian toys and make your own toy to take home. There will also be photographs of Victorian Wigan and Leigh to see and workhouse artefacts to handle. Telephone: 01942 828128. FREE, no need to book. Suitable for families and all ages. Some activities may have a small charge. 11am-2.30pm.
Victorian Trinkets at the Museum of London
27 Feb 2012 - 28 Feb 2012
Museum of London, London Wall & Docklands
Creative workshop for children aged 2-5 years and their carers.
Tue 27 Dec, 11-11.30am, 12-12.30pm & 2-2.30pm (Docklands)
Wed 28 Dec, 11-11.30am, 12-12.30pm & 2-2.30pm (London Wall)
FREE
In celebration of Charles Dickens’s bicentenary, question categories will include Victorian London, Dickens on film and a music round. Participants can enter as a team (max 6 members) or as an individual to make up a team on the night. Doors open 6:30 pm, a glass of wine and light refreshments will be provided. Join staff in Victorian dress (optional) and win a prize for the best costume! Entry forms available early January. Entry is free but booking is essential. This event is part of the City of London's programme of events to celebrate Dickens.
What was it like to be Charles Dickens? His letters are the nearest we can get to an autobiography: vivid close-up snapshots of a life lived at maximum intensity. Dickens was a man with ten times the energy of ordinary mortals and he threw himself into letter-writing as he did into everything else, He claimed to write 'at the least, a dozen a day'. They were an outlet for his high spirits and sparkling wit.
Discuss with author Ruth Richardson the story, plot and characters of 'Oliver Twist' and discover along the way how Dickens was influenced by the characters and places that surrounded him when he wrote it.
Paul Schlicke, an internationally renowned Dickens scholar, celebrates 200 years since the birth of one of Britain's most popular authors. He draws together an unparalleled diversity of information on one of Britain's greatest writers, covering his life and work, He throws new and often unexpected light on the most familiar of Dickens's works, and explores the experiences, events, and literature which influenced him.
Charles Dickens was 'brimful of letters' as he told a friend. He wrote some 14,000 of them. To celebrate his bicentenary, Jenny Hartley, Professor of Literature at Roehampton University has chosen some 450 of them which give the best essence of the Dickens.
Author Ruth Richardson about Charles Dickens at the Sunday Timex Oxford Literary Festival
25 Mar 2012
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, Oxford (UK)
Historian Ruth Richardson talks to BBC arts editor Will Gompertz about her new book on the discovery that, as a young man, Dickens lived only yards away from a major London workhouse. The discovery made headlines and led to a campaign to save the workhouse from demolition. Richardson, affiliated scholar in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, and visiting professor in humanities, Hong Kong University, did a lot of the detective work on the workhouse. She tells the story of the find and reveals how important the two periods spent living in this area of London were for Dickens’s writing career.
Looking for Dickens? Come to Nnw England and discover 'Dickens in Lowell', a seven-month celebration of Dickens’s bicentenary and his transformative 1842 visit to Massachusetts and America. Sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the Lowell National Historical Park, it features over 75 performances, speakers, family programs, and a major exhibition, 'Dickens and Massachusetts: A Tale of Power and Transformation'. Together, they add up to the largest Dickens celebration in New England. Come to Lowell and see for yourself why Dickens called it the “most pleasant day” he spent in America.
