The Enid Blyton Society

I was reading TV Tropes page on "Too Good For This Sinful Earth" and it talked about the reaction to Dickens' Little Nell.

People offering their own children to save a fictional character??

I'm not familiar with the story, but that sounds a very strange idea? MInd you, people have been known to take for fact the fate of some fictitious characters in TV soaps.

Indeed - just look at the reaction to Grace Archer's "death" in the Archers.

Goodness! I remember the night it happened. It was a Youth Club night and we were all listeners to The Archers. There was certainly a sombre mood that night.

I remember the enormous public interest in the Ken, Deirdre and Mike "triangle" on Coronation Street in 1982-83. The episode in which Deirdre ended her affair coincided with a big football match at Old Trafford, and Deirdre's decision was announced on the scoreboard!

Many of Charles Dickens' stories were serialised in popular magazines, so they were like (shorter) soap operas in that readers waited with bated breath for the next installment, fully involved with the characters and eager to know what happened next.

In a similar vein, in terms of a publishing phenomenon, there was also:-

Antoine Galland (April 4, 1646 – February 17, 1715) a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of One Thousand and One Nights. His version of the tales appeared in twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717.

This was a publishing sensation too, with people clamouring in the streets of Paris to hear the latest stories. Pirate versions came out whilst he was still publishing his own series, and continued right through the 18th century. I've got a British, pirated version from somewhere around 1797.

At this time of year, there's one particular Dickens classic that naturally comes up for reading or watching on the screen or in the theatre... it's definitely one of my favourite Christmas stories ever. I was just reading this very interesting article on what moved Dickens to write A Christmas Carol and why it still resonates with readers today: A Christmas Carol: What was it that upset Charles Dickens?

The article mentions the Christmas exhibition that's currently on at the Charles Dickens Museum in London — might have to see if I can get there some time soon!

Split from another topic.

Still ploughing through Nicholas Nickleby. If ever a book needed abridging, that is it!

Strangely I also had trouble with this one. The beginning and ending were great but it seriously flagged in the middle. I remember ploughing on out of sheer stubbornness thinking that as it was a Dickens it must be good! Keep going Nigel it does pick up soon.

I find Dickens incredibly tedious. yeah - I'm a pleb, I know!

the only Dickens books I've ever read all the way through are A Christmas Carol - which I've read several times, and A Cricket On The Hearth.

I tried The Old Curiosity Shop but found it incredibly slow-going. I can't imagine reading them as they were serialised originally! I really would have lost track of the plot!

My favourite Dickens novel is David Copperfield, which I've read four or five times. I also found Nicholas Nickleby a bit of an ordeal but I did enjoy The Old Curiosity Shop.

I'm a big Dickens fan. My favourite novel is Great Expectations, followed by David Copperfield and Bleak House.

i'll have to give them another try. I must admit I enjoy the film and Tv adaptations of Great Expectations - probably my favourite of them all, so perhaps I'll enjoy the book.

Well, I love Nicholas Nickleby, but I saw the stage adaptation first.

The Old Curiosity Shop many people consider not to be a successful novel. I think I agree with Thackery that the scenes with Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness are much more interesting than the parts about Little Nell.

The Old Curiosity Shop isn't one of my favourite Dickens books but I was fascinated to come across this building while wandering around Holborn:

http://www.londontown.com/LondonInforma ... Shop/6740/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It was built in 1567 and may or may not have inspired the shop in Charles Dickens' book (some say it was renamed after the novel came out - though the shop might still have been the inspiration) but Dickens lived in nearby Bloomsbury and is known to have visited it. It now sells upmarket shoes and you have to ring a bell to go in. I must admit I had no intention of buying any shoes but I was dying to see inside. Since there was a bottle of Curiosity Cola on display in one of the windows, I thought I'd ring the bell to ask if they sold the cola. It turned out that they didn't, but the shopkeeper let me go inside (as you might imagine, it's a dimly-lit place with wooden beams, creaking floorboards and two narrow, twisting staircases) and I bought a badge which had a picture of the shop.