Services and Programmes

We Love Dickens

“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.” 
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.  

Image: Engraving of Charles Dickens by Daniel Maclise, from Nicholas Nickleby, 1839.

2012 is the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens. Visit this page during 2012 for information and events commemorating the bicentenary, in Cork City Libraries and abroad.

Next event:

• Win a €50 book token in our We Love Dickens Quiz, coming up in June. 
• An Appreciation of Charles Dickens, a lecture by Professor Nicholas Daly of UCD, 30 August. Details tbc.

The Books

• Books by Charles Dickens in Cork City Libraries
  Library Catalogue
• Biographies of Charles Dickens in Cork City Libraries
  Library Catalogue
• Film and TV adaptations available on DVD from Cork City Libraries
  Library Catalogue
• Free ebook versions of the works of Charles Dickens
  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/
  

Interested in finding out more? Visit these links:

• Dickens 2012 - the official UK page celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens
  http://www.dickens2012.org/ 
• Blog article on Charles Dickens' visit to Ireland in 1858
  http://blog.discoverireland.com/2011/12/charles-dickens-in-ireland/
• The Guardian - Charles Dickens at 200
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/charles-dickens-at-200 
• Why are we still reading Dickens? Article by Jon Michael Varese
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/sep/04/why-reading-dickens
• Claire Tomalin's five favourite Dickens
  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8855108/Claire-Tomalin-five-of-Dickenss-greatest-works.html

Charles Dickens and Cork

Charles Dickens visited Ireland in August 1858. Read a brief account of his visit in The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume II: 1857 - 1870. (Project Gutenberg ebook)

• Account of Dickens's readings in Cork from the Cork Constitution newspaper, 31 August 1858
  Dickens_in_Cork_report_from_Cork_Constitution_31August1858 (PDF file, 1.02 MB) 
• When Mr. Christmas Came To Cork, article by Jim Cooke from the Holly Bough 2004. Reproduced with permission from The Evening Echo.
  WhenMrChristmasCameToCork (PDF file 2.9 MB)
• The Athenaeum (old Cork Opera House) where Dickens read
  http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/mapsimages/corkphotographs/lawrencecollection/athenaeum/
• To read more about his visit to Cork, call in to the Local Studies Department at Cork City Libraries, Grand Parade to consult the following articles:
  List of articles on Dickens visit to Cork
• Article about Dickens' connection with Daniel Maclise
  http://www.dickenslive.com/Bios/maclise.htm
• Portrait of Dickens by Daniel Maclise in the National Portrait Gallery, London
  http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw01842/Charles-Dickens?LinkID=mp01294&role=sit&rNo=1
• Read about economic and social conditions in Cork during the Victorian era
  http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/history/historyofcorkcity/1700-1900/corkinthe19thcentury/
  
  

Five Dickens' Books You Must Read

Five Dickens' Books You Must Read by Paul Cussen, Cork City Libraries

Great Expectations
This is more than just the average bildungsroman. This is a story with so many intertwining stories but it’s told at a Victorian pace. I read it first when I was in secondary school when my dad thought it would be a good idea. I thought it was overly verbose and I missed a lot of the humour but I got the tragedy. Years later a colleague insisted that I read it again and he was right to do so. This is an astonishing piece of work. As usual with Dickens the characters are fantastic but the plot takes you and drives you right to the last paragraph. There are two different endings, depending on the edition that you get (Dickens changed the first ending because it was so depressing but it works. Of course it works, it’s Dickens).

David Copperfield
This is another bildungsroman but without so many twists and turns and without the convolution of Great Expectations. Cited by many as their favourite Dickens novel (Tolstoy for one), this is the story of David Copperfield who grows to become Trotwood Copperfield. As the protagonist he is an optimistic, diligent, and persevering character and the story is told from his perspective. Like Great Expectations the story is told in the first person but the wealth of characters in David Copperfield is extraordinary. Dickens himself listed as a favourite, what better recommendation could you ask for?

A Christmas Carol
This is short. Everybody knows the story but again Dickens’s characterisation is marvellous. Keeping the musical theme of the title the five chapters are called staves. Ebenezer Scrooge lives up to his name and the visits of his old partner Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come change him. The catharsis is experienced by the reader and perhaps one of the many reasons why this book has been popular since it was first published. There are numerous film versions, each entertaining but none as good as the book.

A Tale of Two Cities
This is the first book by Dickens that I read. Our old librarian used to give us books that she thought we should read and my goodness but she was sharp. This has also been adapted to film but the book is just brilliant. The book was written less than a century after the plot starts the story moves between Paris and London, starting before the French revolution and ending during the time of the Terror. Parallels are drawn between the condition of the poor in Paris before the revolution and those in London.  I feel that this is where Dickens is like Orwell except that Dickens isn’t so bleak. His fabulous characters show his belief in humanity.

Bleak House
Esther Summerson (like Pip in Great Expectations and David in David Copperfield) tells her story but there’s also an omniscient narrator in Bleak House. The story is simple but complicated by a rich array of wonderful characters. The story itself is the usual Dickensian tale of humanity and here too he also criticises the legal system (specifically the chancery system). The book has a different narrative structure to his other books but it is just as brilliant.