Judy’s Comments (group member since Sep 22, 2012)

Judy’s comments from the Completists' Club group.

Have read just a few of this huge list! I remember loving 'I'll Take You There' and also liked 'The Falls' - must agree with Paul that 'We Were the Mulvaneys' was a disappointment, and I also didn't like 'Rape: A Love Story'.

I'm tempted by 'Blonde' and have 'Mother, Missing' (presumably the UK title for 'Missing Mom') waiting on my shelf, so may give that a try soon. I don't think I could imagine trying to read the complete works of this author, though!

Teresa wrote: "She was first married to Wilkie Collins' brother, who was also an artist, right?"

Yes, that's right - I'm not very far into the biography, by Dickens' descendant Lucinda Hawksley, as yet as I'm reading too many books at once, but it's interesting so far, though unfortunately it doesn't have proper footnotes.

Teresa wrote: "I tend toward the 'darker side', so my least favorite is probably "Pickwick." And then "Nickleby." Though there are parts of both, of course, that I think are great."

I tend towards the darker side too, but I love 'Pickwick' - and although it is so sunny and humorous most of the time there are some dark sections, like the part in the Fleet prison. 'Nickleby' isn't one of my favourites either, but I do love Fanny Squeers and the actors. Must agree that 'Our Mutual Friend' is great!

I'm just reading a biography of his daughter Katey at the moment - she was an artist and a model for the pre-Raphaelites. Interesting to find out more about her.

Thanks, MJ! I love Dickens writing in the first person, so 'David Copperfield', 'Great Expectations' and 'Bleak House' are all favourites for me - I also love 'Edwin Drood' because it is so wonderfully dark, and 'A Tale of Two Cities'.

I suppose my least favourites out of the novels are probably 'Barnaby Rudge' and 'The Old Curiosity Shop', which both seem rather patchy, though, having said that, there are some great patches.

Just joined after spotting that Teresa had done so - great idea for a group. I've always had completist tendencies, I suppose, and remember reading all of Keats' poetry as a teenager. Victorian writers are some of my favourites and I've read all the novels and short stories by both Dickens and Anthony Trollope as well as various other works. Charlotte Bronte is another favourite but I don't think I could bear to read all her juvenilia. I've read all Thomas Hardy's novels and stories too, as well as his complete poems, but still need to read his poetic play 'The Dynasts' - other writers from this era that I'd love to complete reading include Robert Browning, Thackeray and Gaskell. Also Mark Twain, but the size of his newly-printed autobiography is pretty daunting. Moving on the the 1920s/30s, I've read quite a few of Winifred Holtby's novels in the last couple of years and would love to complete the set for her too.

Out of more modern authors, I've read all of Anne Tyler and Kazuo Ishiguro's novels - and I'd like to do the same for Graham Greene and Colm Toibin, and there must be others.

One problem for me being a completist is that I'm an inveterate re-reader - I find I often have to read a book at least twice to take it in properly!

Thanks, Teresa - you are too kind, I'm blushing. I was lucky that my local library had the complete letters so it was easy to get hold of them. I must get on and read some more of those Hesperus books now.

I've just joined this group... fancy meeting you here, Teresa! ;) Dickens is an author where it is very difficult to read everything, even though I've loved him since I was ten years old and am now in my 50s. I've read all his novels (let's be honest, I've read all of them at least three or four times and some of them, like Edwin Drood, so many times I've lost count!) and all 12 volumes of the Pilgrim Letters, all four volumes of collected journalism, plus a book of uncollected journalism, the Christmas books, the collected Christmas stories, his two travel books, various collaborations and all the other short stories I've come across.

But there is still more I haven't got to yet, including the memoirs of the clown Joseph Grimaldi which he edited/rewrote, plus some plays that I haven't got to yet, and I'm pretty sure there are more short stories and journalism. I also haven't as yet read all the Hesperus reprints of the Christmas numbers of his magazines - I have read a couple so far and appreciate having the list of these, as I think they may contain more Dickens stories that aren't in the collected Christmas Stories published by Chapman and Hall, as well as the stories by other writers which are interesting to read too.

One of Dickens's collaborations with Wilkie Collins isn't on the list above - 'No Thoroughfare', which is a good short novel. I think it's quite easy to tell which sections are by which author, but their styles do go well together. 'A Child's History of England' and 'The Life of Our Lord' are a couple more works which spring to mind - both are probably for completists only, but then again that is the point of this group!