What is your earliest memory of Charles Dickens? Tell us about it here.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I think watching a story of his enacted is a great way in, Curt. After all, Charles Dickens knew and employed the pulling power of the theatre very well :)

[Sean]

Decades ago I was dating a French student who was reading English literature, and while I was waiting for her outside the lecture theatre I picked up an article, by some bloke called Boz apparently, who was writing about people visiting a pawn brokers (The Pawnbroker’s Shop), and the article was fascinating. Imagine my embarrassment at being told (by a French student, you understand?) that Boz was in fact Dickens - luckily it was my final year, because I would otherwise have definitely failed my exams, I don’t recall reading anything but Dickens for about 2yrs after that intro

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

LOL Sean - that's hilarious! It must be among the best "first introductions" ... yet there must be a time when each of us suddenly became aware they were the same person ;)

Thanks for sharing it :)

[Nancy]

My earliest memory isn't as refined as many of these replies. Mine was watching a cartoon about Scrooge, with Mr. Magoo, voiced by Jim Backus.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Hi Nancy.

Actually several people have said that they first became aware of Charles Dickens through watching a cartoon of A Christmas Carol! Either that, or a film. (I don't know the version you mention, but have definitely heard of it!)

I think it's wonderful that some friends have such early - and positive - memories of enjoying "The Inimitable"'s works :)

[Kathleen]

Nancy wrote: "My earliest memory isn't as refined as many of these replies. Mine was watching a cartoon about Scrooge, with Mr. Magoo, voiced by Jim Backus."

Yes, yes, yes! I was enjoying reading through all of these memories, thinking I'd be the only one whose first Dickens exposure was Mr. Magoo! Oh, how I loved that cartoon--still my favorite version. Still call it razzleberry dressing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Grp...

After that it was Little Women's Pickwick club, then lots of Christmas Carol movies (I love them all, but maybe the Alastair Sim one best because Patrick Macnee is in it).

So by the time I read any of his books, Dickens was already a legend to me. :-)

[Greg]

Kathleen wrote: "Yes, yes, yes! I was enjoying reading through all of these memories, thinking I'd be the only one whose first Dickens exposure was Mr. Magoo! Oh, how I loved that cartoon--still my favorite version. Still call it razzleberry dressing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Grp... ..."

Kathleen and Nancy, I still love that version with Mr Magoo. It has a surprising amount of heart! Ron and I watch it almost every year, along with the Muppets Christmas Carol of course! :)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I love this, Kathleen! I like the film of A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim as Scrooge the best too :) Who did Patrick Macnee play though? Was it the young relative?

I also like the version with Patrick Stewart. Not long now until I'll watch these again :)

[Kathleen]

Greg: I'm so happy to hear that you and Ron enjoy this one too! I thought it might be all but forgotten, but I'm glad it lives on.

Jean: Patrick Macnee plays Jacob Marley when he's young, when he and Scrooge are Fezziwig's apprentices. It's not a big part. :-)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Ooooh - I'll look out for him this time. I always think of him with a bowler hat and brolley (in "The Avengers"), but Victorian dress would suit him too :)

[Sara]

Alastair Sim's version is also my favorite, although I'm game for watching Patrick Stewart or George C. Scott. The Magoo is adorable and I remember it but haven't watched it in years. I'll make a point to do that this year.

[Curt]

My earliest memory of Dickens' stories would be a TV rendition of A Christmas Carol. I later became aware of Dickens' writings in high school. As a teacher, I taught A Tale of Two Cities.
Now I write Dickensian mystery tales where Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit, with the help of a pickpocket, solve dangerous mysteries - always with honoring Dickens' legacy.
Wish me luck.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Of course we do Curt! You've mentioned your books a couple of times before actually.

It's gratifying that so many of us remember watching a dramatisation of A Christmas Carol as children. I hope you'll join in with out Christmas reads ... the first is ongoing, and you will get a notification about the next. Then in January we will begin Bleak House. It would be lovely to have you along :)

[Curt]

Hey, Jean.
I'm having a ball writing. I will join in on Bleak House for sure. It's one of my favorites. Blessings.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

That's brilliant news, Curt :)

And thank you.

[Benjamin]

For me, it was either Mickey's Christmas Carol or the musical Oliver. Both of which came before I was 5 years old for certain. By the time I was a teenager, I had seen several interpretations of A Christmas Carol. Pretty sure it was in my early teens I first read A Christmas Carol for myself. I've read it dozens of times since, recorded it on soundcloud 3 years ago, performed it live on zoom calls last year, and recorded an extended version this year (17 hours vs. 3).
It was in my early twenties I started reading his other works. I think there's only a couple I haven't now read, but either Great Expectations or A Tale of Two Cities was the second full work of his that I read.

[Benjamin]

Petra wrote: "Robin, I haven't seen the Muppet version and am now intrigued......singing vegetables, you say? LOL!"

Robin P wrote: "In some ways, I think the Muppet version is closest to Dickens' whole story, even with 2 Marleys and singing vegetables!"
In my top 3 favorites.
Scrooge (Albert Finney)
and Patrick Stewart's are the other 2.

[Paul]

My first memory of Dickens was being forced to read A TALE OF TWO CITIES in a Grade 10 English class. Boy, did I hate it big time! So much so, in fact, that I refused to even consider the possibility of reading any Dickens at all until I was past the age of 50. Then, for some reason - and I have no idea what that reason might have been - I tried NICHOLAS NICKLEBY and BARNABY RUDGE, and loved them both. After trying several other Dickens' novels I finally mustered up the courage to try A TALE OF TWO CITIES again to discover, to my shock, that it was absolutely fabulous. Go figure!

[Sue]

It’s been so long since I saw the Muppets Christmas Carol. I know I loved it. I definitely would love to see it again.

[Daniela]

The one with Michael Caine? I think you can find it on Disney+.

[Sue]

Ah! Another subscription I don’t have.

[Greg]

Sue wrote: "Ah! Another subscription I don’t have."

I have the DVD Sue for Muppets CC - old school, I know. :)

Actually I have a whole box of Christmas DVDs we watch repeatedly on the season. Muppets CC and Magoo CC are just two of them.

[Rosemarie]

Paul wrote: "My first memory of Dickens was being forced to read A TALE OF TWO CITIES in a Grade 10 English class. Boy, did I hate it big time! So much so, in fact, that I refused to even consider the possibili..."

I wasn't a big fan of A Tale of Two Cities in high school either. It's amazing how much more enjoyable it is when you reread it years later.

[Sue]

I should check with my niece to see if she has the dvd.

[Katy]

Benjamin wrote: "Petra wrote: "Robin, I haven't seen the Muppet version and am now intrigued......singing vegetables, you say? LOL!"

Robin P wrote: "In some ways, I think the Muppet version is closest to Dickens' ..."

I just finished watching Scrooge with Albert Finney for the first time yesterday. Loved it.

[Rosemarie]

Scrooge has some great songs, including "Thank you very much!"

[Katy]

Yes, I especially like that song also.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I'm loving all these :) So many come to Charles Dickens through dramatisations - or rediscover his words for themselves later in life :)

And I have never seen the Muppets Christmas Carol :D

[Werner]

Jean wrote: "And I have never seen the Muppets Christmas Carol :D "

I never have either! :-)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Wow :O

[Curt]

This is interesting that dramatizations got us hooked. Thus, the value of a well-done film or series. To be inspired is one of the great reasons to read great literature.
Not just fast-paced writings of today's authors, but gritty, deep literature. There is the treasure.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

When I was small, there used to be black and white dramatisations of the classics on TV at 5pm on Sundays. (BBC, as that's the only channel there was.) I think they probably did quite a few novels by Charles Dickens. The bits that have survived now look impossibly stagey and set-bound, but we thought they were marvellous.

One bit, near the end of Great Expectations, gave me nightmares for weeks, it was so powerful.

[Katy]

Jean, I am currently re-watching the 1969 TV adaptation of Dombey and Son. "Stagey and set-bound" is exactly how I would describe it. But since I was around in 1969, I guess you can say I'm used to it and can get past it and enjoy the movie. I really like this adaptation.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Katy - I've just looked that one up, and it has such an excellent cast, (led by John Carson) that now I want to watch it too! Sometimes the acting can overcome a lot of this, can't it? Perhaps we've got a bit spoilt by modern production values. Some of the older dramatisation get to the heart of the novels, after all.

The one I know is the 1983 one, but I've found an intriguing entry for a 1917 silent film! It has the cast list, but nobody knows if a print of it still exists!

[Greg]

A friend just texted me a link to an interview with Michael Caine about his role in Muppets Christmas Carol. How delightful! Here's the link if anyone else is interested:

https://www.gq.com/story/michael-cain...

[Sue]

Thanks Greg. That was fun to read. I have always liked Michael Caine.

[Greg]

Sue wrote: "Thanks Greg. That was fun to read. I have always liked Michael Caine."

:) Me too!

[Daniela]

Thanks Greg, I liked reading it!

[Sara]

I start reading Dickens with " Oliver Twist". I remember be amazing about the way Dickens writes, so full of true and meaning. But I really loved read his books with "A tale of two cities", I almost cry with the tragic fate of Sydney, it is a book that I want to reread (because in the first time I havent read in the english). I like to read every christmas one of his christmas storys, especialy "A christmas carol" (my favorite christmas story). Charles Dickens is one of the writers that I have read more books, and I want to read every book that he published.

[Lee]

My beloved father, who passed in 2003, had a special Christmas tradition beginning as far back as I can remember. Every December he would read to my sister, mother and I The Christmas Carol. He was a marvelous reader, and would add different voices for the ghosts and assorted characters.

I remember him reading one stave a day in the evening before bedtime. And this memory precedes any memory of the early movie renditions. My father believed literature should be READ, before ever approaching a movie version.

I carried on this tradition when my children were young. But I could never match the deep sonority of his voice and his dramatic readings.

Charles Dickens would have approved.

[Bridget]

What a lovely memory Lee! Thank you for sharing. Your father sounds like a wise and wonderful man.

[Greg]

Oh, how wonderful Lee!!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I love all these memories :) Thank for sharing them everyone.

Does anyone have another? We'd love to hear it!

[Teresa]

I have loved reading all my life. We had no money when I was growing up and no access to a library. When I was twelve I got my first Summer job. I saw an advert in a paper for a Dicken's collection. You got one book a month and a few little perks on the side. I collected quite a few. I never got the full collection. Had to go back to school.
I still have them now. They're green hardbacks with gold embossing and a ribbon book mark. That makes them about forty eight years old this year.
David Copperfield was my favourite.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Oh Teresa - how lovely! What you have (I'm pretty sure) is the Heron "Centennial Dickens", which were published in 1970, to commemorate his death!

I collected just a couple as they were issued, but couldn't afford many. Now I have them all, and the collection contains all his printed works :) (Off-hand I think there are 32 volumes.) Some, such as "Miscellaneous Pieces" and "Reprinted Pieces" (2 or 3 of each) were hard to track down, but when you do they are not too expensive.

"Heron Books" like the "Folio Book Society" books, were not considered to be "proper" books, because they were produced and issued monthly by a book club, and were not available in the shops. But they are beautiful books, with leatherette covers, gold tooling, silk bookmarks and traditional stitched (not glued) bindings. As far as they could, they included all the original illustrations. The introductions vary.

This is my "Centennial Dickens" edition of David Copperfield I (it's in 2 volumes). Is yours like this?

[Elisabeth]

Hello everyone...Its nice to think of my first Dickens memory. In fact, until this question, I hadn't realized that I have several early Dickens memories. I was in my school musical of Oliver Twist in 4th grade, and one of the children's books that my mother read me had a stand alone story of David Copperfield running away to his Aunt Betsy, but I had no sense of authorship with either of those. My first 'real' reading of Dickens was an abridged version of David Copperfield that I read (and loved) when I was about 11 or 12 in a Readers Digest Condensed Books my grandmother had.

[Teresa]

Bionic Jean wrote: "Oh Teresa - how lovely! What you have (I'm pretty sure) is the Heron "Centennial Dickens", which were published in 1970, to commemorate his death!

I collected just a couple as they were issued, bu..."

That's it exactly Jean. Yes David Copperfield is in two editions. The Pickwick Papers is also in two volumes.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Most of the novels are, except for A Tale of Two Cities, Hard Times, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. But perhaps these "shorter" (by his standards) ones are the ones you have?

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Elisabeth wrote: "Hello everyone...Its nice to think of my first Dickens memory. In fact, until this question, I hadn't realized that I have several early Dickens memories. I was in my school musical of Oliver Twist..."

That's lovely to remember, Elisabeth! I think quite a few of us might have known a story by Charles Dickens, when we were very young, and before we were ever aware of the author. Thank you for sharing it :)

[Lois]

I really wish I could remember my very first Dickens encounter, but its so long ago that I honestly have no idea. I feel like he's always just been in my life somehow, and that's such a nice thought. I was always a big reader tho, from very young, and I do know that I had a little pet turtle when i was really small that I named "Pip", so I'm just guessing that I either read or maybe saw a movie version of Great Expectations. And somehow I feel that, along with maybe Oliver Twist, that would be a good start for a young person.