Spin-Offs and Sequels to Charles Dickens's stories

[Debra Diggs]

I read Tattycoram by Audrey Thomas. It was a good book, but nothing else, 3 stars. It showed the foundlings life in the Coram Founding Hospital. Which was interesting. And it showed Tattycoram's "real" life. Not her fictional character's life in Little Dorrit (this was what I was expecting). It showed Tattycoram in Charles Dickens life. Then Dickens went on to make her a character in one of his books. Putting much of her real personality in the the fictional character. It is worth reading.

[[deleted user]]

Apparently I never wrote a review on Goodreads (I wrote them all on my blog back then, and that blog is gone by now due to technical issues), but I did read Tom All Alone's by Lynn Shepherd under it's other title, The Solitary House. I quite liked it, but I will never see Bleak House or Esther in the same way.

My husband also got me into reading Dodger by Sir Terry Pratchett, based on Oliver Twist's Dodger of course. I am an avid Pratchett fan, so yes, I loved it and highly reccommend this book about a mudlarking Dodger.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Debra Digs wrote: "I read Tattycoram by Audrey Thomas ..."

Thanks for the recommendation Debra - I'm not sure what happened to my earlier comment here (maybe it's in another thread though).

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Jantine wrote: "I did read Tom All Alone's by Lynn Shepherd under i..."

Two here I should read! I've been meaning to read Tom-All-Alone's for a while now. Maybe we should have it as a side read some time. And I have just added Dodger :) Thank you Jantine!

[Janelle]

Thomas Keneally (author of Schindler's Ark) wrote a novel about Plorn, Dickens’ youngest son, called The Dickens Boy and his life in Australia. I haven’t read it but Keneally is usually very well researched.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Thank you Janelle! I think I'll add that one to my to-read list.

[Sara]

I have added it as well, Janelle. I wish I could figure out how to get more hours in my days!

[Debra Diggs]

I have added The Dickens Boy too. Thanks, Janelle.

I also added Dodger. Thanks, Jantine.

[Janelle]

You’re all welcome :)
I think we all have that problem, Sara!

[Jenny]

Apperently Cassandra Clare based her Last Hours series off of Great Expectations! Which I would have known from the title had I read Great Expectations LOL!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

In what way, Jenny? Sorry, I'm puzzled. The first one looks as if it's called Chain of Gold. Now I can think of two (maybe three) novels by Charles Dickens which refer to a chain, or thread, of gold.

Though I suspect I'm on the wrong track here - but intrigued!

[Jenny]

I've not actually read the books yet, but in her synopsis of the final book, Chain of Thorns, she states that "The title is taken from the book Great Expectations, of which the series is a retelling: those of you who’ve read The Midnight Heir installment of the Bane Chronicles probably have some ideas about certain of the characters!

There will be three books: Chain of Thorns, Chain of Gold, and Chain of Iron — also a reference to Great Expectations."

[Janelle]

I assume this is the quote from Great expectations:

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
(Great Expectations, Volume I, chapter ix )

[Jenny]

Janelle, thanks! I really like that quote, and now I am going to read Great Expectations before Last Hours series :)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Thanks both! Charles Dickens was rather fond of his chains, of gold, or other things.

Intriguing!

[Jenny]

I just saw a middle grade retelling of Great Expectations pop up. It's called Pippa Park Raises Her Game. This is the good reads synopsis that I'll put under spoilers for anyone who wants to go in blind.
(view spoiler)[Life is full of great expectations for Korean American Pippa Park. It seems like everyone, from her family to the other kids at school, has a plan for how her life should look. So when Pippa gets a mysterious basketball scholarship to Lakeview Private, she jumps at the chance to reinvent herself by following the “Rules of Cool.”

At Lakeview, Pippa juggles old and new friends, an unrequited crush, and the pressure to perform academically and athletically while keeping her past and her family’s laundromat a secret from her elite new classmates. But when Pippa begins to receive a string of hateful, anonymous messages via social media, her carefully built persona is threatened.

As things begin to spiral out of control, Pippa discovers the real reason she was admitted to Lakeview and wonders if she can keep her old and new lives separate, or if she should even try. (hide spoiler)]

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Thanks Jenny! It seems clever, but a bit remote from the story to me, though it does have some of the same themes. And some reviewers really like it. It sounds a bit like a fractured fairy tale :)

[Jenny]

Yes, I was wondering how close it would actually be to Great Expectations myself, but thats how it was marketed so I thought I'd mention it :)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Definitely! It does have a target group after all :)

[Jenny]

Yes, now if only the manga classics would do more Charles Dickens novels! So far, they have only done Great Expectations -> Great Expectations, but have done 3 of Jane Austen's works, which seams hardly fair to me! Lets have more Charles Dickens as well!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

That looks great fun Jenny :) But *ouch*, it's over £12 on kindle! (I never pay more than £5 tops - whatever it is. It's a download!)

I have some from the "Classics Illustrated" series, which started about the middle of last century, both in the US and also here, with slightly different lists. They are quite fun, and have now been reissued on better quality paper. The ones by Charles Dickens I have are: Classics Illustrated 53 of 169 : A Christmas Carol, Classics Illustrated 48 of 169 : David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities



I've just reviewed the version of Classics Illustrated 53 of 169 : A Christmas Carol so far.

[Jenny]

They are a bit pricey Jean, which is why I love my libary having almost all of them! The Classics Illustrated look quite charming as well Jean :)

[Jim]

Bionic Jean wrote: "That looks great fun Jenny :) But *ouch*, it's over £12 on kindle! (I never pay more than £5 tops - whatever it is. It's a download!)

I have some from the "Classics Illustrated" series, which sta..."
That is too expensive for what is just data. I try to restrict my kindle purchases to below $3....

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Exactly Jim! If they had done some work to adapt a book to an e-reader, such as making illustrations more screen-savvy, then OK. But all they do is provide an active table of contents, and sometimes not even that. It's just a publisher setting a ridiculous price. ("Penguin" are one of the worst for this, in my opinion.) And yes, it means I will look in the library.

Most of my kindle purchases are 99p or £1.99. And loving 19th century classics as I do, I'm fortunate enough to get most of those free :)

[Jenny]

Reading the middle grade Magic Tree House series, I ran across A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time, in which Jack and Annie, who travel through time in the tree house, go to Victorian England and meet Charles Dickens, and inspire him to write A Christmas Carol. It also has a non fiction companion Rags and Riches: Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

This sounds delightful Jenny :) I think you've mentioned the Magic Tree House series before; I really must try to get my hands on one! What age is "middle grade" please? About 7 - 11?

[Jenny]

I probably have Jean, and yep those ages are exactly what middle grade is considered!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Ah, right - thanks Jenny That is an exact parallel with our Key Stage 2 (years 3-6 - used to be "Junior Schools"), so maybe (just maybe!) I can remember that now :)

The confusion arises as England also still has "Middle Schools", which are from ages 9-13 (year 6-9), though these are much rarer.

[Jenny]

There is confusion here as well Jean, as my parents generation did not have middle school but junior high. What is the first year of school called in England?

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Reception: ages 4 - 5.

Legally schools start with Key Stage 1 (Infant) which is ages 5 - 7: Years 1 and 2.

But optionally children can attend Nursery or "Early Years" Education, which can start at 3 - 4 but usually 4 - 5.

[Jenny]

Ok, so year one and two are like the US kindergarten and 1st grade, early years like pre kindergarten. That makes sense to me now, thanks Jean!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

It's helped me too, thanks!

[Sean]

Okay, I admit it’s not a spin-off and sequel, but there are (sort of, anyway) prequels to Dickens’ novels. Take a look at the following:


Imprisoned for an unaccountable debt (taken from real experiences of the author), unable, owing to the confinement, to find the means of paying of the debt, and with no chance of the creditor capitulating unless the debt is paid. The imprisoned father’s ordeal is somewhat eased, owing to the fact that the heroin of the story is a devoted, doting, daughter, a dedicated servant and nurse to her father. Over time the prison has become, paradoxically, both a ‘sepulcher of griefs, and an oasis from the cares of the outside world’. The doting daughter, sympathetic to her father’s plight, and forever apologetic for his weaknesses: “Dear sir, you have been so kind to my father, do not desert him! You do not know him as I do”. She masks her own feelings, affects eating, when in fact she is starving - only playing the part to spare her father’s feelings.

Little Dorrit? No! It’s actually from a previous novel called ‘The Turnkey’s Daughter’: Chronicles of the Fleet Prison, written in serial form in 1845-46, by Charles Rawcroft. Parts of Little Dorrit all but plagiarize passages, and there’s extracts of the novel in both Nickleby and Pickwick.

Here’s a further example:

“Any one acquainted with Fleet Street [D substitutes Marshalsea] prison … must remember the young woman ‘The Beauty of the Fleet’ [D substitutes ‘The Child of the Marshalsea’].… In the midst of … vice and immorality, she had grown up in purity, uncontaminated and unharmed by the noxious examples around her”

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

That's fascinating information! Thanks Sean.

Neither the title nor the author are on Goodreads sadly, and I can't enter them unless I find a legitimate copy - was it ever in book form I wonder. But it seems very likely that Charles Dickens used this as part of his source material (as well as his own experience, when his father was in the debtors' prison).

https://www.proquest.com/openview/2ab...
LINK HERE for an article about this entitled "Charles Rowcroft's "Chronicles of 'The Fleet Prison'": A Source for Amy Dorrit?" in the "Dickensian" journal. Little Dorrit was serialised between 1855 and 1857, so the dates fit :)

This will interest those who joined in our group read of Little Dorrit - and those who are reading it right now in a buddy read!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I'm also reminded that there were two prisons called "The Fleet" - within a short distance of one another! Some research seems to be confused as to which prison is described. When I was selecting our side read for Little Dorrit, I was tempted by The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson. However, a little research showed that this is based on the prison when it had moved down the road, and not the Marshalsea prison Charles Dickens describes. (It might still be a good read though! But too confusing to have as a side read.)

Plagiarising? I think I'd need specific examples ;) But I can well believe he took some inspiration from that serial, knowing how many of his characters were based on real life people.

[Sean]

I don’t know if it was ever published in book form, and the text is not even on the Gutenberg website. However, it must be a ‘complete’ document (somewhere out there) as there’s a couple of articles in a few of the academic journals - though I can’t remember which journals, I can tell you that there’s a fairly comprehensive article in the Dickensian: here’s the source:

Zinkhan, E. J. (1985). Charles rowcroft's "chronicles of 'the fleet prison'": A source for amy dorrit? Dickensian, 81(407), 130

By the way, Charles Rowcroft lived in Doughty Street from 1821 (to 1832 ish), and he received support from the Royal Literary Fund from periods 1848 to 1852 - we know Dickens lived in Doughty Street and had very strong links with RLF,

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

That's the article I linked to, Sean.

By the way, there's lots about his Doughty Street house in various threads (I'm actually standing outside it in my profile picture!) as it is now "The Charles Dickens Museum" in London.

I hope you continue to enjoy reading the threads! You might find our discussions of the works well worth reading too - for instance Little Dorrit.

[Sean]

Bionic Jean wrote: "That's the article I linked to, Sean.

By the way, there's lots about his Doughty Street house in various threads (I'm actually standing outside it in my profile picture!) as it is now "The Charles..."

Ah! Sorry, your link doesn't work on my phone, but it does on my laptop! which I've just used now to follow the link as I read your thread. I'm reading the threads on the Little Dorrit group now, and it is interesting and divers. I'm just scannig over some passages in Little Dorrit, which I haven't read for some time - funny how I see things differently in the novel from my earlier reading of it

[Anna]

Priestley's The Last of the Spirits is retelling of Christmas Carol.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Sean - Oh good (about Little Dorrit) :) Yes, lots of extra information and interpretations there. Feel free to comment about the relevant chapters on the end of each thread :)

I actually linked "the proper way" to start with, but Goodreads in its wisdom has now banned us from linking to external sites via html "for our protection". This may be temporary, but has been going on for several weeks. We can get round it though, by just linking to the address bar, as I did (which of course makes nonsense of the "ban").

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Anna wrote: "Priestley's The Last of the Spirits is retelling of Christmas Carol."

How interesting! Would you recommend it, Anna?

[Anna]

Bionic Jean wrote: "Anna wrote: "Priestley's The Last of the Spirits is retelling of Christmas Carol."

How interesting! Would you recommend it, Anna?"

Oh, yes. I would. I don't remember much about it but I remember enjoying it and that it was quick read.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Thank you! Maybe a nice little "extra" for someone over Christmas :)

[Werner]

Jean wrote: "I actually linked "the proper way" to start with, but Goodreads in its wisdom has now banned us from linking to external sites via html "for our protection". This may be temporary, but has been going on for several weeks. We can get round it though, by just linking to the address bar, as I did (which of course makes nonsense of the "ban")"

I occasionally link to another Internet site or article, if I think it will add something to a comment or review that I'm writing, and I've always done it by copying and pasting the URL (I don't know any other way to do it). So I haven't paid much attention to the ban (or, really, remembered that it existed). So far, the Goodreads management hasn't paid any attention. :-)

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Quite :)

[[deleted user]]

There is a current series called Charles Dickens Investigations by J.C. Briggs. The author has created a series of mysteries where Dickens assists a Bow Street detective in various investigations. The idea comes from Dickens' time spent with Detective Field.

Briggs ties in real events in Dickens's life, incorporates whatever he was writing at a given time. The first book in the series centers on a (fictional) murder at Urania Cottage, for example.

These are not literary masterpieces but they are pretty well written and fun if you're a Dickens fan. I've read the first 5 books of the series, I've rated them between 3-5 stars. (Book 5 had an egregious use of a four letter word, otherwise this is a fairly clean series.)

Thought I'd pass this along if someone wants an easy read with Dickens solving mysteries. It's a nifty premise.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

They do sound fun Cozy_Pug - thanks :) Good comfort reading, perhaps?

The scenario from Charles Dickens's own life reminds me a bit of a radio series a few years ago, called "Dickens Confidential" It went to 2 series actually, so must have been quite popular https://audiodrama.fandom.com/wiki/Di...

"A series of plays by various writers looking at how Charles Dickens, as the head of a daily paper, would have tackled bringing the news to the masses."

I'm not sure whether they made it to CD.

[[deleted user]]

Bionic Jean wrote: "They do sound fun Cozy_Pug - thanks :) Good comfort reading, perhaps?

The scenario from Charles Dickens's own life reminds me a bit of a radio series a few years ago, called "Dicke..."

Definitely comfort reading material :)

[Werner]

Neither exactly a sequel nor a spin-off of any single Dickens work, a 1933 story by Evelyn Waugh, "The Man Who Liked Dickens." is definitely a work very much inspired by the Dickens canon, so deserves mention here. Its also a highly memorable tale in its own right, and one that's never been mentioned in this group before. I originally ran across it when I was in secondary school (though I don't recall exactly when and where I read it).

The story itself can be read online at this link: https://talesofmytery.blogspot.com/20... . Waugh's novel A Handful of Dust (1934) apparently incorporates the same premise, but provides a lot of backstory.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

That's a great link! Thanks Werner :)