Tuesday 7th February is Charles Dickens bicentenary

[malaise]

17. Here's a great read on the celebrations and much more

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/were-gaga-200-years-on-so-what-the-dickens-is-all-the-fuss-20120131-1qr6h.html
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We're gaga 200 years on, so what the Dickens is all the fuss?
Bob Minzesheimer
February 1, 2012

IN LONDON'S Westminster Abbey on February 7, a ceremony for Charles Dickens' 200th birthday will star a fellow showman: actor/director Ralph Fiennes (more on him later).

Biographer Claire Tomalin says: ''He has always been loved by ordinary people because they knew he was on their side. The rich are less keen on him. He took high art to the masses.'' (Tomalin wrote the 527-page Charles Dickens: A Life, released last spring, joining a shelf's worth of biographies.)

All of Dickens' work was adapted for the stage during his lifetime, often with the author in the cast. (He died in 1870, worn out at the age of 58.)

On his second visit to America in 1867-68, a book tour to end all book tours, Dickens wrote home, ''Wherever I go, they play [perform] my books, with my name in big letters.''

Hollywood's embrace of Dickens began early (A Tale of Two Cities was shot as a silent film in 1911) and includes Disney animations (Mickey's Christmas Carol in 1983) and comic spinoffs (Bill Murray's Scrooged in 1988).