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Dickens's public readings and the victorian author.

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From: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
Date: 20010922
Author:Ferguson, Susan L.

Charles Dickens's public readings, performances in which he took up his own novels before audiences composed primarily of readers and brought the characters to life through his impersonation of them, invented a new genre of performance, one we now take for granted. But what were these performances actually like? And what do they mean to our understanding of Dickens, the man, the actor, and the writer? Available to us only through eyewitness accounts, prompt copies with their scribbled notes and Dickens's own remarks about them, the readings are difficult to analyze. Clearly the ...

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