Dickens’ popularity noted in his home city’s paper
The report in the Hampshire Telegraph
It was a simple, one-line, birth announcement telling readers of the arrival in Portsmouth of Charles Dickens 200 years ago.
And it came from the Hampshire Telegraph, the forerunner of The Evening News and it appeared on our front page today. It is from that paper’s archives that this report also comes.
It appeared in the edition of May 26, 1866, with the now 54-year-old Dickens at the height of his popularity, making not one but two personal appearances in the city of his birth.
The excitement must have been akin to Brad Pitt turning up in the city today.
Dickens was on a nationwide reading tour of the country and read passages from his works for more than two hours on consecutive nights – a Thursday and Friday – at St George’s Hall, Portsea.
Not surprisingly, the newspaper records ‘large audiences’ for both events – the latter of which included the novelist reading from David Copperfield and the trial scene from The Pickwick Papers.
As the report in that Saturday edition says: ‘But, although the mere perusal of his works is a joy in itself, it is an infinitely greater pleasure to hear him read them.
‘We are then enabled to obtain the most perfect conception of each character as the author intended it to be understood...’
Naturally, Dickens appears to have captivated his audience and left everyone wanting more.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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fair_comment
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 10:21 AMEach member of our family chose his or her favourite Dickens sentence. The winning one was the opening of A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...........". Second was the amazing sentence on church bells tolling in London, I believe from the beginning of Little Dorrit.
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