Charles Dickens

3-minute read
books • charles • dickens
./dickens.jpg

I started following along with The Mega Dickens Readalong a year ago. This is an online book club where we are reading all of the Dickens novels in chronological order. Then we chat about them on the Discord channel. Sounds fun, right?

  1. The Pickwick Papers, 1837

  2. Oliver Twist, 1838

  3. Nicholas Nickleby, 1839

  4. The Old Curiosity Shop, 1841

  5. Barnaby Rudge, 1841

  6. Martin Chuzzlewit, 1844

  7. Dombey and Son, 1848

  8. David Copperfield, 1850

  9. Bleak House, 1853

  10. Hard Times, 1854

  11. Little Dorrit, 1855

  12. A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

  13. Great Expectations, 1861

  14. Our Mutual Friend, 1865

  15. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 1870

However, as I started reading, I discovered that I really didn't like Dickens very much. Well, at all, really. But I stuck with it because I'd read some Dickens before and I knew him to be great. The early books are not just less great, they're really pretty bad. But I kept reading. At some point, I was interested in figuring out when Charles Dickens became Charles Dickens The Great Writer.

To be fair, though he is sometimes called the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, Dickens didn't really write novels. He wrote serials. Several chapters per month were published for a couple of years. It's longer and more repetitive. He was often reminding readers of things that happened months ago. What we call a Dickens novel is all of these installments collected and bound together.

And it's clear that he wrote them as he went along. He didn't know what was going to happen next. But there's no chance for editing or rewrites; those chapters are already published. It's like publishing the first draft of a novel, at best.

Nonetheless, even given that they were intended to be serials, I think the first half dozen or so can be safely skipped. They are not worth your time. You will not really miss anything. I say this having completed the first eight.

The first four are just bad. The fifth, Barnaby Rudge, is perhaps noteworthy because it's an historical novel. Dickens was writing in 1840 and 1841, but it's a story that takes place during the Gordon Riots of 1780. And the sixth, Martin Chuzzlewit, is perhaps noteworthy because parts of it take place in America. If you're interested in how Dickens approaches historical writing or in how he writes about America, then you might read these last two. Otherwise, I would pass on the first six.

The seventh, Dombey and Son, is widely recognized as the first serial that Dickens actually planned out and it shows. The first six are not coherent, but Dombey and Son is a very long, very complicated story that actually makes sense throughout. This is the turning point of his writing, I think. I just didn't like the story. Dombey is an ass and neither Florence nor Edith nor any other characters are strong enough to balance that. Katie, who organizes the readalong, loves Dombey and Son, so check out her video for a different opinion.

I believe I have discovered when Charles Dickens became Charles Dickens The Great Writer. For me, it's somewhere between chapters 4 and 14 of David Copperfield. I found the first four chapters tiresome I think because I was exhausted from reading about Dombey for so long (Dombey and Son is really long). There's a character in David Copperfield called Mr Murdstone who's as big an ass as Dombey and I just couldn't bear it. Not this again! Then, in chapter 14, Miss Trotwood and Mr Dick appear and suddenly things are wonderful!

I look forward to the next year of this readalong. I think we're over the hump now. I've already read Bleak House, Little Dorrit, and Great Expectations and they're all terrific. If the rest are comparable, it should be a great year of reading!