What the Dickens...

As if Charles Dickens could use the publicity boost, Oprah announced on Monday that not one but two of his novels have made her coveted list. She picked Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations; odd when one considers the season, for A Christmas Carol is just about everywhere, in any form. Want to see the original manuscript? It's on display now through
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January 9 at the Morgan Library & Museum. Want to buy the handsome new Penguin classic edition (seen here, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith)? Perhaps you'd like to catch Gerald Charles Dickens, his great-great-grandson, on stage performing the Christmas classic? Wander the streets of a Victorian-ized San Francisco at the Dickens Fair? Tuck into minced pie at the Charles Dickens Museum? Ponder the V&A Museum's recent plea to save Dickens' rotting manuscripts? Book a stay at Dickens World?!

Of course, you could also read FB&C's neat feature from last December on Dickens' prompt book, "On Stage With Charles Dickens."

It seems Dickens' great expectations have been realized and then some.