Updated Schedule: The Dickens Chronological Reading Club 2022-24

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Wherein we propose the latest amended schedule to accommodate an extended reading time, based on the group’s vote.

By Rach and Boze

Friends and fellow Dickensians, we have had two votes on our schedule; the first added the 2 week break between reads and extended our reading time by about 4 months. Our latest vote was to extend all of the reading time: 2 months for our longer works, 6 weeks for a few shorter ones, with wrap-ups happening once every 2 weeks. This will put our Dickens reading time to mid-September 2024, and our post-reading “Drood inquiry” discussions to just before the holiday time, in mid-November, 2024. We now have what we believe will be our final schedule, with the exception of minor alterations as needed. For those new to the site, if you’d like to see the original post and schedule, it can be found here.

Finally, just a little reminder: please feel free at ANY TIME to contact Rach or Boze (or via the Contact Form) with questions/suggestions, OR to submit a more topical, special-interest post on any of our reads! Rachel can be emailed at this link. Again, there have been many, many comments in our rich discussions that could have been entirely separate posts with their own discussions. You don’t have to be web-savvy: we’ll take care of the formatting for you, adding pictures as needed, etc. Just send us your word document file of choice!

So, without further ado, here is our amended reading schedule for 2022-24:

Date(s)Work(s)Notes
4 Jan to 28 Feb 2022Sketches by BozThis is one Sketch per day (56 Sketches).
1 Mar to 9 April, 2022The Pickwick Papers
10 April to 16 May 2022Oliver Twist 
17-30 May 2022BREAK 
31 May to 4 July 2022Nicholas Nickleby 
5-18 July 2022BREAKPossible group watch of the filmed RSC stage production of Nickleby with Roger Rees, Edward Petherbridge, David Threlfall, etc. Also, if you’re joining in the optional week of reading Master Humphrey’s Clock, it might be a good time to get a start on it!
19-25 July 2022OPTIONAL: Master Humphrey’s ClockMaster Humphrey was a kind of narrative device or “frame” for The Old Curiosity Shop until Dickens decided that the latter should stand alone as a novel. Or feel free to just jump straight into TOCS, since Humphrey might be considered a minor work, or supplement. This will be read together with The Old Curiosity Shop, without a scheduled break between. For those doing it, this will be an intense reading chunk this week.
26 July to 22 August 2022The Old Curiosity Shop 
23 Aug to 5 Sept 2022BREAK 
6 Sept to 3 Oct 2022Barnaby Rudge 
4-17 October 2022BREAK 
18 Oct to 7 Nov 2022OPTIONAL: American NotesFor those interested, Dickens’ American Notes will be a fantastic “Preface” to our reading of Martin Chuzzlewit! Or, you can just dive right in to start reading the latter…
8 Nov to 5 Dec 2022Martin Chuzzlewit 
6-19 December 2022BREAK*Note: This will be our final break before our little marathon of “Christmas Books” and Pictures from Italy.
20-26 Dec 2022A Christmas CarolThis is the beginning of our sequence of Christmas Books and Pictures from Italy. As reluctant as we were to break up the sequence of Christmas Books with Pictures and Dombey, it was between that or going out of chronological order.
27 Dec 2022-2 Jan 2023The Chimes 
3-9 Jan 2023The Cricket on the Hearth 
10-30 Jan 2023OPTIONAL: Pictures from ItalySince we won’t have a break until after this sequence, Pictures from Italy is an optional work and can be used as an additional break, or to catch up. I really hope Dr. Pete Orford’s new edition for OUP is out by this time!
31 Jan to 6 Feb 2023The Battle of Life 
7-20 Feb 2023BREAKAnd Happy Birthday, Boz!
21 Feb to 20 March 2023Dombey and Son 
21 Mar to 3 April 2023BREAK 
4-10 April 2023The Haunted ManNo break between this and Copperfield, as it is a shorter work (his fifth and last Christmas Book).
11 April to 22 May 2023David CopperfieldGiving a trial run to Option #1 of our scheduling poll – so, a 6-week format.
23 May to 5 June 2023BREAKGroup watch of an adaptation of Copperfield?
6 June to 7 Aug 2023Bleak HouseGiving a trial run to the Option 2/3 of our scheduling poll, with a full 8 weeks for this read, and wrap-ups every 2 weeks. NOTE: There will be an additional week during our last quarter of the novel, to allow room for anyone from our Club who might be attending the Dickens Universe, in person or online. Final wrap-up to come 14 August.
8-28 Aug 2023BREAKZoom meet re: Bleak House on 12 Aug. Group watch of an adaptation of Bleak House, e.g. the 2005 BBC miniseries the week of Aug. 7th, led by the Adaptation Stationmaster. 5 days/posts of episode recaps coming 7-11 Aug, 2023. Final novel discussion/wrap-up to come 14 Aug.
29 Aug 2023 to 9 Oct 2023Hard TimesSummaries and discussion wrap-ups every other week; final wrap-up on 9 Oct.
10-23 Oct 2023BREAKZoom meet re: Hard Times.
24 October to 18 Dec 2023Little DorritSummaries and discussion wrap-ups every other week; final wrap-up on 18 Dec.
19 Dec 2023 to 1 Jan 2024BREAKZoom meet re: Little Dorrit. Group watch of an adaptation of Little Dorrit–e.g. the 2008, and/or the 1987.

Happy Holidays!
2 Jan to 26 Feb 2024A Tale of Two CitiesSummaries and discussion wrap-ups every other week; final wrap-up on 26 Feb, 2024.
27 Feb to 11 Mar 2024BREAKZoom meet re: A Tale of Two Cities. Possible group watch of one of the many adaptations of A Tale of Two Cities? E.g. Dirk Bogarde, Ronald Colman, or James Wilby.
12 Mar to 22 April 2024Great ExpectationsSummaries and discussion wrap-ups every other week; final wrap-up on 26 Feb, 2024. Included in the introduction to Great Expectations will be information about the next (optional) read, the essay collection called The Uncommercial Traveller.
23 Apr to 6 May 2024BREAKZoom meet re: Great Expectations. Group watch of one of the (many!) adaptations, e.g. David Lean’s 1946 version?
7-27 May 2024OPTIONAL: The Uncommercial TravellerIt was challenging to figure out where to fit this in—before or after Great Expectations, since the first of the essays was published earlier—but the first collection of Uncommercial Traveller essays came just after (15 Dec). For those who’d just like to stick to the novels, here’s an extra opportunity for a reading break!

Note: Because it is one of our “extra”/optional works, we will just comment under a “placeholder” post, without the additional discussion-wrap-ups every other week. There will be no final wrap-up, unless we have high participation. No separate Zoom meeting; this will be included with the Our Mutual Friend discussion, if warranted.
28 May to 22 July 2024Our Mutual FriendSummaries and discussion wrap-ups every other week; final wrap-up on 22 July, 2024.
23 July to 19 Aug 2024BREAKZoom meet re: Our Mutual Friend on 17 August. Group watch of the 1998 BBC miniseries?

NOTE: This break will be unusually long, due to the wedding of your co-hosts on 24 July!
20 Aug to 30 Sept 2024 The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished)Dickens’ last (and unfinished) work is shorter–and it would have been one of his shorter novels, even had he written the final six installments. For this special read, we will read one installment per week (3-4 chapters per week) over six weeks, with our final wrap-up on 30 September. We’ll have one wrap-up each week, hearkening back to the early days of our Club, to keep the momentum strong. Let’s solve the mystery together! For those interested in the curiosity that is Droodism, you might want to check out Dr. Pete Orford’s marvelous book.
Afterword: October 2024Final Retrospectives on The Dickens Chronological Reading ClubZoom meet re: The Mystery of Edwin Drood on 5 October, 2024. October will be something of an “Afterword” and Retrospective on the whole experience with The Dickens Chronological Reading Club. A chance to write our closing thoughts on this marvelous journey of our 34+ months of reading Dickens in chronological order. Watch out for a special Retrospective/Wrap-Up of our journey.

Special-interest blog posts about the overall experience, or about a favorite work, would be most welcome! We have tried to end the Club right before the beginning of the busiest holiday months.

* Note: Where do we go from here? For a few of us, it would be like the “breaking of the Fellowship” or the dissolution of The Pickwick Club. There may be a few members continuing some reading/discussion (in a different way). More anon, for any who are interested.
The new/amended schedule for The Dickens Chronological Reading Club 2022-24

21 Comments

  1. “Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the somber colors are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.”
    – Narrator, Chapter 24.

    Thanks much, Dickensian Wren, for all of your great work on this chronology of readings and breaks!

    Thanks to you, Boze, for all that you are doing.

    Your efforts to guide us through the wonderful works of the inimitable Dickens are giving us “a clearer vision” of his world and ours!

    Daniel

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    1. Yay! Thank you so much…it’s truly a communal effort, and everyone’s contributions have made this, as you say, really a “Masterclass” in Dickens! I am so excited to see where things go, especially with a little extra time to formulate topical posts in-between the readings!

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  2. I hope everyone likes the idea of the schedule changes…we can easily make some adjustments without doing a whole big announcement (just updates in our weekly “General Mems”), so feel free to toss out ideas!

    I have a feeling that our first break will be a quiet one, for several reasons: we’ve only just recently voted on the schedule change, and haven’t had time to sort out any group viewings of an adaptation, etc. But I have a feeling that after this one, the “breaks” will actually be filled with lots of discussion! For myself, as Oliver is not a favorite of mine, I didn’t have any plans for a topical post, unless it is perhaps to continue to delve into the theme of Memory with reference especially to Ackroyd. But we shall see. I confess, I’m already starting Nickleby, as I’m too excited to wait!!! And I WILL have some special topical interests to post about there…probably primarily about the theatre/melodrama in Dickens.

    One other note: since this whole site has gone away from the personal bookish blog to a communal Dickens blog, we’re slowly making a separate page for our hosts and authors and contributors…a kind of core company/dramatis personae 😁 of our little Dickens group. If you want to send me a little one- or two-liner biography and a chosen picture (be it your current avatar, or a picture of your favorite Dickens character, or one of your wonderful self!) please send it to my main email: littleseamstress@gmail.com.

    (Bonus points if you figure out who the “little seamstress” refers to…!) 🙂

    Okay, enough whimsy & updates for now…off to work. Have a marvelous weekend, fellow Dickensians! 🖤🎩

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    1. I love that we’ve both discreetly raced ahead to Nicholas Nickleby… Oliver is iconic in its own way but when I read a Dickens novel I want the full Dickens experience – sprawling cast and a plot with wheels within wheels engagingly turning – and Nicholas, like David and Little Dorrit and Bleak House &c, has that in abundance. Our little group has managed to squeeze some really lovely discussions out of Oliver, which surprised me, but there will be so much more to pore over and ponder when we get to Nicholas.

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