Interesting Facts

7th February 1812 - Charles Dickens was born.

According to Professor Helen Fulton, head of English at the University of York, top English students reach university believing Charles Dickens is from the same era as William Shakespeare. (Well I guess they are both old blokes who died a long time ago.)

For the first 8 years of Charles Dickens' life, it snowed. (Every year between 1812 and 1820 in fact.  This probably explains why we are so fixated on a White Christmas in the UK.)

A continuator is a writer who chooses to finish the work of another author. (The latest book to be "continuated" is Charles Dickens' unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, his only mystery story. It was his final book, published in 1870, but he only completed six of twelve parts before he died. No-one knows how he intended to conclude it, but Gwyneth Hughes not only adapted Dickens's half-written novel into a new television drama but also gave it an ending of her own. You could describe what continuators do as literary necrophilia, or maybe they simply keep popular authors alive.)

Actor Brian Forster (who played the second Chris Partridge in The Partridge Family), is the great-great-great grandson of Charles Dickens. (Fascinatingly he was born on 14 April 1960, 101 years to the day that A Tale of Two Cities was published. Sometimes life is just weird!)

Oliver Twist is very popular in China, where its title is translated as Foggy City Orphan. (I personally think it is much more descriptive than the original title. WTG China!)