Origin Story

I'm going to read everything Charles Dickens wrote. I'm doing this because recently I came to the realization that he is my favorite author and yet I've only read 4 of his FIFTEEN books! Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers. Then I found an eBay listing for the Oxford Illustrated Dickens collection for a VERY low price and I decided it was time to right an old (semi-)wrong.

Like, what I imagine to be most people that grew up in Seattle in the 70s, 80s or 90s, the first Charles Dickens I read was Tale of Two Cities in 10th grade1 and I can't think of a worse introduction. It's a great book to be sure but it is NOT a great book for the average 10th grader (or at least not THIS 10th grader.) I then read Great Expectations my senior year for an AP English project because someone promised me it was almost nothing like Tale of Two Cities. They were right. I loved it.

Fast forward a decade and I read David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers in a fit of realization that I hadn't been doing anything 'intellectual' since I left college. Both were amazing. But then work and kids and all that goes along with a growing family pushed out so many things.

Now Im 58, and I suppose my "Mid" (LOL) life crisis is to be better read.

So, I've laid out a roughly 2 year schedule to read the entirety of the Oxford Illustrated Dickens collection. 21 volumes that include all the novels, the Christmas Books, Christmas Stories, American and Italian notes, Sketches by Boz and a few collections of his other smaller works like Childs History of England, etc. If I keep the schedule I will be finished a little before April of 2028. That's 18 pages a day, every day except for a few breaks. I put the breaks in mostly so that I could put the two Christmas Collections as close to December 25th as possible. :-)

This space is going to be about trying to share longer form thoughts on the books as I go through but also to try out leaflet.pub as a platform.

Wish me luck!!

Brian

Chief Sealth High School in stunning West Seattle