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ath · 07-19-2006, 03:33 PM

I'm not sure I have accosted strangers in the street over this book, but I must confess to recommending it whenever I can:

Charles Dickens: The Uncommercial Traveller

It's a collection of short social reportages, showing off Dickens as a reporter, rather than a novelist or author, and throwing quite a lot of light over Victorian England, some amusing, some nostalgic, and some as scathingly critical as anything by a modern writer.

Don't read the first story: The Shipwreck: it's Dickens as his most pathetical, and feels quite a bit tacky today -- at least to me. But already the next (Wapping Workhouse) is a decided improvement. The one everyone should read who read Dickens is number 8: The Great Tasmania's Cargo.

The ghost stories of M. R. James are also favourites: short enough to be read in one go, and long enough to be interesting.

Look for these texts at the Online Books pages: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/. I prefer reading them in printed form, but I expect the iLiad or the Sony will alter that.

(I see that www.eserver.org is not listed as a source of the Dickens text ... you'll find it there, too.)

07-19-2006, 03:33 PM	#4
ath Addict Posts: 222 Karma: 110 Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Malmo, Sweden Device: iLiad, Sony PRS-505, Kindle Paperwhite & Oasis	I'm not sure I have accosted strangers in the street over this book, but I must confess to recommending it whenever I can: Charles Dickens: The Uncommercial Traveller It's a collection of short social reportages, showing off Dickens as a reporter, rather than a novelist or author, and throwing quite a lot of light over Victorian England, some amusing, some nostalgic, and some as scathingly critical as anything by a modern writer. Don't read the first story: The Shipwreck: it's Dickens as his most pathetical, and feels quite a bit tacky today -- at least to me. But already the next (Wapping Workhouse) is a decided improvement. The one everyone should read who read Dickens is number 8: The Great Tasmania's Cargo. The ghost stories of M. R. James are also favourites: short enough to be read in one go, and long enough to be interesting. Look for these texts at the Online Books pages: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/. I prefer reading them in printed form, but I expect the iLiad or the Sony will alter that. (I see that www.eserver.org is not listed as a source of the Dickens text ... you'll find it there, too.) Last edited by ath; 07-19-2006 at 03:44 PM.