SUNDAY, November 26th at 1PM: TEA TIME with Charles Dickens


Come join us for the opening events at "The Dickens Project" as we share distinctly un-holiday stories in "Christmas Past." 

Bryn Taleweaver will start us off with Dickens' ghostly The Signal-Man. The railway signal-man of the title tells the narrator of a ghost that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident.

Caledonia and Kayden will follow up with Chapter 2 from Oliver Twist. Charles Dickens's second novel, it was first published as a serial 1837–39. The story centers on orphan Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse and sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Twist travels to London, where he meets "The Artful Dodger," a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal, Fagin.

Oliver Twist is notable for its unromantic portrayal by Dickens of criminals and their sordid lives, as well as for exposing the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid--19th century.  In this early example of the social novel, Dickens satirizes the hypocrisies of his time, including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The tale was among the early success that built Dickens' reputation as a popular author.

Stories told in voice, and followed from 2-4pm by "Dancing in Past" with DJ Dano Bookmite.
At the Docks in the "Christmas Past" area of The Dickens Project on LEA 7

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