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Please find below details of next Wednesday's Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies research seminar. The research seminar will take place in FAB 2.43. Drinks and nibbles are provided, and all staff and students are welcome.

Wednesday 11 March, 5.30pm, FAB 2.43:

‘Dickens on stage: His role as author and actor in Mr Nightingale’s Diary’

Dr Pete Orford, University of Buckingham

Dickens needs no introduction – as an author. But this Victorian whirlwind applied himself to a range of projects and media, including playwriting. This talk will explore his farce Mr Nightingale’s Diary, co-written with Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch Magazine, and starring both Dickens and Lemon in the main roles. The resulting event was the talk of the town, featuring royalty, estranged wives, aspiring authors and secret police – and that was just behind the scenes! Join us to find out how Dickens used the play as a further opportunity to secure his brand and manage his reputation as one of the great celebrities of the Victorian era.

Dr Pete Orford is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Buckingham, and Course Director of the MA in Charles Dickens Studies. His recent publications include an edition of Pictures from Italy for the Oxford Dickens; The Life of the Author: Charles Dickens for Wiley Blackwell; and, most pertinently to this talk, The Plays of Charles Dickens, co-edited with Joanna Hofer-Robinson, which is the first scholarly edition of Dickens’s dramatic output.

Best wishes,

Dr Steve Purcell

Director of Research, English and Comparative Literary Studies