Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥

Dominic dips into the Christmas archives to bring you three Dickensian Christmas Readings from The Pickwick Papers, The Chimes & The Cricket on the Hearth ...

Published here in one episode for the first time. Our cast of readers include Gina Beck, Carlyss Peer and Tom Bennett …

HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!!

These readings were originally published separately during the Christmas of 2023

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If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

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Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

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Dominic is joined by the inimitable Dr. Philip Palmer: Robert H. Taylor Curator & Department Head of Literary and Historical Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum and custodian of Charles Dickens' one and only handwritten manuscript of A Christmas Carol ...

Here Philip shares many of the secrets of the manuscript, such as the ideas and phrases that Dickens struck from his story (that can still be seen in the crossings out), and the expert care that goes into its preservation.

Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd / Original cover headshot of Philip Palmer by Sae Rheen / Background cover design features detail Dickens' A Christmas Carol Manuscript © MA 97: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. MA 97, fol. 9r. Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2011

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!

Dominic reads a quietly enchanting festive episode from “Master Humphrey’s Clock” by Charles Dickens. 

Master Humphrey is wandering the snowy streets, one 25th December, and casually walks into a tavern. A decision that will change his life forever ...

A MERRY CHRISTMAS to all you listeners, wherever in the world you are!

Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd & Original Dickens illustrations sourced from Michael John Goodman's incredible Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!

Welcome to CHRISTMAS at Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥

The very first of our special Festive will go live shortly ...

And If you’re new to this series, there are some incredible episodes already waiting for you to listen to. Interviews with leading actors, academics, writers, historians, and descendants of the great man him self!

Guests such as: Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Armando Iannucci, Rosie Holt, John Mullan, Lucinda Hawksley, Robert Douglas Fairhurst, Andrew Davies & Alice Loxton … and many many more!

I hope you have as much fun listening to these episodes this Christmas, as I have had the honour to record them …

So wherever in the world you're listening from ... MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!

Dominic is joined by returning guest, the inimitable Professor John Mullan: author of What Matters in Jane Austen? (now released in a 250th Birthday Edition) and The Artful Dickens - both published by Bloomsbury Press

In a lively chat, John sheds light on the tricks, devices and styles of these two incredible writers: Jane Austen and Charles Dickens ...

And in case you haven’t heard John's previous conversation on Great Expectations we thoroughly recommend you scroll back to Episode 5 of this series also!

Original cover headshot of John Mullan © Paul Musso / Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd / Drawing of Jane Austen based on one drawn by her sister Cassandra & William Powell Frith 1859 painting of Charles Dickens in his Study are both sourced through Wikimedia

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!

Dominic is joined by the inimitable Prof. Emma Clery - author of The Rise of Supernatural Fiction 1762-1800 and Professor of English Literature at Uppsala University, Sweden. They continue this month’s theme of the supernatural, taking you on a journey into the heart of an event that caused a sensation in Georgian London, and would inspire Dickens decades later …

The real life story of The Cock Lane Ghost set the stage for an earnest debate between Anglicans and Methodists - the former skeptical the latter credulous towards a spirit realm - where the dead can seek out the living and communicate with them. The alleged haunting in Cock Lane quickly spiralled in the first months of 1762, with many great figures of the age Samuel Johnson, Horace Walpole and Prince Edward, Duke of York attending seances to cross examine the ghost. At the heart of the controversy lay the very serious charge of murder that the ghost - known as ‘Scratching Fanny’ - was trying to convince her hearers of, and the very real possibility of the man accused being sent to the gallows.

It will come as no surprise to you that Dickens loved this story! Mentioning it not only in articles but in three of his novels - through Mrs Nickleby’s flighty imagination, the disgruntled temper of Mrs Pipchin, and as Prologue to the madness and terror that engulfs A Tale of Two Cities …

Joining us to bring to life the real characters from this story - in the form of articles, letters and transcripts - are the fantastic actors Peter Bray and Rachel Winters.

Additional Sound Effects in this episode have been used under license from Epidemic Sounds

Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd / Original cover headshot of Emma Clery © Emma Clery / Background Drawing detail of Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism (1762) by William Hogarth, sourced by Wikimedia Commons

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!

The ghostly episodes continue as Dominic welcomes back the inimitable Dr. Emily Middleton who helps piece together the scattered psychological fragments that create Dickens' To Be Read at Dusk ...  

Five couriers sit high up watching the sun set over snowy peaks of the St Bernard's Pass, their minds flitting from one strange unsettling anecdote to another. Ideas of premonition, mesmerism, and the powerful telepathy that can exist between twins, abound in this story ...

Additional sound effects of the ghostly mountain have been used, with permission, from Epidemic Sound

Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd  / Original cover headshot of Emily Middleton © Dustin Smith, Skywall Photography / Background detail of Gornergrat Railway and Matterhorn, Valais, Alps of, Switzerland (1890-1900) Photochrom Print Collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!

Dominic is joined by the inimitable Dr. Kirstin Mills Senior Lecturer and Director of the Master of Research & Graduate Diploma of Research in the Faculty of Arts, at Macquarie University. Kirstin's recent articles include the chapter "Morphean Space and the Metaphysics of Nightmare ..."  published in Gothic Dreams and Nightmares for Manchester University Press.

Their conversation flits and tumbles through the realms of 19th Century dreams and nightmares. Many of which are sure to have visited the young Charles Dickens, thanks to the bedtime stories told to him by Mary Weller, and the books he would later read voraciously …

Expect to meet Demons, Vampires, the much overlooked Headless Horseman and - one of the greatest literary creations of all time - Ichabod Crane!

Sounds of horses, dutch folk dances, eerie whistling and windy gusts on a mountain side were used provided under license by Epidemic Sound

Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd  / Original cover headshot of Kirstin Mills © Kirstin Mills / Painted backdrop of The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane by John Quidor (1858) has been sourced through Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!

This Halloween ... actor Jonathan Broadbent reads one of the interpolated ghost stories, from The Pickwick Papers 

In The Lawyer and The Ghost a somewhat disreputable young Lawyer has retired to his meagre lodgings one night and is forced to debate with something not of this world ...

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!

This Halloween Dominic is joined by the inimitable Prof. Andrew Smith who guides us through Dickens' The Black Veil and his latest book Dickens and the Gothic (for Cambridge University Press)

Perhaps calling to mind Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black …  The Black Veil  begins with a young man sitting by the fire one winter’s night, with cosy thoughts of Christmas. Out of the corner of his eye the veiled figure of a lady dressed in mourning appears, standing motionless, with eyes fixed on him. 

As the story unfolds the man - a newly qualified doctor - is compelled to leave his cheerful parlour and head towards a derelict house in an isolated spot, to face whatever is waiting for him there …

Returning to the series to read excerpts from Dickens, Radcliffe, Walpole & Thackeray is the brilliant actress: Rebecca Tanwen

The 'harpsichord swirl' at the start of the Castle of Otranto reading has been used under license from EPIDEMIC SOUND. All other music and sound has been created by Dominic Gerrard

Original cover headshot of Dominic Gerrard © Jane Lloyd / Original cover headshot of Andrew Smith © Andrew Smith /  Original Dickens illustrations sourced from Michael John Goodman's incredible Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery

Support the show

If you'd like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrard

Thank you so much!

Host: Dominic Gerrard
Series Artwork: Léna Gibert
Original Music: Dominic Gerrard

Thank you for listening!