This episode marks the 3rd birthday of Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! 🔥
 
 In this first Christmas episode for 2024 Dominic is joined again by the critically acclaimed author, broadcaster, and art-historian Lucinda Hawksley. And as they return to Dickens’ Christmas books their focus this time is on the illustrations found in each of them.

Many of you will of course be familiar with the name of John Leech, who’s images for A Christmas Carol are now inseparable from Scrooge’s story, and how we picture it, but as we move on through the rarer books The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man Leech is joined by other eminent artists such as Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, Edwin Landseer, Frank Stone and John Tenniel …

Dominic caught up with Lucinda while she was putting the finishing touches to her new book Victorian Christmas (published by WW Norton) which is a fun and festive look at all our Christmas customs , both ancient and modern, and the part her great-great-great Grandfather Charles Dickens played in popularising them for us today. There is a link to every Christmas illustration we talk about in this episode via the brilliant Charles Dickens Illustrated Gallery

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

Thank you for listening!