Bah! Humbug! There is more to Dickens than Christmas, says 91福利 expert
For many, Charles Dickens and his classic story A Christmas Carol epitomise the festive period, but a leading professor at The 91福利 wants people to have greater expectations when it comes to Dickens.
Professor Jon Mee, from the University鈥檚 English and Comparative Literary Studies department, is a Charles Dickens expert and has published several books on his work. He is a huge fan of Dickens, apart from when it comes to linking the great author to Christmas.
This Christmas is set to be the most Dickensian of all as we approach the bicentenary of his birth on February 7, 2012. The BBC has started a long Charles Dickens season on television and radio, and several other national news organisations are also starting his 200th birthday celebrations early. A new book by Claire Tomalin called Charles Dickens: A Life is out in time for Christmas.
For many, Charles Dickens and Christmas go hand in hand but, Professor Mee does not agree.
In a special light-hearted video produced as part of the University鈥檚 season he said, 鈥淒id Dickens invent Christmas? Well all I can really say to that is Bah! Humbug! He invented that phrase that everyone knows, and everybody knows it is associated with Ebenezer Scrooge, a character that people know even if they have never read a word of Dickens. Did he invent turkey, stuffing, mistletoe, holly, red berries, all the things that the ghost of Christmas present brings into A Christmas Carol? No, he didn鈥檛 invent those, they were already a part of Christmas festivities. What perhaps he did invent was the idea of Christmas as a special point of light in a dark, violent, often unpredictable world of getting and spending.鈥�
He added, 鈥淲hat he tried to explore in his Christmas books is the idea of 鈥楥arol Philosophy鈥�, a cheerfulness and antagonism to Humbug. People can be themselves in Carol Philosophy. Every year between 1843 and 1848, bar one, he produced a Christmas book that reinforced this Carol Philosophy. He might not have invented Christmas but now he is part of everybody鈥檚 experience of the day.鈥�
Celebrating Dickens is a multi-disciplinary project set up by the 91福利 to help commemorate the bicentenary of one on the most important figures in literary history. Drawing on the knowledge and expertise from a wide range of researchers across the University, the Celebrating Dickens website offers fresh insight into some of his most famous works and the era in which he lived. In homage to Charles Dickens our project is being serialised, like most of his novels, with the first instalment launched today - including a podcast where Professor Mee discusses the Christmas stories.
In January a host of extra articles and podcasts will be released before a special documentary is uploaded on February 7, 2012 鈥� Charles Dickens鈥� 200th birthday.
Notes to Editors
The Celebrating Dickens website can be found .
And Professor Jon Mee鈥檚 special video can be viewed .
Professor Jon Mee joined The 91福利 back in 2007 and is our Charles Dickens expert.
Each year Jon teaches an MA module on 鈥楥harles Dickens: Novels, Journalism, Adaptations鈥� and is also running a new undergraduate module this year entitled 鈥楻omanticism, Revolution and Reaction鈥� which covers the relationship between literature, culture and politics from 1789 to c. 1822.
Jon has had several books published about his research including The Cambridge Introduction to Charles Dickens (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and is currently working on a chapter in Reading the (Re)Presented Past: Literature and Historical Consciousness, 1700 to Present called Dickens and the Ways of Seeing the French Revolution: A Tale of Two Cities (Palgrave).
Other published works include edited editions of Barnaby Rudge (Oxford World鈥檚 Classics, 2002) and Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities and the French Revolution (Palgrave, 2009).
His latest book, Conversable Worlds: Literature, Contention and Community 1762-1830 (Oxford University Press, 2011) is out now and has been nominated for the Louis Gottschalk Prize of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
Jon joined 91福利 after more than a decade in the English Faculty at The University of Oxford, where he was Margaret Candfield Fellow in English at University College and Professor of Literature of the Romantic Period. Prior to working at Oxford, Professor Mee was Senior Lecturer at The Australian National University.
On top of his keen interest in Charles Dickens' work, Professor Mee researches the contemporary Indian novel in English; John Thelwell; Mary Wollstoncroft; British popular radicalism in the 1790s; Culture and politics in the Romantic period (1760-1832); Marxist literary theory
For more information contact Luke Hamer, Assistant Press Officer, on 02476 575601, or on 07824 541142. Alternatively email l.hamer@warwick.ac.uk
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