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 Desperate Remedies is the first published novel written by Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928) and as such is a wonderful amalgam of gothic mystery and an exploration of the themes and ideas about life, fate and the way unpredictable circumstance can dictate the path one takes through life, which were expanded upon in his subsequent… Read More

The basic premise of the story of Faust is generally well known. It concerns a magician who  agrees to surrender his soul to Mephistopheles, an evil spirit, for a certain period of time in exchange for otherwise unattainable knowledge and magical powers giving him access to all the world’s pleasures. It is believed that the… Read More

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ ‘It ranks with the greatest books ever written in the English language. As a narrative of war and adventure it is unsurpassable.’ Winston Churchill Thomas Edward Lawrence (1886 – 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat and author, best known for his legendary was activities in the Middle East… Read More

‘Moments before the Great Corruption’ – Great Expectations Episode One Review After all the hype, the interviews, and the extended trailer, I must confess I was expecting more from last night’s pilot episode of Steven Knight’s new adaptation of Great Expectations. This is, after all, ‘The Dickens tale as you’ve never seen it before’ according… Read More

PART TWO: ‘As being calc’lated to lead to larks!’ It was inevitable that Great Expectations would eventually find its way to television, which it first did in a heavily truncated version performed live over two episodes of the NBC dramatic showcase series Robert Montgomery Presents in 1954. This was a prestige show for its time,… Read More

Part One: ‘We made everything larger than life…’ This year, the arrival of spring will be accompanied by what promises from the trailer to be a radical reimagining of Dicken’s immortal coming of age story Great Expectations, written by Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight. This will be Knight’s second Dickens screenplay, following A Christmas Carol… Read More

Keep out of Chancery… it’s like being ground to bits in a slow mill; it’s like being roasted at a slow fire; it’s being stung to death by single bees; it’s being drowned by drops; it’s going mad by grains.’ John Jarndyce, Bleak House Bleak House (1851-53) is one of Dickens’ greatest novels. It has… Read More

George Eliot’s Middlemarch is set in the period of the 1832 Reform Act and general election. Sally Minogue uncovers some similarities with the present. George Eliot’s Middlemarch is a compendious novel, generous in its sweep, with a cast of characters of near-Dickensian proportions (though Eliot is an entirely different kind of novelist), taking in Italy… Read More