Ethos Public Relations Manchester

Thank Dickens it’s Christmas!

by Shaun

' "A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year!" '

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

I’m a huge fan of Charles Dickens’s work and regular visitors to the Ethos public relations website may have noticed the story on our home page a couple of months ago about my involvement with the Dickens Journals Online project. As part of next year’s Dickens bicentenary celebrations, the project is putting online a weekly journal edited by Charles Dickens in the 19th century.

I have been helping to edit the errors from the journals which resulted when they were scanned onto computer. It is hoped that, by the 200th anniversary of Dickens’s birth on 7 February 2012, over 1,000 magazines will have been completed and, with well over 800 now done, there’s every chance of achieving this. Dickens Journals Online is an open access project which will be launched in March 2012 and will provide a valuable educational and historical resource.

Of course, Christmas is the time of year most associated with Dickens. In fact, Dickens is often credited with inventing the modern Christmas – the domestic celebrations, the charitable acts and the perennial “white Christmas”. Without Dickens, Christmas wouldn’t be what it is today and I’m sure it will be hard to escape the Dickens films, TV adaptations and musicals over the festive period.

In the days of tweets, texts and blogs, reading Dickens can sometimes seem daunting, but many of his most famous stories are very accessible. A Christmas Carol is a great place to start with its seasonal blend of comedy, pathos and the supernatural. Nobody characterises the breadth and depth of human nature better than Dickens and A Christmas Carol is full of joy and sadness and all the emotions in between.

So when you’re munching on your turkey this Christmas, don’t be a Scrooge – think of all the Tiny Tim’s out there and spread a little happiness…

Merry Christmas!

www.djo.org.uk www.dickens2012.org

Posted at 2:25pm on 21^st December 2011