Kathryn Hughes will join us for a webchat about Charles Dickens, the subject of this month’s reading group, on 29 June at 1pm.
Kathryn Hughes is the professor of life writing at the University of East Anglia, a fine literary critic and the author of several acclaimed books about eminent Victorians and Victorian life.
George Eliot, The Last Victorian won her the James Tait Black Memorial prize for biography in 1999, and The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize in 2005. Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum, an account of what it was like to live in the body of a Victorian, was described as a “dazzling experiment in life writing”.
You can get an idea of how well she writes about Dickens himself by reading this piece on Bleak House, written for the Guardian in 2011, and this longer article on A Christmas Carol, marital strife and Dickens’ relationship with his traumatic past.
We will benefit greatly from Kathryn’s expertise on Dickens and Victorians, and she’s been rereading Our Mutual Friend in order to answer specific questions about that extraordinary book.
She will be answering questions from 1pm on Monday 29 June, but please post your questions early.
