Title	The Darker Side of Dickens
Date	Thu 18 Jan
Event	Spring Short Course
Time	2:00pm - 4:00pm
Venue	Canterbury Campus
Contact	artsandculture@canterbury.ac.uk or Tel: 01227 922994
Price	Standard Adult - £105.00

Thursday 18 January 2018 | 2pm-4pm |10 sessions Tutor: Geoff Doel | Canterbury campus | £105 Charles Dickens was the most celebrated author of his day, widely loved and respected for his promotion of family values, his vigorous and active support of charities and his sympathy with the plight of the urbanised poor, particularly children. But aspects of his private life that have been investigated reveal a rather different Dickens to that revered by the Victorians. Dickens’ creative genius had its darker side, manifested in the more sombre aspects of his social vision of many of his early works from Oliver Twist to Bleak House. He struggled with childhood secrets as well as with his later double life and use of aliases. And his unhappy and disturbed state and despair is reflected in his later novels Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend, in the unfinished gothic novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood and his supernatural tale The Signalman. This course will focus on the darker imaginative aspects of Dickens’ works, and of his terrifying revelation of unacceptable elements in the London society of his day. But we’ll also explore the double standards revealed in his long-term relationship with Ellen Ternan, his appalling treatment of his wife and his very strict attitude to his children.

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