The University of Buckingham has been awarded a Research Project Grant of £117,000 for the Dickens Journals Online (DJO) project. The project aims to create, by the time of the Charles Dickens bicentenary in February 2012, a complete online edition of Dickens’s phenomenally-popular weekly magazines, Household Words and All the Year Round. The grant will enable the University to recruit two specialists in Victorian literature as Research Assistants over a two-year period, to enrich the content of the website that has been created, and open access to the widest possible readership for its resources.
Terence Kealey, the Vice-Chancellor congratulated the DJO team on a “terrific achievement” for their winning bid, commenting that this was “exactly how we must proceed” in order to continue to grow the University and its reputation. Project Director, Dr John Drew, comments that he is “hugely looking forward” to working with early career academics “on what promises to be an exciting and innovative stage of the work in hand.”
The project is set to launch in March 2012, shortly after Dickens’ 200th birthday, with a three-day conference hosted by the University. ‘Charles Dickens and the mid-Victorian Press’ will not only mark the unveiling of the work, but will also form one of a schedule of celebrations taking place next year to mark the bicentenary of one of Britain’s most loved writers (for more details of celebrations planned for next year, please visit www.dickens2012.org).
For more information about the project, please go to www.buckingham.ac.uk/djo
