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JOHN DREW DELIVERS DICKENS LECTURE

Tuesday 3rd June 2003

On Tuesday 27th May Dr John Drew, an acknowledged Dickens expert, treated a full house to an original and unexpected analysis of the great Victorian writer. He described Dickens as a “serial killer” in at least two ways: firstly, in the sense that Dickens “made a killing” (made quite a lot of money) in the serialisation of his novels; and secondly, in the sense that Dickens “killed off” his characters one after another in a distinctive way.

This unusual and amusing perspective on Dickens was presented in a highly lucid and even forensic manner worthy of a Scotland Yard sleuth tracking a villain’s known movements. With a visual display to accompany his talk providing a chronicle of dates, titles, places and people, Dr Drew convincingly presented his case, casting Dickens in a new, even murky light. His description of Dickens’s “character assassination” was particularly revealing, detailing both the ghoulish descriptions Dickens provides in his novels of the deaths of many of his villains but also the matter-of-fact way in which the author himself talked of disposing of his characters when they had served their purpose in his stories. That was revelation indeed and reminiscent enough of serial killers’ psyche to be unnerving! The claim that Dickens in real life had been something of a “ladykiller” and had even got rid of his own wife added to the plot. Through an insightful, thought-provoking but at the same time highly suggestive analysis, Dr Drew managed to make of an already fascinating writer an even more fascinating real-life figure.

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Report by Gerry Loftus and the Web Team