University of Warwick celebrates Dickens with special 200th birthday mobile App and documentary

The University of Warwick is launching its new Celebrating Dickens Mobile App on Tuesday (February 7) to mark the bicentenary of Charles Dickens birth.

As the world gears up to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of Dickens’ birth next week, the University of Warwick is planning a week-long salutation to one of the greatest ever authors.

Exclusive video content will be released on the Celebrating Dickens site each day, www.warwick.ac.uk/dickens , and a new Mobile App will be released on Tuesday 7^th for Android with an iOS version for iPhone and iPad released in the next few weeks. On Friday 10^th the University will release a feature-length documentary, including s with Warwick academics and with Charles Dickens’ great-great-great granddaughter Lucinda Hawksley.

Celebrating Dickens Mobile App offers an academic insight into the novels, life and times of Charles Dickens, one of the greatest ever storytellers.

Led by Charles Dickens expert Professor Jon Mee, from the University of Warwick’s English and Comparative Literary Studies Department, the App offers a plethora of podcasts, articles and videos exploring aspects of Victorian Britain, Charles Dickens’ novels and adaptations of his works.

Award-winning screenplay writer Andrew Davies, who adapted both Bleak House and Little Dorrit for the BBC, also contributes with an exclusive insight into how one goes about transferring Dickens’ illustrative text into compelling television.

The celebration kicks off on Monday with the publication of a video between Professor Jon Mee and his colleague Pablo Mukherjee on 19^th century detective fiction and the way Dickens captures crime in his novels.

The following day the Celebrating Dickens Mobile App will be released, with a second video with Lucinda Hawksley, exploring Charles Dickens’ early life and some of the influences on his works.

Wednesday sees a short with University of Warwick PhD student Gabrielle Mearns, who talks about Dickens’ philanthropic work, while on Thursday Professor Jon Mee s Scholar in Residence at the Charles Dickens Museum Professor Bob Patton.

The week culminates with the publication of a 60-minute documentary and Professor Gary Watt, from the University of Warwick’s Law department talking to Professor Mee about Bleak House and how Dickens portrayed the legal profession.