Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday, friends!

Despite the fact that I have two degrees in English, I never studied any Charles Dickens works in school. In high school, I think the English curriculum was cyclical (or, as Weldon would say, “sickle-lickle”) and I just wasn’t in the right rotation to read any Dickens. As an undergrad, I mostly took surveys, and we didn’t have enough time to read any really long novels. (This is also why I’ve never read any of the famous 19th-century Russian writers, such as Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, although that’s my reading goal for 2024). In grad school, the instructors pretty much assumed that we had read most of the classics by that point, and the curriculum was designed to expose us to works outside the traditional literary canon. As a result, I know a lot about many obscure works, some by very obscure authors, but relatively little about what are considered the classics.

In recent years, this gap in my knowledge base has bothered me, especially as it relates to Charles Dickens. The 19th century, especially the early 19th century, is my favorite period in literary history, and I had never read probably its greatest author in the English language.

This year, I set out to remedy that. I set a goal for myself that I would read at least five books by Charles Dickens before the end of the year. I read five Dickens novels and listened to a sixth one. I enjoyed them all very much. In fact, I think that I got a lot more out of them, coming to them as an adult with several decades of life experience under my belt, than I would have if I had read them as a student in my teens or 20s.

Over the last 30 years or so, The Muppet Christmas Carol has been many people’s first exposure to the work of Charles Dickens. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that my first impression of MCC was not particularly favorable. However, I’ve come to appreciate it more over the last 12 years or so.  Furthermore, I think that gaining a greater appreciation for Dickens over the past year has also given me a bit of a deeper understanding of and respect for The Muppet Christmas Carol (though I maintain that Dickens’ original story is much funnier).

The Muppets and Dickens go together so well in MCC that it made me wonder what other Dickens adaptations the Muppets could tackle. I started dreamcasting the Muppets in the Dickens novels that I have read (or listened to) this year, and I thought I’d share those ideas with you as a fun little treat before Christmas (or during Christmas, depending on when I actually get this written and published).

(Dickens spoilers beneath the cut: You’ve been warned!)

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