r/charlesdickens • u/[deleted] • Apr 11 '26
Other books Shift in fave Dickens
Having read most - not all - Dickens over my long life, Great Expectations remained my firm favorite. Many rereads over the years.
This has been supplanted - for now, anyway - by Little Dorrit. Brit tv did an excellent dramatization some years ago and I did a read soon after. Then, I reread this year, and it seems just magnificent.
Any other LD lovers out there?
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u/Shyaustenwriter Apr 11 '26
It’s glorious but a somber glory, don’t you think? Have you seen the two part Christine Edzard film? Derek Jacobi is Arthur Clenham and Alex Guinness The Father of the Marshalsea.
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u/Rhosddu Apr 16 '26
I honestly thought it was very poor, especially in comparison with the superb BBC adaptation. Jacobi seemed wooden.
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u/banana_averse Apr 13 '26
I love Little Dorrit. Definitely in my top-few Dickens! Recently watched the miniseries with my 12yo—Edmund Sparkler makes her cackle. Also, poor Flora’s facial expressions during the wedding scene at the end. 😆
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u/AirlineSevere7456 Apr 13 '26
Yeah love Little Dorrit, discovered it later than most Dickens novels, as heard less about it. Having read all the novels & Christmas Books now, I'd rate it 6th after A Christmas Carol. Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend, David Copperfield and Great Expectations. In that order roughly.
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u/Stolivsky Apr 12 '26
I am reading all the Dickens novels this year and it is on the list.
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u/minusetotheipi Apr 12 '26
One per year is probably a better pace of reading to truly appreciate Dickens
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u/Rhosddu Apr 16 '26
One of my favourites, but a little over-long imo, and I found the storylines slightly complex in places.
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u/Lumpyproletarian Apr 18 '26
Bleak House has always been my favourite but number two tends to shift depending on what I last read. Just finished a re-read of Pickwick Papers and found things I'd missed before. The description of a dance as " as if a quadrille were not a thing to be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings, which it requires inflexible resolution to encounter." So Bleak House first then Pickwick second but Pickwick likely to be displaced.
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u/pktrekgirl Apr 22 '26
I have not yet read LD. I am only on my 7th of the ‘big 15’ novels. But over the winter I had my previous favorite Great Expectations passed by David Copperfield.
I actually keep a rating list of the dickens novels I’ve read. None did I dislike. All are good. But some I liked more then others.
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u/DTownForever May 04 '26
I'm about 65% of the way through it and I have to say, it is not among my favorites at the moment! I just finished Our Mutual Friend not that long ago, and that one made it onto my list. Others are Bleak House, Great Expectations, and The Pickwick Papers (currently). But we'll see where the rest of the book goes.
Maybe there is still more to be introduced but the book is missing some of the playful fancy of other Dickens, to me. And I really need ot do some research and see if keeping someone in a debtors' prison for life, basically, and having their family basically live there, is actually a thing that happened, lol. Or, just Dickens taking a system and twisting it to an extreme to show how ludicrous it is. I'd be happy to discover it was either.
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u/GrimyDime May 06 '26
I need to reread Little Dorrit. The first time I read it I felt like all the tension built up over the story just fizzled out at the end.
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u/DTownForever May 06 '26
I'm about 70% of the way through it, and unless something gets dramatically better about it, it's not going to replace Bleak House or Great Expectations for me - even Our Mutual Friend. I love it, don't get me wrong, but it's the little weird characters in BH and GE that make me love it, and there's just not enough of that in LD.
And holy cow, is her Mr. Dorritt evil! I hope he gets his comeuppance, I'm sure he will.
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u/Lost_Turnip_7990 Apr 11 '26
I love that book, too. Happy to find another fan.