Showing posts with label Great Expectations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great Expectations. Show all posts

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Expectations of Reading Great Expectations

In all matters, it is generally a good idea to follow the advice of one's spouse. So, Great Expectations it is.
I have always loved Dickens, but discovered rather late that he published all his books serially. So, three chapters or so represented a fortnightly subscription. And he wrote them as he went along, reacting to the public's likes and dislikes, and often had a cliff hanger at the end of a section. In fact, one of the characters in David Copperfield was drawn from a real person, and she sued. So Dickens wrote her back into the story in later sections, revealing her to be a lovely person all along.
Therefore, I wondered what it would be like to have the reading match the original fortnightly sections. It would reduce the number of files from 59 to 18, but would make each file quite large.
I will give it a try, and see what happens. Wish me luck!