Cathy Waters

Book peer review can feel like a mystery when you're preparing your first book proposal. What happens behind the scenes, and how does feedback help shape publishing decisions? Join our webinar with OUP editors Eleanor Collins and Norman Hirschy to find out: oxford.ly/4kdeI6w

The latest edition of OA 19th-c. Periodicals features such new crowdpleasers as The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, Harmsworth Magazine, the Theosophical Review, The Money Market Review, and The Child's Own Magazine. #victorian www.victorianresearch.org/openaccesspe...

A wonderful conclusion to this year’s Dickens Day at Senate House; a day filled with a superb selection of lectures, a good deal of fellowship, and many fond memories of Michael Slater and Tony Williams

Malcolm Andrews begins his moving tribute to Michael Slater in the context of a rich survey of Dickens Studies from the 1960s to the present - a fitting conclusion to this year’s Dickens Day. @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

It’s a mark of the corruption of our whole way of thinking about the world that trying to meet a planetary emergency is routinely described as “ideological”, while continuing to accelerate it is presented as “pragmatic” and “economic”.

How can the analysis of concordances be supported by algorithms? 📽️ Have a look at this new series of videos where we introduce the FlexiConc functionality in CLiC. 💻 CLiC is a free web app designed to support the computer-assisted study of narrative fiction. youtu.be/W9FYF81SYPQ?...

Here is one for your diary! 🎸 You don't want to miss "Dickens Rocks" Find the CfPs on our society webpage

After a string of desk rejections and unsuccessful interviews, I am still looking for work in West Yorkshire/remotely. I have experience in HE teaching and administration, editing and copyediting, research and writing, and customer service! If you know of any roles going please send them my way 🙏

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www.theguardian.com/science/2026... ‘the idea of the Christmas Carol is a wonderful one that highlights this notion that times maybe aren’t all separate. …maybe we can join … someone from the past, someone from the future.’ Jim Al-Khalili on forthcoming RI Xmas lecture @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

Dickens as relevant as ever @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

The applications portal for #RSVP2027 is now officially open! We invite all of your latest ideas on the intersections of 'Structure' and #19thC periodicals/print culture. Final proposals due 1 November. Get inspired and more information on our website: rs4vp.org/rsvp-confere...

How Victorian celebrities and publishers used periodicals to boost fans' loyalty, make profit, and advance political agendas: cliosfootnotes.wordpress.com/2026/08/31/n...

A historical perspective on our current reading crisis?: my new article for @theconversation.com explores why a 120-year-old warning about declining reading habits sounds remarkably familiar today, from skimming newspapers to scrolling social media. Read it here: theconversation.com/why-an-120-y...

Isobel Armstrong on saving English. Brilliant as ever. tribunemag.co.uk/2026/08/savi...

Just arrived in the post and full of good reading: the Summer issue of The Dickensian!

10/10 take from Morten Morland in The Times

Australia routinely declares a Total Fire Ban, with stiff penalties for violation, during heat waves. Here in the UK we ask stores not to sell portable BBQs 🙄

Apparently £5million can’t buy you enough security to protect you from an imaginary threat.

www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int... This is a superb defence of the essay as a form of thinking - ‘To write is not just to transcribe the mind’s ideas; it’s a form of transformation’ - citing EM Forster: ‘How do I know what I think until I see what I say?’ Precisely.

A lithographer at work, from the title page of Charles Hullmandell's The Art of Drawing on Stone: Giving a Full Explanation of the Various Styles, of the Different Methods to be Employed to Ensure Success, and of the Modes of Correcting, as Well as of the Several Causes of Failure (1824).

All fiction titles from the English Catalogue, Volume 4 have now been added! That means 1862–1889 are complete. Next up: the 1890s... • 27,471 title entries • 6,770 author entries (most with bios) Big thank you to my students from last semester who assisted me to this milestone.

“Trump presumably assumed the BBC, like other entities he has brought suits against, would simply fold. But the BBC said no,” writes The Empty City

If I were Nigel Farage, I’d dip into that £5 million crypto gift just to fund a video that can compete with this! 🤣 HILARIOUS ⬇️

British Library's EThOS platform for its online database of 650,000 doctoral theses back online. Hooray!

Welcomed by the Town Crier of Bluetown on the Isle of Sheppey, members of @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social and the Pickwick Club today enjoyed a gripping performance of Great Expectations by Gerald Dickens, great great grandson of the Inimitable, at The Criterion.

Reupping this as we hit the last two weeks before the cfp deadline. Dickens Day is an inclusive conference aimed at academic and enthusiast alike: we welcome proposals from postgraduates, professors and independent researchers on “Dickens and family”. Further details at www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

'Only a human being can effectively be accountable for the accuracy, integrity and originality of research. Thus, only human beings should write papers. Some journals...make this accountability requirement abundantly clear.' But quite a lot do not.

Another lovely celebration of the life of Michael Slater last night, organised by @ies-sas.bsky.social and the Charles #Dickens Museum.

I saw these beauties at Maggs Bros in Bedford Square this evening and thought of you @andrewkingc19.bsky.social

www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/... This year’s Long Distance Walkers Association annual 100 mile challenge is marking the centenary of the publication of Winnie the Pooh!

As ever, excellent analysis of where we are now.

A brilliant performance of the Bardell v Pickwick trial at this afternoon’s Celebration of the Life of Michael Slater, from Miriam Margolyes, Malcolm Andrews and two members of the #Dickens family, Gerald and Mark Dickens. A wonderful tribute to a great and much-missed Dickensian.

A reminder that abstracts for the @dickenssociety.bsky.social Dickens on Screen online event are due in 7 days! 👇✍️🎦

Nineteenth-century cos-play on display in the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum. Hilarious! Also some lovely Hokusai prints.

That's a model for a 'patriotic curriculum'. It's Shakespeare and Austen and Zephaniah; it's slavery, abolition and post-emancipation apprenticeship; it's Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Ugandan Asians; it's pride and anger and an insistent demand for scrutiny. It's not binary: it's historical. 6/6

This is good. Read it, especially but not only if you are a government minister. It comes from a reflective place of praxis. Unlike much of what has been said on this topic, this is not slop.

The CFP for Dickens Day 2026 is live! We warmly invite proposals linked to this year’s theme of “Dickens and family” (both in his life and work). The deadline is 15 June, and the day itsef will be on Saturday 10 October at Senate House, London. All are welcome! www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

'AI boosters...think that when people write they are directly transferring...ideas that exist pristinely in their heads directly into language. They see the effort of writing as something that gets in the way of this pure process. They see writing as a transparent process of transference'. 1/2

Today's #MastheadMonday is The Standard of Freedom (1848-51). It was published by John Cassell as a family newspaper aimed at those with a reformist mindset, advocating 'Political, Commercial & Religious Freedom'. Digitised by the BL & free-to-view: www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/stand...

I’m in Dorset for an LDWA challenge event tomorrow. Very disappointed to find that the Macready-Dickens screen is not currently on display in The Sherborne! But happy to spot this mural nearby. For info on the screen research.kent.ac.uk/macready/ @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

What a wonderful day at the V&A / National Art Library talking about Dickens's Compostional Process and ways of engaging wide audiences with his material archive. @dickensnotes.bsky.social is on Bluesky now too 😀

Exhibit one: why so little attention to the travails of our national library? www.cityam.com/the-british-...

A slide of imperative verbs (addressed to himself? Or to the narrative?) gleaned from Dickens’s memoranda and notes as part of www.dickensnotes.com project and a session with the manuscripts themselves in the V&A National Art Library. Thanks to Anna Gibson and Adam Grener for a great workshop!

Let the Dickens House Party begin! At the Royal Hotel Ventnor with ‘The Dickens Boys’, Ian and Gerald, as inimitable hosts @dickensfellowhq.bsky.social

Canadian Mountie: "Mr. Ness, I do not approve of your methods!" Elliott Ness: "Yeah? Well, you're not from Chicago."

Just going to leave this here

Just opened at the Charles Dickens Museum in London 🎉👏