Dickens Day 2023: Dickens and Time

We are pleased to announce this year’s Dickens Day will be exploring the topic of ‘Dickens and Time’, considering temporality, timeliness, and timelessness in Dickens’s works. The world in which Dickens lived was increasingly defined by schedules and timekeeping – the development of the railway, the conflict between working days and leisure hours. Dickens’s works regularly refer to clocks, time, past, present and future. Dickens himself embraced a punishing work schedule in his lifetime, and was a restless spirit in both his career and home life. To what extent was he a man defined, even haunted, by time? 


Additionally, there is the question of how we now respond to Dickens’s novels in relation to both his time and our own. How do Dickens’s works reflect upon the time in which he was living? How do they portray that time to us as 21st century readers? Does Dickens define the Victorian era, or does the Victorian era confine and constrain Dickens’s works and limit the range of their modern reception? These are just some of the questions we hope to consider on the day. 

The call for papers document can be viewed here.

The latest programme is available here.

Ticket rates:
Standard (£30)
Concession for unwaged and students (£20)