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Charles Foster Kent. Charles Dickens as a Reader
Charles Dickens as a Reader
Table of Contents
PREFACE
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL
THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK
DAVID COPPERFIELD
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY
MR. BOB SAWYER'S PARTY
THE CHIMES
THE STORY OF LITTLE DOMBEY
MR CHOPS, THE DWARF
THE POOR TRAVELLER
MRS. GAMP
BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TREE INN
BARBOX BROTHERS
THE BOY AT MUGBY
DOCTOR MARIGOLD
SIKES AND NANCY
THE FAREWELL READING
Отрывок из книги
Charles Kent
Published by Good Press, 2019
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In arriving at this decision, however, it will be remarked that one simple but important proviso or condition is indicated—not to be dishonoured they must speak with grace, that is, effectively. Whenever an author can do this, the fact is proclaimed by the public themselves. Does he lack the dramatic faculty, is he wanting in elocutionary skill, is his deliver dull, are his features inexpressive, is his manner tedious, are his readings marked only by their general tameness and mediocrity, be sure of this, he will speedily find himself talking only to empty benches, his enterprise will cease and determine, his name will no longer prove an attraction. Abortive adventures of this kind have in our own time been witnessed.
With Charles Dickens's Readings it was entirely different. Attracting to themselves at the outset, by the mere glamour of his name, enormous audiences, they not only maintained their original prestige during a long series of years—during an interval of fifteen years altogether—but the audiences brought together by them, instead of showing any signs of diminution, very appreciably, on the contrary, increased and multiplied. Crowds were turned away from the doors, who were unable to obtain admittance. The last reading of all collected together the largest audience that has ever been assembled, that ever can by possibility be assembled for purely reading purposes, within the walls of St. James's Hall, Piccadilly. Densely packed from floor to ceiling, these audiences were habitually wont to hang in breathless expectation upon every inflection of the author-reader's voice, upon every glance of his eye—the words he was about to speak being so thoroughly well remembered by the majority before their utterance that, often, the rippling of a smile over a thousand faces simultaneously anticipated the laughter which an instant afterwards greeted the words themselves when they were articulated.
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