Happy Birthday, Dickens

Upcoming events to mark the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Dickens are planned at Princeton Public Library.
 
On Monday, Feb. 6 at 7 p.m., popular Princeton University English professor and Dickens expert Jeff Nunokawa will commemorate the birth of Dickens, the Victorian-era writer whose work transcends his time, language and culture. Nunokawa is also Master of Rockefeller College at Princeton University. His talk will take place in the library’s Community Room.
 
On Tuesday, Feb. 7, Dickens’ actual birthday, a discussion of “The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)” takes place in the Fireplace Area on the library’s second floor at 7 p.m. “David Copperfield” is Dickens’s eighth novel and his most autobiographical.
 
A screening of 1935’s “David Copperfield” will take place Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m. in the library’s Community Room. David O. Selznick and George Cukor assembled an all-star cast for the film version of the Dickens novel including W.C. Fields, Lionel Barrymore, Basil Rathbone and Maureen O’Sullivan. The film was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and runs 2 hours and 10 minutes.
 
Dickens was born on Feb. 7, 1912 and died on June 9, 1870 at the age of 58. In addition to “David Copperfield,” his notable works include “The Old Curiosity Shop,” “Oliver Twist,” “Nicholas Nickleby, “A Christmas Carol,” “A Tale of Two Cities,” and “Great Expectations.”