Nobody is going to be excused Dickens in his bicentennial year. This is good news for television people, since Dickens wrote his novels in the form of screenplays. He worked closely with his illustrators, making sure the scene they drew was exactly what he had in mind. He even acted out the roles as he wrote them, so the family would hear Fagin, or Pecksniff, or Squeers booming from his study as he worked.
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