Reading Groups

Nefarious Families in Dickens with Amanda Hollander

4 Sessions Thursdays, 6:00 pm EDT - 7:30 pm EDT January 23 to April 17, 2025

The Center for Fiction

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The ‘With Books’ option includes the titles required for this group at a 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
1/23, 2/20, 3/20, 4/17
In Person at The Center for Fiction

Victorian England in Dickens’s novels showcases the impacts of rapid urbanization, industrialization, and the fluctuating promise of wealth through speculation, gambling, and banking, with its concurrent ills of imprisonment, debt, and destitution. Yet this also was a historical period that coincided with a highly romanticized view of domesticity, the “angel of the hearth,” and the idealization of childhood.

In this group, we will examine how these ideas are both undermined and reinforced by Dickens’s nuanced portrayals of families in all their promise and horrors. We will read The Old Curiosity Shop and Nicholas Nickleby as we consider how systemic volatility finds its way past the domestic doorstep and feeds back into the world outside the home.

What to read before the first meeting: Please read Chapters 1-40 of The Old Curiosity Shop.

What to expect from this reading group: This group is highly participant-driven with a focus on conversation and some close readings. The instructor will provide an overview of relevant (and irrelevant) historical details.

Reading List:

Capacity: 20

Led by

Amanda Hollander

Amanda Hollander

A writer and opera librettist, Amanda Hollander holds a doctorate in Victorian and children’s literature from UCLA. She recently completed a fellowship with the American Opera Project. She has published several works of speculative short fiction and academic articles and was a 2024 fellow at the Huntington Library. You can find more about her upcoming projects at amandahollander.com.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

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