2025 is the year to catch up on your Charles Dickens classics on ARTE. There are four TV adaptations of Dickens' works on the station's platform until 25 November.
Oliver Twist

Like the 1948 musical film classic by David Lean, this 2007 mini-series adaptation tells the story of an orphan, Oliver, who runs away to London, falls in with a band of pickpockets before being rescued by the kindly and wealthy Mr Brownlow. Starring Timothy Spall and Tom Hardy as the villainous thieves Fagin and Bill Sikes and Sophie Okonedo as good-hearted but mistreated Nancy. Oliver Twist (1838), was Dickens' first novel to depict the harsh life of the poor in London.
Little Dorrit

In this 1857 novel, Dickens drew on his experience to tell the story of a family condemned to live in Marshalsea debtors' prison. Amy, known as Little Dorrit, and her siblings, work in menial jobs outside the prison by day to try to pay off their father's debts. Amy works as a seamstress for a rich family, whose son takes a romantic interest in her.
Dickens' own father was sentenced to debtors' prison when Charles was a boy, and he used his experience of being sent as a child labourer to work in a blacking factory to depict David Copperfield's similar experience in the novel of that name. Claire Foy plays the title role in this 2008 adaptation.
Great Expectations

This 1861 novel was one of Dickens' greatest successes. It is a coming-of-age story about another orphan, Pip, who as a child meets and helps a fugitive convict. He is later invited to be a companion to Estella, the ward of the strange Miss Havisham, who continues to wear her wedding dress years after being jilted at the altar. A mysterious benefactor then sends Pip to London to become a gentleman, allowing Dickens to explore the British class system. This 2011 adaptation stars Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham, Ray Winstone as Magwitch the convict and Douglas Booth as Pip.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood

If the title of this Dickens novel seems unfamiliar it is because he left it only half-finished when he died in 1870. Dickens appeared to intend it as a mystery story, like those pioneered by his friend Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White, The Moonstone). The novel is set in an English cathedral town there is a love quadrangle between Rosa Bud, who was betrothed to Edwin Drood by her family, his uncle, John Jasper, and Rosa's best friend's brother Neville Landless. When Edwin disappears, Neville is suspected, but John Jasper's behaviour, and opium addiction, are extremely fishy too.
Despite being unfinished, such was Dickens' popularity that The Mystery of Edwin Drood was published and has been in print ever since. There have been several attempts to finish it, as a novel, play or as in this 2012 adaptation, a TV mini-series.
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