My Dear Friends: The Wealth of Ways Charles Dickens Worked to Reach His Audience

Name: My Dear Friends: The Wealth of Ways Charles Dickens Worked to Reach His Audience
Start: 2025-02-06T17:30:00-06:00
Location: 1901 E. 20th St., Joplin, MO, United States, Missouri 64804

Schedule

Thu, 06 Feb, 2025 at 05:30 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

1901 E. 20th St., Joplin, MO, United States, Missouri 64804 | Joplin, MO

In addition to being a prolific novelist, journalist, dramatist, actor, editor and public speaker, Charles Dickens was an unusually resourceful promoter and marketer of his writing.
The Friends of the Joplin Public Library and Dr. William (Bill) Kumbier will present “My Dear Friends: The Wealth of Ways Charles Dickens Worked to Reach His Audiences” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, at the library, 1901 E. 20th St.
Starting with “The Pickwick Papers” and “Sketches by Boz” and all through his last unfinished work, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” Dickens energized and expanded the customary mode of serial publication, overseeing the monthly and sometimes weekly
new episodes of his novels as they developed. Each novel then appeared in book form, which then reappeared in one or more editions of his complete works published during his lifetime.
During his presentation, Kumbier will discuss the many ways Dickens reached audiences, and offer a brief reading from “David Copperfield” that Dickens composed specifically for reading tours.
A professor of English and philosophy, Kumbier received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Michigan State University, followed by a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the
University at Buffalo. He taught at Iowa State University before joining the faculty at Missouri Southern State University in 1989, retiring in 2020.
Admission is free and open to the public, though attendees are invited to make a
donation to support Friends of the Joplin Public Library.