Dickens the Enchanter

Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller...

Former journalist and JCG Librarian Anu Ananth-Huggler talks to one of the greatest cultural critics of our time – Peter Conrad – about his latest book Dickens the Enchanter – an examination and exploration of the most powerful and potent imagination in literature. Conrad argues that Charles Dickens alone rivals Shakespeare and, in many ways, betters him. He critically and brilliantly charts how the forces of creation and destruction meet in Dickens, who, ultimately, in the unfinished murder mystery of Edwin Drood, was destroyed by his own creative genius.

Peter Conrad is a cultural critic and historian, who has published more than 20 books on a wide variety of subjects and writes regularly for the Observer. He taught English at Christ Church, Oxford for more than three decades and has lectured throughout the world. He lives in London and New York.