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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Writer's Dickens

The Essay: The Writer's Dickens: Episode 5: Justin Cartwright - Christmas

The Writer's Dickens

Episode 5

Episode 5: Justin Cartwright - Christmas

Justin Cartwright - Christmas

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Writer's Dickens, Justin Cartwright - ChristmasClose menu

Justin Cartwright reflects on the place that Christmas occupies in Charles Dickens's work.

Justin Cartwright reflects on the significant place that Christmas occupies in Charles Dickens's work, arguing that it is direct result of his experiences as a child.

Five contemporary novelists examine the craft of Dickens's prose, and reflect on how the giant of British nineteenth-century fiction is both a role model and a shadow looming over their own writing. Taking as their starting point a favourite extract from one of Dickens's novels, each writer discuss Dickens's themes, narrative techniques and writing craft, and tells us what they themselves have learnt from it. They offer thoughtful, unusually engaged and focused critical appreciation of Dickens's skill, as well as valuable insights into their own work and how they themselves wrestle with the subject and technique under discussion. 

In the final programme in the series, novelist Justin Cartwright reflects on the significant place Christmas occupies in Dickens's work, and argues that this is a direct result of his experiences as a child and not simply an expression of sentiment.

First broadcast in December 2011.

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Contemporary novelists examine the craft of Charles Dickens's prose

Contemporary novelists examine the craft of Charles Dickens's prose, and reflect on how the giant of British 19th-century fiction is both a role model and a shadow looming over their own writing.

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Episode 5: Justin Cartwright - Christmas

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