September 24, 2023 – May 26, 2024 from 1:00-3:00 PM (Pacific) | Virtual Events
New this year, we devoted an entire year to one novel instead of two, and dove deeply into Great Expectations. Join Dickens enthusiasts and Pickwick Club members for a series of discussions about this book.
Charles Dickens depicts how a gentleman is made, not born, in this novel. Presented as Pip’s confessional autobiography, Great Expectations describes his childhood at the forge, his infatuation with the beautiful Estella, his shame at his working-class origin and his eagerness to be a gentleman, and eventually his life as a young man-about-town with “great expectations” of inheriting a fortune. Recalling these events as an adult, Mr. Pirrip is frank about his mistakes and shortcomings.
September 24, 2023
Volume 1, Chapters 1-9
Discussion Facilitator: Wayne Batten (Friends of the Dickens Project)
October 22, 2023
Volume 1, Chapters 10-17
Discussion Facilitator: Wayne Batten (Friends of the Dickens Project)
November 26, 2023
Volume 1, Chapter 18 – Volume 2, Chapter 4
Discussion Facilitator: David Brownell
December 24, 2023
No Meeting
Tune in for next year’s meeting!
January 28, 2024
Volume 2, Chapters 5-11
Discussion Facilitator: Barbara Raney
February 25, 2024
Volume 2, Chapters 12-19
Discussion Facilitator: Clark Cloyd
March 24, 2024
Volume 2, Chapter 18 to Volume 3, Chapter 5
Discussion Facilitator: Catherine Springer
April 28, 2024
Volume 3, Chapters 6-14
Discussion Facilitator: Wayne Batten
May 26, 2024
Volume 3, Chapters 15 to End of Book
Discussion Facilitator: John O. Jordan tor: John Jordan (UC Santa Cruz)
Recommended Edition: We recommend the Penguin Classics edition of the novel for its appendices and notes, but other versions are fine. First-time readers should avoid the Introduction if they don’t want spoilers. Download the novel to read at Gutenburg.org or to listen at LibriVox.org.
The Santa Cruz Pickwick (Book) Club, a branch of the Dickens Fellowship, is a community of local bookworms, students, and teachers who meet monthly to discuss a nineteenth-century novel. The Santa Cruz Public Libraries provide support for the reading group.
