Podcast appearances and mentions of robert douglas fairhurst

Welcome to CHRISTMAS at Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire!

In this episode I explore the patient perspective of multiple sclerosis with Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, a professor of English in Oxford. He narrated his experience of the symptoms of MS, and the investigations and treatments he underwent, including the cutting-edge stem cell transplantation. He also discusses the physical and emotional burdens of the disease, and how he has adapted to live a fully functional life.

A new series of Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire!

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lewis Carroll's book which first appeared in print in 1865 with illustrations by John Tenniel. It has since become one of the best known works in English, captivating readers who follow young Alice as she chases a white rabbit, pink eyed, in a waistcoat with pocket watch, down a rabbit hole that becomes a well and into wonderland. There she meets the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the March Hare, the Mock Turtle and more, all the while growing smaller and larger, finally outgrowing everyone at the trial of Who Stole the Tarts from the Queen of Hearts and exclaiming 'Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards!'WithFranziska Kohlt Leverhulme Research Fellow in the History of Science at the University of Leeds and the Inaugural Carrollian Fellow of the University of Southern CaliforniaKiera Vaclavik Professor of Children's Literature and Childhood Culture at Queen Mary, University of LondonAndRobert Douglas-Fairhurst Professor of English Literature at Magdalen College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Kate Bailey and Simon Sladen (eds), Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser (V&A Publishing, 2021)Gillian Beer, Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (University of Chicago Press, 2016)Will Brooker, Alice's Adventures: Lewis Carroll and Alice in Popular Culture (Continuum, 2004)Humphrey Carpenter, Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature (first published 1985; Faber and Faber, 2009)Lewis Carroll (introduced by Martin Gardner), The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000)Gavin Delahunty and Christoph Benjamin Schulz (eds), Alice in Wonderland Through the Visual Arts (Tate Publishing, 2011)Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland (Harvill Secker, 2015)Colleen Hill, Fairy Tale Fashion (Yale University Press, 2016)Franziska Kohlt, Alice through the Wonderglass: The Surprising Histories of a Children's Classic (Reaktion, forthcoming 2025) Franziska Kohlt and Justine Houyaux (eds.), Alice: Through the Looking-Glass: A Companion (Peter Lang, forthcoming 2024)Charlie Lovett, Lewis Carroll: Formed by Faith (University of Virginia Press, 2022)Elizabeth Sewell, The Field of Nonsense (first published 1952; Dalkey Archive Press, 2016)Kiera Vaclavik, 'Listening to the Alice books' (Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 26, Issue 1, January 2021)Diane Waggoner, Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood (Princeton University Press 2020)Edward Wakeling, The Man and his Circle (IB Tauris, 2014)Edward Wakeling, The Photographs of Lewis Carroll: A Catalogue Raisonné (University of Texas Press, 2015)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lewis Carroll's book which first appeared in print in 1865 with illustrations by John Tenniel. It has since become one of the best known works in English, captivating readers who follow young Alice as she chases a white rabbit, pink eyed, in a waistcoat with pocket watch, down a rabbit hole that becomes a well and into wonderland. There she meets the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the March Hare, the Mock Turtle and more, all the while growing smaller and larger, finally outgrowing everyone at the trial of Who Stole the Tarts from the Queen of Hearts and exclaiming 'Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards!'WithFranziska Kohlt Leverhulme Research Fellow in the History of Science at the University of Leeds and the Inaugural Carrollian Fellow of the University of Southern CaliforniaKiera Vaclavik Professor of Children's Literature and Childhood Culture at Queen Mary, University of LondonAndRobert Douglas-Fairhurst Professor of English Literature at Magdalen College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Kate Bailey and Simon Sladen (eds), Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser (V&A Publishing, 2021)Gillian Beer, Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (University of Chicago Press, 2016)Will Brooker, Alice's Adventures: Lewis Carroll and Alice in Popular Culture (Continuum, 2004)Humphrey Carpenter, Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature (first published 1985; Faber and Faber, 2009)Lewis Carroll (introduced by Martin Gardner), The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000)Gavin Delahunty and Christoph Benjamin Schulz (eds), Alice in Wonderland Through the Visual Arts (Tate Publishing, 2011)Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland (Harvill Secker, 2015)Colleen Hill, Fairy Tale Fashion (Yale University Press, 2016)Franziska Kohlt, Alice through the Wonderglass: The Surprising Histories of a Children's Classic (Reaktion, forthcoming 2025) Franziska Kohlt and Justine Houyaux (eds.), Alice: Through the Looking-Glass: A Companion (Peter Lang, forthcoming 2024)Charlie Lovett, Lewis Carroll: Formed by Faith (University of Virginia Press, 2022)Elizabeth Sewell, The Field of Nonsense (first published 1952; Dalkey Archive Press, 2016)Kiera Vaclavik, 'Listening to the Alice books' (Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 26, Issue 1, January 2021)Diane Waggoner, Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood (Princeton University Press 2020)Edward Wakeling, The Man and his Circle (IB Tauris, 2014)Edward Wakeling, The Photographs of Lewis Carroll: A Catalogue Raisonné (University of Texas Press, 2015)

Welcome to Christmas at Charles Dickens a Brain on Fire!At midnight tonight - London time - the very first of our special Christmas episodes will go live. And If you're new to this series, there are some incredible episodes already waiting for you to listen to. Interviews with leading actors, academics, writers, historians, and descendants of the great man him self!Guests such as: Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Armando Iannucci, Rosie Holt, John Mullan, Lucinda Hawksley, Robert Douglas Fairhurst, Andrew Davies & Alice Loxton … and many many more!I hope you have as much fun listening to these episodes this Christmas, as I have the honour to record them … So wherever in the world you're listening from ... MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!DominicSupport the showIf you like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrardHost: Dominic GerrardSeries Artwork: Léna GibertOriginal Music: Dominic GerrardThank you for listening!

This episode takes a walk, but a very short one. That's because my companion is Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, professor of English at Magdalen College, Oxford, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2017. The disease has wrecked his capacity to walk more than a few hundred metres - and wonky, clumsy metres at that. But Robert has substituted physical walks with imaginative ones, scanning his mind for ways of reading himself through literature. His powerful, funny and frank memoir Metamorphosis: A Life in Pieces is a sparkling demonstration of the places our minds can take us when our feet can't.   

My guest on this week's Book Club is Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. In his new book Metamorphosis: A Life in Pieces, Robert describes how being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis plunged him from his comfortable life as an English literature professor at Oxford into a frightening and disorienting new world; and how literature itself helped him learn to navigate around it.

My guest on this week's Book Club is Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. In his new book Metamorphosis: A Life in Pieces, Robert describes how being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis plunged him from his comfortable life as an English literature professor at Oxford into a frightening and disorienting new world; and how literature itself helped him learn to navigate around it.

Dominic is joined again by the inimitable Robert Douglas Fairhurst who returns to this series to explore Dickens' five iconic Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life & The Haunted Man ...Robert's latest book Metamorphosis: A Life in Pieces is available to order hereHappy Christmas! Support the showIf you like to make a donation to support the costs of producing this series you can buy 'coffees' right here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dominicgerrardHost: Dominic GerrardSeries Artwork: Léna GibertOriginal Music: Dominic GerrardThank you for listening!

Simon and Rachel speak with the academic and author Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. After undergraduate studies and a PhD at Cambridge, Robert moved to Oxford in 2002, where he is a professor of English Literature and a fellow of Magdalen College. His previous books include "Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist", which won the Duff Cooper Prize for biography in 2011; "The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland" in 2015, which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize, and most recently "The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World" (2021). Robert has edited editions of Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley and J.M. Barrie, and is a regular contributor to the Times, Guardian, Spectator, Literary Review, New Statesman and TLS. He has worked as a historical advisor on BBC adaptations of "Jane Eyre" (2006), "Emma" (2009) and "Great Expectations" (2011); acted as a consultant to the "Enola Holmes" film franchise; and served as a judge for the Man Booker and Baillie Gifford prizes. We spoke to Robert about combining an academic career with writing for a wider audience, his biographies of Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll, and his upcoming book "Metamorphosis." You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd, and produced by Artemis Irvine. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is a professor of English at Oxford University, and the author of numerous books, including most recently, "The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World."

Dominic is joined by Professor Robert Douglas-Fairhurst to discuss his extraordinary biography of Dickens The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens and the World ...The year is 1851 and London's Hyde Park is centre stage with the opening of The Great Exhibition. It is also the year that Dickens sits down to write his masterpiece: Bleak House ...Thank you for listening! To support this series please follow the link belowSupport the show

This week, I'm joined by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst - whose latest book is The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens and the World. He tells me how 1851 - the year of the Great Exhibition - served as a pivot in Dickens's own life, and set him on the path to writing Bleak House.

This week, Sam is joined by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst - whose latest book is The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens and the World. On the podcast he speaks about how 1851 - the year of the Great Exhibition - served as a pivot in Dickens's own life, and set him on the path to writing Bleak House.

As previously noted on the classic Better Read than Dead Christmas Carol show, Katie and Tristan are both fans of Charles Dickens. So needless to say, we had, uh, great expectations about this episode! Before you delete us for that horrible dad pun (thanks, Tristan), may we just point out that the phrase “great expectations” appears about 400 million times in Great Expectations (1861). Which actually makes a lot of sense. This novel is all about contingencies, and the unseen and often unknowable forces that come to bear on our lives, and what all that means for even starting to understand “the individual.” It also works toward a compelling critique of the nineteenth-century carceral state via the transported felon (Abel Magwitch), it has interesting things to say about class, and we could literally spend three episodes just talking through Miss Havisham and Estella and gender politics in this novel. We repeat -- Dickens is good. Fellow pinkos will like him, despite certain unfortunate lib tendencies (give the guy a break, he’s a freakin' Victorian). On the show, we read the Oxford edition edited by Margaret Cardwell with an introduction by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. For more on capital, empire, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century penal codes, see E. P. Thompson’s landmark Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act and Kirsty Reid’s Gender, Crime, and Empire: Convicts, Settlers, and the State in Early Colonial Australia. *Note to our listeners. Megan is on maternity leave. She’ll be back on the show in a couple weeks. Find us on Twitter and Instagram @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at betterreadpodcast@gmail.com. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.

We turn to children's and YA literature in this week's episode, with Rozalind Dineen and Toby Lichtig presenting new releases (as reviewed by a selection of young readers), as well as discussing some of the pros and cons of age-specific reading; Robert Douglas-Fairhurst reintroduces J. M. Barrie's classic work Peter Pan, where a wild imagination masks tragic, sometimes disturbing, realitiesAlfie On Holiday by Shirley HughesThe Fate of Fausto: A painted fable by OliverThe Good Thieves by Katherine RundellThe Burning by Laura Bates See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

  In May 1840 London was scandalized by the murder of Lord William Russell, who'd been found in his bed with his throat cut. The evidence seemed to point to an intruder, but suspicion soon fell on Russell's valet. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the investigation and trial, and the late revelation that decided the case. We'll also marvel at Ireland's greenery and puzzle over a foiled kidnapping. Intro: Marshal Ney directed his own execution. Lewis Carroll invented an alphabet he could write in the dark. Sources for our feature on the murder of Lord William Russell: Yseult Bridges, Two Studies in Crime, 1959. Claire Harman, Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London, 2019. Thomas Dunphy and Thomas J. Cummins, Remarkable Trials of All Countries, 1870. J.E. Latton Pickering, Report of the Trial of Courvoisier for the Murder of Lord William Russell, June 1840, 1918. William Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard: A Romance, 1839. "Remarkable Cases of Circumstantial Evidence," in Norman Wise Sibley, Criminal Appeal and Evidence, 1908. Samuel Warren, "The Mystery of Murder, and Its Defence," in Miscellanies, Critical, Imaginative, and Juridical, 1855, 237-271. "Trial, Confession, and Execution of Courvoisier for the Murder of Lord Wm. Russell: Memoir of F.B. Courvoisier, Lord W. Russell's Valet [broadside]," 1840. "Russell, Lord William (1767-1840)," in D.R. Fisher, ed., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1820-1832, 2009. "The Practice of Advocacy: Mr. Charles Phillips, and His Defence of Courvoisier," Littell's Living Age 25:313 (May 18, 1850), 289-311. "English Causes Celebres," Legal News 14:39 (Sept. 26, 1891), 310-311. O'Neill Ryan, "The Courvoisier Case," Washington University Law Review 12:1 (January 1926), 39-46. Michael Asimow, "When the Lawyer Knows the Client Is Guilty: Legal Ethics, and Popular Culture," Law Society of Upper Canada 6th Colloquium, University of Toronto Faculty of Law 10 (2006). J.B. Atlay, "Famous Trials: The Queen Against Courvoisier," Cornhill Magazine 2:11 (May 1897), 604-616. Paul Bergman, "Rumpole's Ethics," Berkeley Journal of Entertainment and Sports Law 1:2 (April 2012), 117-124. Abigail Droge, "'Always Called Jack': A Brief History of the Transferable Skill," Victorian Periodicals Review 50:1 (Spring 2017) 39-65, 266. Albert D. Pionke, "Navigating 'Those Terrible Meshes of the Law': Legal Realism in Anthony Trollope's Orley Farm and The Eustace Diamonds," ELH: Journal of English Literary History 77:1 (2010), 129-157. Matthew S. Buckley, "Sensations of Celebrity: Jack Sheppard and the Mass Audience," Victorian Studies 44:3 (2002), 423-463. Elizabeth Stearns, "A 'Darling of the Mob': The Antidisciplinarity of the Jack Sheppard Texts," Victorian Literature and Culture 41:3 (2013), 435-461. Ellen L. O'Brien, "'Every Man Who Is Hanged Leaves a Poem': Criminal Poets in Victorian Street Ballads," Victorian Poetry 39:2 (Summer 2001), 319-342. Matthew Buckley, "Sensations of Celebrity: Jack Sheppard and the Mass Audience," Victorian Studies 44:3 (Spring 2002), 423-463. "This Day's Examination of the Valet for the Murder of Lord William Russell, M.P.," 1840, English Crime and Execution Broadsides, Harvard Digital Collections. Peter Dean, "Death by Servant," Daily Mail, May 18, 2019, 12. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, "The Victorian Melodrama That Led to Murder and Mayhem," Spectator, Nov. 10, 2018. Hannah Rosefield, "The Strange Victorian Murder of Lord William Russell," New Statesman, Oct. 31, 2018. "Look Death in the Face," [Liverpool] Daily Post, Sept. 1, 2018, 12. Alexandra Mullen, "Bloody-Minded Victorians," Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2013. Dalya Alberge, "Vital Clue Ignored for 50 Years," Independent, Dec. 9, 2012. "Murder of Lord William Russell -- Confession of the Murderer," Sydney Herald, Oct. 20, 1840, 3. William Makepeace Thackeray, "Going to See a Man Hanged," Fraser's Magazine 128:22 (August 1840), 150-158. "Murder of Lord William Russell," New-Orleans Commercial Bulletin, June 16, 1840. "Further Evidence Concerning the Murder of Lord William Russell," Spectator, May 23, 1840, 7. "Francois Benjamin Courvoisier: Killing: Murder," Proceedings of the Old Bailey, June 15, 1840 (accessed Aug. 4, 2019). Annalisa Quinn, "Could A Novel Lead Someone To Kill? 'Murder By The Book' Explores The Notion," National Public Radio, March 27, 2019. Listener mail: "Local Elections Results," Irish Times, Aug. 17, 2019. Wikipedia, "List of Political Parties in the Republic of Ireland," (accessed Aug. 8, 2019). Wikipedia, "List of Political Parties in the United States" (accessed Aug. 9, 2019). Wikipedia, "United States Marijuana Party" (accessed Aug. 9, 2019). Wikipedia, "United States Congress" (accessed Aug. 8, 2019). Justin McCurry, "South Korea Mulls Ending Arcane Age System to Match Rest of World," Guardian, June 2, 2019. James Griffiths and Yoonjung Seo, "In South Korea, You're a 1-Year-Old the Day You're Born. Some Want to Change That," CNN, June 3, 2019. Beatrice Christofaro, "In South Korea's Unique Aging System, Some Babies Turn 2 Years Old the Day After They Were Born. A Bill Is Trying to Change That," Insider, Jun. 3, 2019. "Life Term in Murder Contested; Culture Cited on Age," KDKA Pittsburgh, Aug. 7, 2019. James Halpin, "Killer Claims Ignorance of Korean Age Custom," Citizens' Voice, Aug. 8, 2019. James Halpin, "Killer Blames Culture Quirk for Age Miscalculation," Citizens' Voice, Aug. 7, 2019. Wikipedia, "National Assembly (South Korea)" (accessed Aug. 11, 2019). Penelope's drawing: This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Ken Murphy. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

In the course of his long literary career, Samuel Johnson reviewed only one novel. Who was it by? None other than the "preposterously confident” Charlotte Lennox, a force in eighteenth-century prose and a model for Jane Austen – Min Wild tells us more; What happens if you ask a literary critic to watch top-grossing (pun intended) Hollywood comedies from the past three decades? Robert Douglas-Fairhurst explains how comedy reflects broader culture and anxieties; How are women treated in film and television? Is there cause for celebration? Alice Wadsworth joins us in the studio to discuss.BooksCharlotte Lennox: An independent mind by Susan Carlile Stealing the Show: How women are revolutionizing television by Joy Press Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive portrayals in speculative film and TV by Diana Adesola Mafe See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Are we hard-wired to feel other people’s pain? And if so, is it necessarily a good thing? Andrew Scull has reviewed three new books on empathy and joins us to tell us more; Charles Dickens's love of all things theatrical – in life as in art – is no secret. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst considers fifty years' worth of Dickens adaptations for the stage (and film)BooksThe Empathy Instinct by Peter BazalgetteAgainst Empathy: The case for rational compassion by Paul BloomThe Invention of Humanity: Equality and cultural difference in world history by Siep Stuurman Dickensian Dramas: Plays from Charles Dickens (Volume One, edited by Jacky Bratton; Volume Two, edited by Jim Davis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Where would we be without Charles Dickens? The biographer and academic Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and short story writer Helen Simpson join Alex Clark for a very festive edition of the Vintage Podcast.Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/vintagebooksSign up to our bookish newsletter to hear all about our new releases, see exclusive extracts and win prizes: po.st/vintagenewsletterRobert is an award-winning biographer and Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. His most recent book is The Story of Alice; before that he wrote Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist which won the Duff Cooper Prize. He is currently working on a new book called The Turning Point: Dickens’s World in 1851. The year of the Great Exhibition and the year in which Dickens began writing Bleak House, 1851 has been called the turning point of the century as well as of Dickens’s career. You can read more about his books here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/robert-douglas-fairhurst/1074442/Helen is the author of six short story collections including Four Bare Legs In a Bed, Constitutional and Hey Yeah Right Get A Life. In 2011 Helen wrote a short story for The Times called ‘The Chimes’ about a book club dissecting Dickens’s novel The Chimes, which he wrote as a follow up of sorts to A Christmas Carol. Later published in her collection Cockfosters, it draws uncomfortable parallels between Dickens’s world and our own – and has more than a little of Dickens’s playfulness about it too.Read more about her work here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/helen-simpson/1006023/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Here is another freshly re-edited recording from my archive. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst's biography of the first three decades of Dickens' life, published by Harvard University Press, is a terrifically readable, refreshing… Read More Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is said to be one of the most quoted books in the world. It has been translated into 174 languages, from Catalan to Zulu, and its fantastical creatures, nonsense words and magical happenings have become part of our shared cultural landscape. Bridget Kendall investigates the story behind Lewis Carroll's Victorian literary classic and its sequel with Angelika Zirker, Assistant Professor of English Literature at Tübingen University, Germany; Virginie Iché, Associate Professor of English Studies at Paul Valéry University in Montpellier, France, and currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin; and Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Professor of English Literature at Oxford University in the UK, and author of ‘The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland'. Illustration by John Tenniel (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Professor of English Literature, Oxford, gives a talk for Shakespeare Oxford 2016 series. When the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth was celebrated in 1864, Robert Browning observed that he and his contemporaries had Shakespeare 'in our very bones and blood, our very selves'. In this talk, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst explores some of the ways in which the Victorians tried to keep Shakespeare alive in the nineteenth century: through theatrical revivals and literary allusions; through paintings and photographs; and especially through their fascination with the idea that, as Tennyson put it in his poem Vastness, 'the dead are not dead but alive'.

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Professor of English Literature, Oxford, gives a talk for Shakespeare Oxford 2016 series. When the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth was celebrated in 1864, Robert Browning observed that he and his contemporaries had Shakespeare 'in our very bones and blood, our very selves'. In this talk, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst explores some of the ways in which the Victorians tried to keep Shakespeare alive in the nineteenth century: through theatrical revivals and literary allusions; through paintings and photographs; and especially through their fascination with the idea that, as Tennyson put it in his poem Vastness, 'the dead are not dead but alive'.

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Stuart Lee and Margaret Kean explore the digital afterlives of these celebrated storytellers The city of Oxford has been home to some of the world’s greatest writers and has inspired countless stories for all ages. This discussion celebrates Oxford as a place of stories and storytelling, and examines how Oxford tales have been re-shaped across different digital media. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford) examines the character of Lewis Carroll and the creation of 'Alice in Wonderland'. Stuart Lee (Member of the English Faculty and Merton College, University of Oxford) traces how Tolkien's Middle-earth and especially ‘The Lord of the Rings’ have been reimagined through a range of digital technologies, from games to films. Margaret Kean (Helen Gardner Fellow in English, St Hilda's College, University of Oxford) discusses how Philip Pullman plays with the idea of communication across different media in ‘His Dark Materials’.

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst explores how every generation has created its own Wonderland, and why we are still so curious about Alice’s dreamworld 150 years after the original publication of 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland', Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford), author of the Costa-shortlisted biography 'The Story of Alice', examines the character of Lewis Carroll and the creation of his iconic heroine. From Victorian Oxford to the modern online world, he explores how every generation has created its own Wonderland, and why we are still so curious about Alice’s dreamworld. This talk was part of an event exploring the work of celebrated Oxford storytellers Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkien and Philip Pullman and how their stories have been reimagined using a range of digital media. Watch the full discussion here: https://youtu.be/aPKENNrUmfI.

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst on 'The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland' at The Oldie Literary Lunch at Rye Arts Festival

This month in 1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, featuring John Tenniel's classic illustrations, was published for the very first time (the edition was quickly withdrawn when Tenniel complained about the printing of his illustrations and an improved edition was published in November). To celebrate, Alex Clark talks with Robert Douglas-Fairhurst about The Story of Alice and with Creative Director Suzanne Dean about design, fashion and the icon that is Alice.Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/vintagebooksSign up to our bookish newsletter to hear all about our new releases, see exclusive extracts and win prizes: po.st/vintagenewsletter See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alice in Wonderland is 150 years old this year. To celebrate her anniversary we have invited Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Professor of English Literature at Oxford University and Fellow of Magdalen College, to talk about his latest book The Story of Alice (Harvill Secker), a triple biography of Caroll's Alice books, of their subject Alice Liddell, and their creator Charles Dodgson. Douglas-Fairhurst will be in conversation with Vanessa Tait, author of The Looking Glass House (Atlantic), and the great grand-daughter of Alice Liddell. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Robert Douglas-Fairhurst about the life of Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has become an influential part of our cultural heritage but beneath the fairy tale lies the complex history of the author and his subject. Gillian Beer explores the links between Darwin and Carroll and the struggle to define and classify a changing world. The children's author Katherine Rundell enjoys the chaos and ambivalence in the Alice stories, and brings a sense of adventure to her own work. Centuries earlier, as intrepid travellers returned from distant lands with tales of wonder and exotic beasts, fearful hybrid monsters were all the rage as Damien Kempf describes in his Medieval Monsters. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Dr Robert Douglas-Fairhurst of Magdalen College, Oxford, discusses his current research and proposes why we should still study Dickens.

Aminatta Forna discusses her latest novel The Hired Man. Mariella delves into the state of the Russian literary scene with Russian Booker winning author Mikhail Shishkin and publisher and editor Natasha Perova. And in the year of the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Water-Babies, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst describes the eccentric life of its author and why he feels it still remains a fantastic story for children.

Dr Robert Douglas-Fairhurst talks of Dickens' life and influences and why these have made his works so popular.