We were delighted to welcome Professor Helen Small and Dr Simon Grennan for the concluding talk of our Big Read of John Caldigate. Professor Small shared her thoughts on the novel as a whole, and Dr Grennan gave a talk about his adaptation of John Caldigate into the graphic novel Dispossession, published in 2015.

Professor Helen Small, Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford, will open the session with a talk on John Caldigate. She regularly writes on Victorian fiction, poetry, and public moralism, and has edited several well‑known and less well‑known nineteenth‑century literary works, including Vanity Fair, Wuthering Heights, The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob, The Eustace Diamonds, and (with Stephen Wall) Little Dorrit. She is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Victorian Culture and serves on the advisory board of History of Humanities.

Following Professor Small’s talk, Dr Simon Grennan, Professor of Art and Design and Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Education at the University of Chester, discussed his graphic adaptation Dispossession: A Novel of Few Words, based on John Caldigate. An acclaimed comics scholar and artist, he has produced more than forty graphic works, and his adaptation is celebrated for its visual storytelling and minimal text.

John Caldigate was originally published in Blackwoods Magazine, April 1878-June 1879 and as a three volume novel by  Chapman and Hall, 1879.

Resources

• Plot summary and character listing for John Caldigate (contains plot spoilers)
• Download John Caldigate free of charge from Project Gutenberg
• Visit Dr Simon Grennan’s website to find out more about his work