Issued: November 7, 2015
PRESS RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACTS
Caledonia Skytower, Seanchai Library
thedede@comcast.net
THE DICKENS PROJECT Returns
to Benefit
The Community Virtual Library in Second Life
The Dickens Project- A popular festival, first presented in 2012 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of author Charles Dickens’ birth, is returning to Second Life this December in a limited form, to benefit The Community Virtual Library. The festival is presented free to all Second Life Residents and donations will be accepted for the Community Virtual Library: a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, connecting residents with information resources, reference services and serving as a networking tool for information resource professionals.
The nine day festival will open on December 12th, centering on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, presenting the novella in a variety of adaptations (including unabridged), in sections and in its entirety. The work is presented at different times to make the live readings accessible to residents from different parts of the world. Other works from within the author’s vast canon are featured and interactive information on the times and work of Charles Dickens can be explored.
Seanchai Library will produce the 2015 edition of The Dickens Project, presenting nearly fifteen hours of live readings between December 12 and 20th, and holding a dance and music event “Fezziwig’s Ball” on Saturday, December 19th. The final event, a marathon “All Read” presentation of A Christmas Carol performed by a relay team of Seanchai Staff, is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, December 20th. The final event schedule for The Dickens Project will be released in early December.
In 1843 Charles Dickens prefaced his about-to-be classic tale with these words: “I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.” He began the novella in October, and it went on to become the most successful book of the 1843 holiday season, selling six thousand copies by Christmas and continuing to be popular into the new year.
Dickens set out to weave a story of humanity, kindness, and benevolence which he had failed to do with under-selling Martin Chuzzlewitt. He would do so “without browbeating or scolding, or mounting a soap box.” His book centers itself upon Christmas, but aside from the title and the timing of the tale, is not a religious tract. The story centers on the transformation of a single soul from miserly rigidity, to generous compassion. Dickens did something entirely unheard of foe an author of his stature in his time: he self published to book. He hired and supervised the illustration, oversaw the book design and consulted on the advertising. His publishers Chapman and Hall, who had demurred on the project, served only as his printers and received a fixed fee from every book sold.
The 2015 edition of The Dickens Project will take place in the Community Virtual Library’s exhibit space in it s home on the Bradley University Sim. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bradley%20University/31/171/24 It will also be accessible from Seanchai Library’s parcel immediately to the east. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bradley%20University/100/209/28
Seanchai Library (Shanna-key, which means “Storyteller” in Irish.) was founded in March of 2008 in Second Life. Thousands of stories, and hundreds of authors later, the program remains dedicated to promoting the power of stories to transform and inspire through live voice presentations: “We bring stories of all kinds to life, in Second Life.”