CHARLES DICKENS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 40, 17 February 1931, Page 5

CHARLES DICKENS

COMPARISON WITH PRIESTLEY

A brief address on "The Immortal Dickens" was given at last evening's meeting of the Dickens-Shakespeare Society by Professor G. W. yon Zedlitz.

With all his essential personal qualities and defects, said yon Zedlitz, Dickens was perhaps the only one of the first-class authors in the English language who' did not found a school and was not followed by imitators. An author whose writings had analogies to Dickens's was Alphonse Daudet, but this was merely the case of a temperamental coincidence, as Daudet had renounced the theory that he had been influenced by Dickens. J. B. Priestley was a present-day author who, in many ways, resembled Dickens. Priestley did not set out to imitate Dickens. The differences between them were too profound—one being their respective attitudes to melodrama—but they were akin in a delight in the manifestation of the life of the usual Englishman in his natural surroundings, for which they both had a warm-hearted tolerance. They were also alike in their attitude towards the plot of their novels. It was a delight to those who believed in the supremacy of Shakespeare and Dickens to see such an author not only take a foremost place in modern literature, but usurp the positions of lighter and more popular writers of "best sellers."

Mr. Clement May was in the chair, and there were many present. After Mr. May had given a resume of the life and objects of the society, a programme of items, mainly from the works of Dickens and Shakespeare, was given. The performers were Miss Mavis Dillon, a pianoforte selection: Miss Ailsa Dillon, sones, "0 Mistress Mine," "Orpheus With His Lute," and an encore number; Miss Margaret O'Halloran, a scene from "Oliver Twist"; Mr. W. J. Mount joy, a scene from "Hamlet"; Mr. W. Hancock, two songs, "Who Is Sylvia" and "The Last Eose of Summer"; Miss Madge Thomas, a recitation from "The Tale of Two Cities"; Mr. John Storr, scenes from "As You Like It," and Mr. Clement May, a scene from "Romeo and Juliet." Of particular interest were two records of Shakesperian recitations by Sir Johnston Forbes-Robert-son.