Dickens Before Sound DVD

Inspired by Silent Shakespeare's popular success, Dickens Before Sound is a unique collection of early adaptations of perhaps Britain's favorite (and after Shakespeare) most adapted author.

This section ranges from the first surviving adaptation, Joakim; or, Marley's Ghost, filmed just thirty years after Dickens' death, to a bonus feature of the very first Dickensian sound film: Bransby Williams presenting his monologue in the character of Grandfather Smallweed from Bleak House. Along the way, the development of film storytelling will be witnessed as practitioners of this wonderful new art struggle to transform a story from page to screen.

For the first time, these films are presented with Neil Brand's newly composed scores and, in the case of Gabriel Grub and The Pickwick Papers, with an entirely experimental attempt to match the original words to silent images.

Disc One

• Gabriel Grub (1880-1910)
• Scrooge; or, Marley's Ghost (1901)
• The Cricket on the Hearth (1909)
• Oliver Twist (1909)
• The Boy and the Convict (1909)
• Nicholas Nickleby (1912)
• The Pickwick Papers (1913)
• David Copperfield (1913) ( extract)

Disc Two

• Oliver Twist (1922)
• Dickens' London (1924)
• Grandfather Smallweed (1926 1929) (extract)

Special features

• Fully illustrated booklet including original stills
• Spoken word performance by Ken Campbell of Dickens original text over Gabriel Grub and The Pickwick Papers
• Voiceover commentary by screenwriter Michael Eaton on The Cricket on the Hearth
• Downloadable essay by Dickens scholar Graham Petrie