Lucinda Hawksley

On Monday 12 July, I’ll be taking part in the Great Debate at the Buxton Literary Festival: “Orwell vs Dickens: Who was the greater political writer?”. Tickets are available from the festival office.

On Thursday 8 July, I’ll be giving a free lunchtime lecture at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on “Lord Leighton and his Circle”; 1.15pm in the lecture theatre.

Last Friday I gave my first evening tour at the National Portrait Gallery - now open late on Thursdays and Fridays. It’s a great atmosphere. On Thursdays there’s a DJ, on Fridays there’s live music, and there’s a bar on both evenings. There are also free gallery tours and talks and art workshops. A brilliant and unusual way to spend these balmy summer evenings, especially if you spend some time at the Portrait Restaurant, at the top of the building, looking down over London.

Last Friday’s talk was on “Love Affairs of the Pre-Raphaelites”. I’ll be giving taster tours - on more scandals from the collection - on Friday 30th July and Friday 6th August 2010. All tours start at 7.30 and are free.

I spent a fascinating few weeks in Chicago on a study fellowship at the Newberry Library. I was researching the lives of Augustus Dickens (youngest brother of Charles) and Bertha Phillips, the mother of his children. They ran away together, from England to the USA, in the late 1850s and ended up in Illinois. They settled in Chicago in 1860. It was difficult researching the lives of people who lived before the Great Fire of 1871, in which almost all of Chicago was burned down, along with all official documents, but it was extremely intriguing and helped hone my detective skills.

I also met some lovely long-lost relatives: 5th and 6th cousins of mine, descended from Augustus via his son Bertram. We’d really like to find out what’s happened to the other side of the family, those descended from Bertram’s siblings Adrian Dickens and Amy Howland (née Dickens).

I have had really positive feedback about the Lizzie Siddal segment on The One Show. Amusingly most people seem to have been fascinated by the difference in sizes between mine and Gyles Brandreth’s cups (!). In answer to all those queries, I think the reason was that I was drinking tea and he was drinking coffee. It was nothing more symbolic than that….

Andrew Cox and his team at Bristol Central Library did an amazing job of organising my talk on “Lizzie Siddal and the Real Desperate Romantics”. What a stunningly beautiful venue and a great audience – not a seat left in the house. I really hope to be back again soon and will liaise with Andrew about another talk, perhaps for later this year. Thanks to everyone who bought tickets, to those people who asked questions and all those who came to chat at the end. Thanks also to Durdham Down Bookshop – the last independent bookshop in Bristol – for doing such a great job of selling books.

It was really fun to be invited back onto BBC Radio Bristol, this time to talk about Lizzie Siddal and the Real Desperate Romantics. Thanks to Lou Taylor and Jason Harrold for the invitation to come back again in the future - watch this space.

I spent part of December and January on the P&O ship Artemis, as a guest speaker on a cruise about British Literature. The talks P&O requested were “Lizzie Siddal” and “The 10 Dickens Children”. It was great fun and I got to know the other speakers: Gervase Phinn and Beverly Tinson; two talented speakers and lovely people. If you were on board, I hope you enjoyed the cruise as much as I did.

On 10 December I spent an afternoon at the Charles Dickens Primary School in Southwark, London to judge a drama competition. Six schools each sent a class of very talented pupils to perform plays they had created about Charles Dickens. I was amazed by how talented and confident the pupils were. What a brilliant display of teachers’ ingenuity as well as children’s ability. Despite being hideously jetlagged, I was really bowled over by the performances.

I am very excited to have been asked onto the Aled Jones show on Sundays on Radio 2. The original plan was for a phone interview on 20th December, but instead I’ll be going up to their studios in Manchester in the new year, probably end of Jan or early Feb. I’ll let you know when I find out more.

I recently did some filming for BBC One’s “The One Show”. They’re making a film about the time in Millais’s life when he painted “Ophelia”. I was interviewed about Lizzie by the inimitable Gyles Brandreth. The programme will be on some time in January. Watch this space.

I had an amazing time at the Dickens-on-the-Strand Festival in Galveston, Texas. It is so wonderful to see almost 30,000 people enjoying a Dickensian spectacle, most of whom appeared in costume. People must spend months organising what they’re going to wear to the festival. It was great fun, I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who organised it and to everyone who made me feel so welcome. I hope to be back again some time in the future.

Earlier this year I was involved in the filming of a programme about “A Tale of Two Cities” for PBS. Michael York - he of the beautiful voice - is the narrator and his words bring together songs written by the uber-talented Jill Santoriello. The concert recorded for the programme was filmed in Brighton, England with a stellar cast. Jill Santoriello wrote the songs as part of her musical of “A Tale of Two Cities”, which premiered on Broadway in 2008. I’m still hoping that one day it will make it over to London. The PBS programme is being aired throughout the US and parts of Canada. Well done to everyone involved with the show.

I’m really looking forward to attending the Dickens on the Strand festival in Galveston, Texas. Everyone’s been so helpful in the run up to the festival and I’m greatly looking forward to meeting all the people I’ve come to know so far only through email. It’s the 36th Dickens on the Strand this year and looks set to be a truly great event.

The new Disney version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol premiered in London’s Leicester Square on Tuesday 3 November 2009. It was a wonderful evening - the square had been taken over for the event, with the three major cinemas all showing the film, Victorian carol singers and even fake snow brought in to give that authentic Dickensian Christmassy feeling. Christmas lights all across London were switched on that evening, all with a Christmas Carol theme. Thanks to everyone who came to say hello and to all the camera crews I spoke to. Apologies to those I didn’t have time to be interviewed by.

The National Portrait Gallery in London hosted a special event to celebrate the new film of Dorian Gray. On Thursday 10th September, I chaired an evening in conversation with the director, Oliver Parker, screenwriter Toby Finlay and Paul Benney, the artist who created the superb portrait of Dorian Gray specially for the film. Having the portrait on stage with us was a highlight for me. It is a fabulous work of art.

The team behind A Tale of Two Cities the musical, on Broadway, are in the UK filming a special event for PBS in the States. I was very excited to be filmed with the wonderful Michael York at the Charles Dickens Museum. The programme will be shown on PBS in December 2009.

I was thrilled to be asked to take part in the Greater London Authority’s Story of London Festival. On Friday 19 June 2009, I shall be joining Gaynor Arnold (author of Girl in a Blue Dress) at the Women’s Library in Shoreditch for a discussion of Charles Dickens’s Women. On Thursday 25 June, I shall be taking a group of people on a very special guided tour of the Charles Dickens Museum, at 48 Doughty Street. There are 20 places on the tour and tickets need to be booked in advance through the Story of London website. To find out more, go to: http://www.london.gov.uk/storyoflondon/

After my wonderful trip to New York City last December, to see Jill Santoriello’s new musical of A Tale of Two Cities on Broadway, I am really pleased that the musical is being brought to England. Watch this space for details of some very special concerts to be put on in the UK. A must for all fans of Charles Dickens (and of musicals, of course).

Lizzie Siddal, the Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel has just been relaunched as a beautiful, smaller format hardback by Andre Deutsch (Carlton Books). Thank you to everyone who has emailed me in the last couple of months to let me know they couldn’t get hold of Lizzie. The great news is, now you can and she’s looking better than ever.

I’ve been asked several times if I’m currently writing a new book. Thanks to all those who have emailed me, I am currently researching the life of the sculptor Princess Louise (daughter of Queen Victoria), who is a truly fascinating woman and whose biography I am greatly enjoying writing. The book has been commissioned by Chatto for 2010.

The BAFTA-award-winning actress Miriam Margolyes revealed in a recent interview for The Independent on Sunday that she is currently reading Katey: The Life and Loves of Dickens’s Artist Daughter because Charles Dickens is her “mad pash”. Miriam Margolyes is currently appearing on the West End stage to great acclaim in the musical Wicked.

I was interviewed by Karl Moore of Writers’ FM – the online radio station written by writers for writers. We chatted for well over an hour about both my biographies: Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel and Katey: The Life and Loves of Dickens’s Artist Daughter. To find out more about Writers’ FM and to download the interview (please be aware that this does take some time) go to www.writersfm.com/writersfm, or click below to play:

On 31st July 2006, I was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour to talk about my latest biography, of Katey Perugini (nee Dickens). Meeting the iconic Jenni Murray was definitely a highlight of my year. Click below to hear the interview or download the mp3 file.

A two-page article about Katey – and my biography – was published in the Daily Express on Thursday 27th July. It is titled “The Victorian Wild Child” (written by Cheryl Stonehouse) and describes Katey’s life as “extraordinary … rich and fulfilled” and asks “Why has she been so forgotten?”.

Lizzie Siddal: Face of the Pre-Raphaelites was published in the USA on 22nd August 2006 by Walker Books, NY. For more information contact Lucinda or call Walker Books on 00 1 212 727 8300. For publicity contact Sara Mercurio (sara.mercurio@bloomsburyusa.com).