In Plain Engel-ish

Since so many people have asked me how this all began, it is my great pleasure to reveal in this essay the very funny and modest beginnings of our organization. Here is the story of how our tiny Charles Dickens Reading Club has become a national network for lovers of literature and history.It all began in 1979 with a call from Dorothy Ellwood, a delightful woman who had just been appointed the director for a new arts center here in Raleigh, North Carolina. She knew that I was an English professor and asked if I would be interested in leading...

North Carolina was smack-dab in the middle.In 1959, driving from our home in Indianapolis, Indiana, down to my grandparents' house in Miami, Florida, when I was eleven, we veered east into the Tar Heel state to drive on its newly opened first leg of Interstate 95 from Kenly in the north to Fayetteville in the south. To my annoying hourly backseat question of "Are we there yet?" my mom could finally respond: "No, but we're exactly half-way."North Carolina had held a soft spot in my elementary-school heart ever since third grade when I'd ordered my first joke book from Weekly...