In the wake of the 2023 television adaptation of Great Expectations (2023) being announced, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst wrote this piece for Literary Hub about the many versions of Charles Dickens’ stories for the screen.

Douglas-Fairhurst goes so far as to say “that no other novelist has been adapted for the screen nearly as often—or as successfully—as Dickens. More than 400 films and TV series have been created so far…Dickens’s stories run through the history of popular entertainment like the lettering through a stick of seaside rock.”

Douglas-Fairhurst then goes on to tell the story of some of these adaptations, and discusses how Dickens’ stories influenced early films even when there wasn’t an adaptation - such as The Kid (1921) starring Care Experienced Actor Charlie Chaplin.