Adaptations of Victorian Fiction in Drama, Cinema, and Television

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Drama

• Edward Stirling (1809-94): Dramatist, Adapter, Actor, and Stage Manager
• Dramatic Adaptations of Dickens's Novels (1836-1870)
• A Bibliography of Dramatic Adaptations of Dickens' Great Expectations
• Contemporary illustrations and titlepages of Theatrical Adaptations of Dickens
• Edward Stirling's A Christmas Carol; or, Past, Present, and Future, A Burletta in Three Staves (1844, in collaboration with Charles Dickens) — text
• Prologue to Mark Lemon and G. A. A'Beckett's Adaptation of "The Chimes"
• Fox Cooper's July 1860 Adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (text — discussion)
• Poster, Edward Stirling's adaptation of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Theatre Royal New Adelphi 1860.
• The Ending of the 1861 adaptation of Great Expectations
• The Ending of the 1872 adaptation of Great Expectations
• Dion Boucicault's Adaptation of The Cricket on the Hearth (Dot)
• A Comparison of Albert Smith's and Dion Boucicault's Adaptations of The Cricket on the Hearth
• The most haunting characters in adaptations of Victorian Fiction in Drama, Cinema, and Television

Contemporary illustrated title pages and dramatic personae of theatrical adaptations:

• Charlotte Brontë
• Wilkie Collins
• Charles Dickens
• Sir Walter Scott

Cinema

• Great Expectations in Film and Television, 1917 to 1998 (includes bibliography and filmography)
• Films and Plays from A Tale of Two Cities (1899-1980)

Television

• Dennis Potter's 1978 Television Adaptation of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge
• The Claim (2000) — an adaptation of The Mayor of Casterbridge
• Pip, child and adult in the Drama Channel's Great Expectations (2014)
• Estella, child and adult in the Drama Channel's Great Expectations (2014)

Publications of related interest

• Cano, Marina. Theatrical Afterlives: Nineteenth-Century Women’s Novels on the Stage. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2026. Reviewed by Elizabeth Steere.


• Murray, Simone. The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy of Contemporary Literary Adaptation. London: Routledge, 2011.



According to David Finkelstein, who reviewed Murray's book in the January 2012 Times Literary Supplement, “This timely work details how books and fiction writing are enmeshed within a complex business network that links texts to other media sources. Literary fiction in particular is a fruitful hunting ground for film and screen adaptation” (27). The more things change, the more they remain the same.

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Created 19 August 2015

Last modified 21 September 2026