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Dickens vs Tolstoy: The Battle of the Great 19th-century Novelists

We lined up the best advocates to make the case for each writer. They called on a cast of star actors, including Tom Hiddleston, to bring their arguments to life with readings from the authors’ finest works..

Dickens. Tolstoy. Their names and reputations shake the ground – and so do their books, if you drop one. They are the two greatest novelists from the century when novels were really great. Both captured their countries’ very souls and, as vastly influential social reformers, savagely criticised them as well. But whose legacy is more enduring? Whose vision truer and more relevant today? Should you embark on War and Peace or Our Mutual Friend? To battle it out, Intelligence Squared are bringing two celebrated writers, John Mullan for Dickens and Simon Schama for Tolstoy, to our stage.

To his fans, Dickens is matchless for his compassionate heart and his brilliant caricaturist’s eye. The great champion of social justice in his era, he was also a master of class comedy. And no writer does pathos like Dickens. His settings haunt you – he virtually created the idea of Christmas, as well as that of Victorian London – and his characters are unforgettable. Remember Mr Micawber cheerfully saying ‘Something will turn up’? Oliver Twist bravely asking for some more? Or what about the heart-rending story of Little Nell? American fans of the serialised novel legendarily stormed the New York docks to ask transatlantic passengers arriving with the latest installment, ‘Is Little Nell dead?’

Tolstoy would never stoop to sentimentalism, his followers would say, still less caricature. You can’t imagine him writing The Old Curiosity Shop or A Christmas Carol. Or calling his characters Bumble, Gradgrind, Pecksniff or the Artful Dodger. Tolstoy is the quintessential Russian novelist, a profound spiritual and historical thinker whose radical, mystical ideas spawned a sect in his own lifetime. But like Dickens, he is also a supreme chronicler of emotion. No one has ever written so movingly about death, or passionate love. As Schama says, his books are ‘stained on every page with the juice of life’. Bewitching Natasha Rostova, noble Prince Andrei, tragic Anna Karenina – Dickens may make you laugh and cry, but Tolstoy makes you fall head over heels.

To help you decide who should be hailed as the supreme giant of the 19th-century novel we lined up the best advocates to make the case for each writer. And they called on a cast of star actors, including Tom Hiddleston, to bring their arguments to life with readings from the authors’ finest works.


Speakers

Chair

Bonnie Greer OBE

Playwright, author, broadcaster and former Deputy Chair, British Museum


Author, playwright and broadcaster. Her plays have been produced on the BBC and in the West End. She was Deputy Chairman of the British Museum’s Board of Trustees and is former Chancellor of Kingston University. She is an Honorary Doctor of Writing from Kingston, and an Honorary Doctor of Drama from The Royal Glasgow Conservatoire.
Featuring

John Mullan

Professor in the English department at UCL and and author of The Artful Dickens: The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist


Professor in the English department at UCL. He writes the regular 'Guardian Book Club' column on fiction in the Guardian and frequently appears on the BBC's Review Show. He was a judge of the 'Best of the Booker Prize' in 2008 and a judge of the Man Booker Prize itself in 2009. He has lectured widely on Jane Austen in the UK and also in the US, and makes regular appearances at the UK literary festivals. His latest book is The Artful Dickens: The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist.  

Sir Simon Schama

Award-winning historian and broadcaster, whose latest book is Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations


University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University and Contributing Editor of the Financial Times. He previously taught at Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard Universities. He is the author of 19 books, including The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age; Rembrandt's Eyes; A History of Britain trilogy; The American Future: A History, and two volumes of The Story of the Jews. He is the writer-presenter of 60 documentaries on art, history and literature for BBC television including films on Tolstoy, John Donne and Rembrandt as well as multi-part award-winning series including A History of Britain and The Power of Art which won an International Emmy for the film on Bernini.  Most recently his History of Now series aired on BBC2 in November-December 2022.  His art criticism for The New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for criticism in 1996 and he won the NCR prize for non-fiction for Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, the W.H. Smith Literary Award for Landscape and Memory, and the National Book Critics Circle prize for non-fiction for Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution. He has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters award for Literature; the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement; and the Premio Antonio Feltrinelli Prize in historical sciences from the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.  He has curated exhibitions at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, collaborated with and contributed to catalogues for shows by Cy Twombly, Alex Katz, Christo and Sally Mann and most recently worked with Cai Guo-Qiang on his Odyssey and Homecoming Retrospective at the Palace Museum, Beijing. His work has been translated into twenty three languages. Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations, his twentieth book, is published in May 2023.  

Zawe Ashton

Actor who has starred in Wanderlust & Fresh Meat


Actor who has starred in Wanderlust, Fresh Meat and will soon be seen in Velvet Buzzsaw. She has appeared in numerous West End shows, including Splendour and The Maids. Her screen credits include Greta, Nocturnal Animals, Dreams of a Life, Misfits, Sherlock and Guerrilla. Zawe is also a writer, director and producer. Her directorial debut Happy Toys was nominated for Best British Short at the Raindance Film Festival and her first book Character Breakdown is due for release in April 2019.

Tom Hiddleston

Actor who has starred in The Night Manager


Actor who has starred in the BBC’s The Hollow Crown and The Night Manager, for which he won a Golden Globe. His film credits include Avengers: Infinity War, Thor: Ragnarok, and War Horse. On stage he has appeared in Hamlet, Coriolanus, Ivanov, Othello, Cymbeline, and The Changeling.

Kit Kingsley

Actor


Student at Westminster Under School, aged 10. Roles include Jadis in The Magician’s Nephew, The Evil Queen in Snow White and Thomas O’Malley in the Aristocats. He recently won the school reading competition with his rendition of Jacques’ ‘All the World’s a Stage’. This event was his professional debut.

Julia Sawalha

Actor who has starred in Absolutely Fabulous


Actor who has starred in the BBC’s Absolutely Fabulous, Cranford and Larkrise to Candleford. Her film credits include the voice of Ginger in Chicken Run and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie. On stage she has appeared in The Memory of Water at the Vaudeville and Dearest Daddy, Darling Daughter at the Young Vic.

Timothy West

Film and theatre actor


Actor who has starred in Edward the Seventh, Hard Times and Crime and Punishment. He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for three seasons, and has played Macbeth, King Lear and Uncle Vanya on stage. His film credits include The Day of the Jackal, The Thirty-Nine Steps and Oliver Twist. He has also appeared in Coronation Street and EastEnders.