The Literary-Inspired Web Series, Dickens and LGBTQIA+ Representation:Public History—A David Copperfield Web Series(2019–20)

Abstract

Web series adaptations of the classics have been a familiar part of digital popular culture since the watershed appearance of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012–13). Adaptation critics, including Douglas M. Lanier, Jennifer Camden, and Kate Faber Oestrich, have tended to focus on relatively high-profile Austen and Shakespeare vlog adaptations, especially those produced by Pemberley Digital. In this article, I update the genre’s genealogy by turning instead to later waves of low-budget creativity that have taken this transmedia form in new directions since the peak years of the literary-inspired web series in the mid-2010s. I pay particular attention to Quip Modest’s Public History–A David Copperfield Web Series (2019–20), a relatively rare example of a Dickens adaptation in the web series format which remoulds the multi-generational three-decker saga into an LGBTQIA+ positive coming-of-age narrative for the Generation Z audience. My contextualised close reading of the adaptation simultaneously reframes our understanding of Dickens’s digital canonicity and helps us better grasp the cultural logic of the literary web series adaptation community.