CHARLES DICKENS

Website: www.dickensfellowship.org https://disckenssociety.org

A Christmas Carol

A door knocker in Craven Street inspired Dickens to create in A Christmas Carol (1843) the image of Marley s ghost emerging from a door knocker. Alternatively, in 1842 Dickens visited the Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. Seeing men there in chains may have provided the inspiration for the description of Marley s ghost.

David Copperfield

David Copperfield (1850) is reputed to have been Sigmund Freud's favourite novel.

The Dickens Museum

Charles Dickens wrote both Oliver Twist (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1839) while he was living at No. 48 Doughty Street.

The Dickens Museum was founded in 1923 by the Dickens Fellowship. The body bought both Dickens s house and one of the properties that neighbours it.

Location: 48 Doughty Street, WC1N 2LX

Website: www.dickensmuseum.com https://dickensmuseum.com

Dramatisation

Theatres often staged plays based upon Dickens s novels before the books had finished being serialised. Therefore, the productions were given endings that were different from his.

Fagin

In his novel Our Mutual Friend (1865), Dickens included a pleasant Jewish character called Mr Riah. He was included because the writer had received a letter of complaint about Fagin. Riah proved to be rather lifeless

Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce

From 1733 to 1883 the Court of Chancery sat in Lincoln Inn s Old Hall (1492). The fictional lawsuit of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce in Dickens s novel Bleak House (1853) is meant to have been heard there. The writer modelled it upon the real, decades long Thellusson case. The merchant Peter Thellusson (d.1797) had died in possession of a fortune of over 600,000. He had left this tied up in a legal settlement that was intended to operate until the time of the death of his final surviving great-grandson. The amount of money that was involved prompted litigation between his descendants. The matter was determined finally by a ruling that the House of Lords made in 1857. This was four years after Bleak House had been published.¹

Location: Lincoln s Inn, WC2A 3TL (red, blue)

Website: https://events.lincolnsinn.org.uk/our-spaces/the-old-hall

¹. The settlement of the case seems to have prompted the members of one branch of the Thellusson family to refurbish their country house, Brodsworth near Doncaster in Yorkshire. Subsequently, the house was not redecorated. As a result, Brodsworth is one of the few surviving examples of unaltered High Victorian country house interior decoration.

Medicine

Charles Dickens s powers of observation, and consequently his ones of description, were such that many physicians were able to draw insights from the ways in which he described his characters. His description of the Fat Boy in The Pickwick Papers were such that obesity hyperventilation syndrome is also known as Pickwickian syndrome. Following his death The British Medical Journal published a highly appreciative obituary of him.

Nicholas Nickleby

In 1980 the Royal Shakespeare Company mounted an 8 -hour-long stage production of David Edgar s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, an adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby. The play had minimal scenery and was directed by John Caird and Trevor Nunn. It starred Roger Rees (1944-2015) as Nickleby. David Threlfall played Smike.

The Old Curiosity Shop

The shop that Dickens s novel The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) referred to was probably one in Orange Street. The site is now occupied by a Thomas Brock sculpted statue (1910) of the actor Sir Henry Irving.

Location: Orange Street, c.WC2H 0HA (orange, yellow)

Public Readings

In 1858 Dickens started his public readings. They enabled him to indulge his love of performing.

Oliver Twist

Following Oliver Twist s (1838) publication the book was condemned by some literary critics for being a Newgate novel that glamorised the criminal life.

The Strand Workhouse

The Strand Workhouse covered Soho. It was located in northern Fitzrovia. Dickens spent a period living near it at No. 22.

Location: Cleveland Street, c.W1W 6DL (blue, brown)

Joseph Rogers

In 1855 Dr Joseph Rogers was appointed to be the medical officer of the Strand workhouse.

Location: 33 Dean Street, W1D 4PW. Dr Rogers s home. (red, turquoise)

David Backhouse 2024