Dickens in Doughty Street: 100 Years of the Charles Dickens Museum

Charles Dickens Museum

Location

Charles Dickens Museum
48 Doughty Street
London
WC1N 2LX

Description

This exhibition runs from Wednesday 5th February 2025 to Sunday 29th June 2025.


On 9 June 1925, 48 Doughty Street, former home of one of the country’s most famous authors, Charles Dickens, opened as a museum for the first time. 100 years on, we invite you to this special exhibition bringing together the highlights of our extraordinary collection, from some of the first objects to enter the Museum, to our most recent acquisitions.

Illuminating the life and works of Charles Dickens and the Museum’s role in preserving his legacy, you’ll be able to see Dickens’s original manuscripts, letters to friends and family and rare first editions of his most famous works. But you’ll also encounter Dickens the man as well as Dickens the writer, his personal style, interests and passions. From his hairbrush, walking stick and only surviving suit, to portraits and photographs made during his lifetime.


While the house itself is the absolute treasure of the Museum – besides the significance of the historic rooms, most of its fireplaces, doors, locks, window shutters, fittings and even the copper in the washhouse, are Dickens’s - the new exhibition will emphasise the fascinating richness and quality of the Museum collections.

Among the confirmed features of the exhibition:

An unrivalled collection of portraits of Dickens: a wall of images, both celebrated and obscure, from depictions of the handsome young writer and journalist, to the familiar heavily bearded world-famous author and performer.

On display for the first time: a chalk and pastel sketch of Dickens at the time when he was living at Doughty Street; acquired by the Museum in 2019, this is believed to be an original drawing for the ‘lost’ third portrait of Dickens by Samuel Laurence.

Some of the earliest pieces of writing by Dickens: an album of poems written by 18-year-old Dickens, which were kept by their recipient, Maria Beadnell.

The lost portrait: painted while he was writing A Christmas Carol and lost for over 174 years, rediscovery in a box of trinkets in South Africa in 2017. Vivid and beautiful, the portrait will be displayed alongside a letter from Dickens to artist Margaret Gillies, arranging his sitting for the painting.

The items of his life: the only suit of Dickens’s clothes to survive anywhere, as well as his hairbrush, binoculars, quill and ink stand and marriage license.

Original drawings for the great novels: the work of Dickens’s favourite illustrators, including Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), John Leech, George Cruikshank and Fred Barnard, and featuring Leech’s preliminary drawings for the first publication of A Christmas Carol and Fagin in the Condemned Cell by Cruikshank.

A microcosm of the Museum: a unique, customised collection of volumes of John Forster’s seminal authorised biography of Dickens, stuffed with letters, drawings and a panoply of historic items, which belonged to the great Victorian actor-manager Sir Henry Irving (undisplayed since 1934).

A direct link to an infamous moment: a draft letter from Charles Dickens to the family servant, Ann Brown, which contains the first paragraphs of the ‘Violated Letter’, in which Dickens forcefully exposed the collapse of his marriage to Catherine.

A blubber-stained classic: the copy of David Copperfield taken to Antarctica by Capt. Scott’s 1910 expedition on the Terra Nova. Stranded in an ice cave, the crew read a chapter every night for sixty nights, and the book is blackened with their fingerprints, likely to have been due to the seal blubber fire that heated the cave.

Prices

Standard Ticket: £12.50
Other price options
Concessions: £10.50
Child (over 6): £7.50
Child (Under 6): Free

Contact and Booking Details

More information at this website.

Upcoming Dates

This exhibition runs from Wednesday 5th February 2025 to Sunday 29th June 2025.

Forthcoming dates:

Thu 13th Feb 2025 
(10:00am to 5:00pm)
Fri 14th Feb 2025 
(10:00am to 5:00pm)
Sat 15th Feb 2025 
(10:00am to 5:00pm)
Sun 16th Feb 2025 
(10:00am to 5:00pm)
Wed 19th Feb 2025 
(10:00am to 5:00pm)
Thu 20th Feb 2025 
(10:00am to 5:00pm)
Fri 21st Feb 2025 
(10:00am to 5:00pm)

Disclaimer

The information and prices in this listing are presumed to be correct at the time of publishing, but please always check with the venue before making a special trip.

All images are supplied by the exhibition organiser.

Charles Dickens Museum
48 Doughty Street
London
WC1N 2LX

Map

This exhibition runs from Wednesday 5th February 2025 to Sunday 29th June 2025.

This event runs over several days/weeks. Dates include:

February 2025

March 2025

April 2025

May 2025

June 2025