Museum at Dickens’s only surviving London home unveils unseen items and greatest treasures for major centenary exhibition.
By the Charles Dickens Museum, and EC1 Echo
One hundred years after opening its doors for the first time, the Charles Dickens Museum presents Dickens in Doughty Street: 100 Years of the Charles Dickens Museum, a celebration of the life of Dickens and of a Museum which holds the world’s most comprehensive collection of material related to the great author. A glittering combination of recently acquired unseen items and the Museum’s greatest treasures, the exhibition runs from 5 February – 29 June 2025 at the Museum at 48 Doughty Street, Holborn, the only surviving London house in which Dickens lived.
48 Doughty Street is where Charles Dickens (1812-1870) wrote the stories that made him an international superstar. In 1837, when Dickens moved into the home with his growing family, he was a budding author; by the time the family left, Dickens was world famous, on the back of a trio of wildly successful novels written there: The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.
While the house 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 exhibition will emphasise the richness and quality of the Museum collections.
Among the highlights:
The earliest surviving writing by Dickens: an album of love poems written, aged 18, and kept by their recipient Maria Beadnell
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
On display for the first time: a chalk and pastel sketch of Dickens made 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.
The desk at which Dickens wrote Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and Our Mutual Friend, in the room where he wrote Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and The Pickwick Papers
Handwritten manuscript for Oliver Twist
The Changing Face of Dickens: A wall of portraits from the Museum’sunrivalled collection of images of Dickens, celebrated and obscure, from handsome young writer to bearded world star.
The ‘lost’ portrait of Dickens, as he was writing A Christmas Carol, which was discovered in a house sale in South Africa in 2017, covered in mildew, having been lost for 174 years.
A life of a truly historic house: Did you know that suffragette ‘Slasher Mary’ Richardson, who took a knife to Velasquez’s ‘Rokeby Venus’ at the National Gallery, was living at 48 Doughty Street when she made the attack on 4 March 1914? She left the house that morning to go and do it. And was pleased to know that Dickens had lived there before her.
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, including 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 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.
Check out some of the highlights on our Instagram!
On the afternoon of 9 June 1925, the 55th anniversary of the death of Charles Dickens, as hundreds of people crammed into no. 48 Doughty Street (and out on to the road outside) for the official opening of the new ‘Dickens House’, the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Birkenhead addressed the crowd: “…I cannot help thinking that he would have cherished the knowledge…that the house which he first rented in London, and to which he brought his young wife, the house in which Oliver Twist and Wackford Squeers and Kate Nickleby were all born, was for all time to be made available to the admirers of his genius.”
Cindy Sughrue, Director of the Charles Dickens Museum, said, “Dickens in Doughty Street celebrates the Museum’s extraordinary and unrivalled collection of material connected to Dickens’s life, work and legacy. Gathered together over the past century and displayed in Dickens’s only surviving house in London, a beacon at the centre of the urban landscape quintessentially associated with the writer, the Museum is filled with objects that define Dickens’s life and its own history. Reflecting the initial collection, through to the most recent acquisitions, the exhibition features personal effects, portraits, photographs and all sorts of historic items that illuminate the life and works of Charles Dickens and the Museum’s role in preserving his legacy. We would like to thank our generous exhibition sponsors, Hallett Independent Art & Heritage Insurance, and donors The Murray Family and the City Pickwick Club.”
Nathanael Price, Executive Director of Hallett Independent, said, “It gives us great pleasure to support the Charles Dickens Museum as it celebrates 100 years of preserving and sharing the legacy of one of literature’s greatest voices.”
The Echo was honoured to be invited to the launch of the new exhibition yesterday evening, celebrating its centenary year.
Guests included several descendants of Dickens himself, plus patrons and supporters. We heard from Emma Harper, the exhibition’s curator who recommended some highlights to look out for. Cindy Sughrue, the outgoing director of the museum, also gave a brief talk and welcomed Frankie Kubicki, who takes over as the new director in March. Frankie is currently deputy director, and has been a curator at the museum for the last eight years. She curated the previous exhibition – Faithful Companions: Charles Dickens & his Pets
Renowned actor Simon Callow, museum patron and keen Dickensian, also made an appearance to show his ongoing support for the museum. You may have heard his dulcet tones reading from Dickens’ vast oeuvre in several exhibitions at the museum!
Dickens in Doughty Street: 100 Years of the Charles Dickens Museum
The Charles Dickens Museum, 48-49 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LX.
Dates: 5 February – 29 June 2025. Book your tickets here.
Opening hours: 10am to 5pm, Wednesday – Sunday (closed Mondays and Tuesdays)
More information: 020 7405 2127 / [email protected]
