Dickensblog

Dickens in living color

Marina Amaral, well known as a digital colorist of old photographs, has applied her talents to an 1850 portrait of Charles Dickens. Visit her Substack to see the photo, and visit her shop to buy yourself a print!

Upcoming online talks

Tomorrow, April 27, Dr. Emily Dunbar of the Dickens Museum will give a talk on the museum's new Pickwick Papers exhibition at 10 a.m. Eastern. Go here to learn more and get a free ticket!

Also tomorrow, at 1 p.m. Eastern, the Dickens Fellowship will sponsor Lucinda Dickens Hawksley talking about her new book, Dickens and Travel. Go here for information.

Dickens House Museum in Broadstairs reopens

A hearty "welcome back!" to the Dickens House Museum, which was closed for two years because of the pandemic! Very appropriate for the season of resurrection.

Starring Pickwick

The Dickens Museum is going Pickwickian! They have an upcoming exhibition on Pickwick illustrations and three upcoming performances of The Trial of Mr. Pickwick. And the Minute Book, which "contains the official club notes of the first known Pickwick club," will be going on display there next month. 

Happy 210th birthday, Charles Dickens!

All hail the Inimitable on this happy occasion! 

In honor of Dickens's birthday, the Dickens Museum is kicking off a writing competition. The writer of the winning short story or novel excerpt will receive this beautiful facsimile of the Oliver Twist manuscript. Click here to see all the details, and then put those quill pens to paper (or fingers to keys, if you prefer). It's not that easy to follow in Dickens's footsteps, but one can at least give it a try!

(Image made by yours truly!)

Dickens code cracked!

Diligent decoders have finally solved the mystery of Dickens's "Tavistock letter," which turned out to be about ... advertising. Apologies to all who were hoping for something more exciting! BBC News has the story of how the code was cracked and who earned the reward for cracking it. 

It was the best of staches, it was the worst of staches

Check out this rare photo of Dickens trying out the mustachioed look in the 1850s, which recently went on display at the Dickens Museum!

Mr. Dickens comes to the museum

The Dickens Museum is hosting a virtual filmed version of Gerald Dickens's one-man show Mr. Dickens Is Coming!, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on February 6. Go here to learn more and to buy tickets! 

A virtual 'Chimes'

Tomorrow (Friday) at 5 p.m. GMT/12 p.m. Eastern, the Dickens Museum will host a Zoom performance of The Chimes by actor Dominic Gerrard. Gerrard and Lucinda Dickens Hawksley will take questions after the performance. Go here to learn more and to buy tickets!

Spotlight on 'The Cricket'

The Dickens Museum is displaying some of John Leech's sketches for The Cricket on the Hearth, to remind visitors that Dickens wrote more than one Christmas book! The Guardian has an article about the exhibit and the book, with quotes from Lucinda Dickens Hawksley about this and her ancestor's other Christmas books.