Dickens online after 200 years

First editions by Charles Dickens and other early and rarely seen materials associated with the author will be showcased at a new e-exhibition going online at King’s this week, to coincide with the writer’s bicentenary.

Charles Dickens: a writing lifetime presents items from across Dickens’ writing life, including an analysis of his first pseudonymous book Sketches by ‘Boz’, a hostile review from a contemporary and one of his public speeches as it was originally printed for charitable distribution.

Early sketches about London characters which Dickens submitted to various publications under the pen-names of ‘Boz’ or ‘Tibbs’ will be available to view, alongside material extracted from The Mirror of Parliament, a parliamentary journal run by Dickens’ uncle, John Barrow, for whom he worked as a shorthand writer in his early twenties.

A public speech, delivered in 1864 to raise money for University College Hospital, reveals the author’s support for free health care for the poor.

Personal exhibits include a handwritten letter to the secretary of his son’s school, informing him that due to his son’s poor health he would need to take him away from the institution.

The exhibition has been assembled by guest curator Ruth Richardson, Visiting Senior Research Fellow in English, in association with Stephanie Breen from the Foyle Special Collections Library at King’s.

A second online exhibition is planned for later in the year which will focus on other materials from the Foyle Special Collections Library associated with Dickens and the Cleveland Street Workhouse.