AN EARLY HOME OF CHARLES DICKENS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 165, 3 October 1927, Page 13

AN EARLY HOME OF CHARLES DICKENS

INTERESTING RELICS Writing in the London “Daily ! Herald,” “R.C.W.” says: T have been looking at a very interesting visitors’ book in a small house in a quiet London by-street. The pages for this month contain names from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, a big batch from Liege, in Belgium, many from the 1 United States . . . and a bare handful of English names. I wonder how many provincial visitors to London know of the house, 48 Doughty Street. W.C.. where I saw it? ‘‘lt was the first house Charles Dickens rented after his marriage in 1830. He lived it in from March, 1837, to November, 1839. and finished ‘Pickwick’ there, wrote the whole of ‘Nicholas N:ickleby’ and ‘Oliver Twist,’ and started ‘Barnaby Budge.’ His cwo eldest daughters were born there: Katie, the second (Mrs. Perugini), is still alive. It was also the scene of a great sorrow, the death of his favourite sister-in-law. Mary Hogarth, at the age of 17. Cigars for “Bor” “The house is; preserved by the Dickens Fellowship, is shown to the public at a charge of a shilling, and contains some interesting relics. There are some of the fir sc editions and many other books, pictures, playbills—the desk, carved with the names of many idle predecessors, at which he sat as a junior clerk in a lawyer's office, and the much more famous desk which he carried about to all his readings in this country and America, so that he might be sure of having hi-? book at just the right height. “There are a number of his letters, from a schoolboy note he wrote at 11. to possibly the- last of all—an order for cigars—and some of those trifles that people love to treasure—a walk- , ing-stick. a lock of hair, the little carved monkey that stood on his desk ; at Gadshill. If those who visit Dickens House , wish to explore further, ar.d see some ; of the bits of London which have ( associations with his characters, they cannot do better than read Walter Dexter’s ‘London of Dickens’ (it is sure to be in their publfc library). It is a big subject, which cannot be covered i in a short article—or, for that matter, in a short holiday. The Old George Inn ' But, whatever else they omit, all lovers of Dickens should take a walk in Southwark. At 207, Borough High Street, they will find, now occupied by a printing press, sufficient remains of the old Marshelsea to give them a good idea of what a debtors’ prison was like. Dickens knew it well, for his father was incarcerated there. The church close by is more generally known as Little Dorrit’s than by its official title of St. George’s. You will remember that Little Dorrit slept in its vestry one night, and was led to its altar at the end of the book. “At No. 77 in the same street is the George Inn. with its old-fashioned courtyard and galleries above. This is not the White Hart, in which Samuel Pickwick came across Sam Weller, but it stands near the spot, and gives you a very good idea of the j coaching inns which are so numerous j in the novels. ! “In another part of London, many • people will be interested in the David ! Copperfield Children’s Library at 13. ! Johnson Street, Somers Tov;n —a house I where Dickens lived in very early j days in London. As for the Old Curiosity Shop, which seems to be the I subject of much inquiry, it can only Ibe said that the nla.ee has not been j certainly identified.