Online Exhibition: Character Sketches from the World of Charles Dickens
This exhibition celebrates one of the most enduring legacies of Charles Dickens's genius: the unforgettable characters he brought to life.
This color mezzotint by H. Blackburn Hart is based on the portrait by William Powell Frith, of which Dickens wrote, “[I]t is a little too much as if my neighbor were my deadly foe, uninsured, and I just received tidings of his house being afire; otherwise very good.”
Rare Book Department
Charles Dickens purchased his country home in Higham, Kent in 1856. He first saw the house when he was nine years old, while walking with his father. His father had told him if he worked hard enough, some day it could be his.
Egg Album. Rare Book Department
After Dickens’s marriage dissolved and Catherine Dickens moved away from Gad’s Hill, their daughter Mamie and Catherine’s sister Georgina remained with him for the rest of his life. After his death both worked to maintain the dignity of his reputation.
Rare Book Department
The Dickens statue in Clark Park in West Philadelphia was sculpted by F. Edwin Elwell, who took it to England where it was greatly admired. Upon discovering that Dickens wanted no such monument, Elwell brought the statue back to the United States.
Rare Book Department Archives
This photograph of Charles Dickens and his son, Francis Jeffrey Dickens , was taken behind Gad’s Hill Place. Dickens had ten children with his wife Catherine, eight of them boys. Dickens is the one climbing over the fence.
Rare Book Collection
