See Charles Dickens’ Rare Manuscripts, Teenage Love Letters and a Copy of ‘David Copperfield’ That Traveled to Antarctica

In 1925, Charles Dickens’ home in London was saved from demolition. Instead, it became the Charles Dickens Museum, a small space on Doughty Street dedicated to the 19th-century writer’s legacy. To celebrate its 100th anniversary, the museum is putting on a new exhibition featuring a treasure trove of rare artifacts.

Dickens lived at Doughty Street with his wife and son. He wrote parts of many of his famous novels while living there, including The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist. The show will spotlight unique portraits, photographs and historic items that celebrate Dickens’ life and literary genius.

“Gathered together over the past century and displayed in Dickens’ only surviving house in London, a beacon at the center of the urban landscape quintessentially associated with the writer, the museum in Doughty Street will be filled with objects that define Dickens’ life and the museum’s history,” Cindy Sughrue, the museum’s director, tells BBC News.

One of those objects is a rare copy of David Copperfield that traveled to Antarctica on Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s famous Terra Nova expedition in 1910. The novel entertained them during perilous situations throughout their journey.

When the men were stranded in an ice cave, they read a chapter every night for two months, per BBC News. As such, the text is “blackened with their fingerprints, likely to have been due to the seal blubber fire that heated the cave.”

Visitors will see works by artists who illustrated Dickens’ stories, including Hablot Knight Browne, John Leech, George Cruikshank and Fred Barnard—as well as early drawings for the original edition of A Christmas Carol.

Other items will offer attendees an intimate glimpse into the author’s early life. As Artnet’s Jo Lawson-Tancred writes, “Most photographs record Dickens in his rugged middle age; these works capture a much more fresh-faced author, in his late 20s and early 30s.” An 1843 painting by the artist Margaret Gillies that went missing for more than a century depicts a young, wide-eyed Dickens. The show will also exhibit love poems from the author’s early years.

“Some of [the poetry] is okay. Some of it is quite bad,” Emma Harper, the exhibition’s curator, tells the Guardian’s Caroline Davies. “I find it quite amusing that it is basically a teenage young man writing poetry for his crush. You wouldn’t necessarily recognize it as from the genius of Victorian writing.”

Excerpts from Dickens’ correspondence will also be on view, including an early draft of the note he wrote detailing the end of his marriage.

“You’ll be able to see Dickens’ original manuscripts, letters to friends and family and rare first editions of his most famous works,” per the exhibition website. “But you’ll also encounter Dickens the man as well as Dickens the writer, his personal style, interests and passions.”

“Dickens in Doughty Street: 100 Years of the Charles Dickens Museum” will be on view at the Charles Dickens Museum in London from February 5 to June 29, 2025.

Julia Binswanger | READ MORE

Julia Binswanger is a freelance arts and culture reporter based in Chicago. Her work has been featured in WBEZ, Chicago magazine, Rebellious magazine and PC magazine.