NEW DICKENS SHRINE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 26

NEW DICKENS SHRINE

If the Dickensian fever goes on spreading in epidemic form, as it promises to do, No. 48 Doughty Street may become nearly as famous as No. 10 Downing Street, writes a London correspondent. This new Dickens shrine, recently opened in a happy little speech by Lady Dickens, who is the great novelist's daughter-in-law, is where Boz penned the Pickwick Papers as well as Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.

In the study of No. 48 the visitor will see an actual manuscript page from the epic of Mr. Pickwick. Only forty-two pages of that precious MS are now in existence, arid as long ago as 1928 five were sold for £7500. .

The study, like all the other living rooms, is just as Dickens knew it as far as furniture and arrangement are concerned. This happy circumstance is due to a lucky accident. Somebody found a tenancy agreement with a complete inventory of all the fixtures, and these have been supplied and placed as they were when Boz was alive and writing his immortal works. Lady Dickens, by the way, emphasised her illustrious father-in-law's love of Christmas. She is a charming lady of 86' now.