DICKENS AND HIS HOME

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 January 1938, Page 8

DICKENS AND HIS HOME

DISCOVERY OF AN INVENTORY. Dickens, loi'e has been increased by a curious discovery connected with bis early London home at' 48 Doughtv Street, W.C. 1. Tb.e house bought 12 years ago by the Dickens Fellowship, was re-open-ed by Dickens’s daughter-in-law. Lady Dickens, it had been closed for repair and rearrangement.

A. year ago there came into the possession oi the Dickens Fellowship the original tenancy agreement, by which Dickens held the house from March. 1837, to March, 1840, although he actually left it to go to No. 1 Devonshire Place, in December. 1839.

The tenancy agreement contained a complete inventory of all lhe fixtures, and a description of the rooms as they were when Dickens used them. Its discovery has enabled his possessions and the other relics hearing on his life to be placed in the rooms and corners where they are most fitting But the inventory bus left one or iwo problems unsolved. A “Reigate Health, tor instance, is mentioned in every room. Nobody has yet discovered what a Reigate Hearth was. In the study, where the “Pickwick 1 apers were finished, have been placed everything associated with his working life. N ear lhe window is a manuscript, page from the “Pickwick Papers.” Of the several thousand which Dickens tvrote, only 42 “Pickwick Papers” MS. pages are in exist--19 C s" Fl Ve Wei ' e SO,d fO> ' ■ €7 ’ soo in

The drawing-room contains first and. foreign editions. Lady Dickens nerself owns Dickens translations in 41 languages.

Several additions have been made to the Doughty Street, trtasures It was feared that a section of the'legs had been sawn from the desk which L-ickens took round lhe world with him. a contemporary drawing showshot °. nsei Jegs - But. Dickens’s own sketch made when the desk was orcered has proved that the legs have not been tampered with.

In the morning room, beside the r" ir j ll?S Playbills connecting Cf the S r Wlth ? ho flra -'ma, is the script nt the i ecent “David Copperfield” took nnrt gl ’ aPI -+ fl by evei Tone who ook part m it, from Freddie BarservS t 0 EdDa May OHver— “Ob-