AUCKLAND DICKENS CLUB.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19447, 1 October 1926, Page 16

AUCKLAND DICKENS CLUB.

A SUCCESSFUL GATHERING

Members of the Auckland Dickens Club, to the number of over forty, attended the second of tho club's "teas" which was held .last evening, the president, Mr. A. R. Chappell, being in the chair. Tho meeting was devoted to incidents connected with (lie boyhood of Charles Dickens. A paper on the subject was read by Mr. J. W. Kealv, who kept his hearers interested by a review of the trials and experienced by the great novelist between tho ages of nine and twelve, when, owing to tho financial troubles of his fatheij, he was compelled to earn his own living amid depressing surroundings, by pasting labels on blacking bottles in Warren's dilapidated riverside factory. Appropriate readings from "David Copperfield" were contributed by Mrs. Linthwaite, Mr. H. E. Herring and Mrs. N. Davis. A short but entertaining address was given by Mrs. Kenneth Gordoiv, who also handed round for inspection a treasured photograph of Henry Burnett —the original of Nicholas Nickieby— who married Miss Fanny Dickens, the author's daughter. A presentation to tho club of what will prove a valued memento of its foundation was made by Mrs. D'Authreau, This took the form of a silver-mounted gavel inscribed with the date of the occasion on which it was first, used—that of the club's first "Dickens tea."