Unseen Charles Dickens letters open book on Victorian novelist’s secrets
DOCUMENTS which reveal secrets about one of the country’s most famous novelists are to go on display for the first time.
New information about Charles Dickens is contained in hundreds of personal letters which were acquired from America. The private collection includes 144 handwritten letters, unpublished manuscripts, jewellery and original artwork of Dickens’s books.
They were bought by the Charles Dickens Museum, at his former home in Holborn, central London, for £1.8m. The museum celebrating the life of Dickens announced it had gained the collection yesterday, on what would have been his 208th birthday.
The items will go on display later in the year. While he was writing A Christmas Carol,
Dickens sent a letter dated November 9, 1843 to a close friend.
“I have half done the Christmas Book, and am resting for two days before going to Chuzzlewit [Martin Chuzzlewit, his sixth novel] – that is, if I can call anything rest, with that before me. “Yesterday I walked a great deal. Today I am going out on horseback, for a thirty mile ride.” Cindy Sughrue, director of the Charles Dickens Museum, said the letters shed light on Dickens’ “creative process” and help answer the question “what did he do to enable himself to write?”
Exercise was clearly important to the Victorian novelist. Another letter was written in 1846 when Dickens and his family went to stay in Switzerland for several months. At the time he was starting work on Dombey and
Son.
“It is a tough day, but it is a great thing to get rid of the heat... I may perhaps take a boat for exercise, this evening after dinner,” Dickens wrote.
The collection will be conserved and put online, as well as eventually on display at the museum.