Charles Dickens Museum

The Charles Dickens Museum stands in a typical Georgian terraced house at 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury. In the 19th century Doughty Street was an exclusive residential street with locked gates at both ends. Charles Dickens moved here in 1837 with his wife Catherine and their three eldest children. His younger brother Frederick joined the household, and Catherine’s 17-year-old sister Mary came to help. Dickens completed The Pickwick Papers here and wrote the whole of Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby while living in the house. The museum occupies Dickens’s only surviving London home. The Dickens Fellowship bought the property in 1923 to prevent its demolition. After renovation it opened as a museum in 1925 under an independent trust. The house became a listed building in 1954. Among its best-known exhibits is the unfinished portrait Dickens’s Dream by R. W. Buss. The museum also displays first editions, original manuscripts, personal letters and the only known coat worn by Dickens. Visitors find the house arranged as it was during Dickens’s time. Rooms contain furniture and objects belonging to the family. The portrait shows Dickens surrounded by characters he created. Manuscripts of his novels lie open on desks. Personal items include letters and clothing. The atmosphere reflects the years when Dickens wrote some of his most famous works.