The Charles Dickens Museum

Perhaps the most special occasion for the Museum team was welcoming visitors to Dickens's home on Christmas Eve to share the festive spirit, something that we sorely missed last year when the COVID-19 pandemic led to forced closure. The Museum's Learning team has launched a new programme that integrates our popular curriculum-linked workshops into interactive guided tours of the historic house. [...]as noted in previous issues, we are seeking the return of some 'overdue' library books that were historically loaned out to Dickens Fellowship members.

Branch Lines

In October we met to 'discuss the way forward' as the buzz-phrase has it, and we think we saw one;as in November John Peck delivered an interesting talk on 'Dickens and Science';and in December we braved the Omicron appearance by holding a Christmas meeting, with readings and seasonal refreshments, music provided by member Julie Weaver. ROMA HUSSEY Broadstairs On Saturday 12 February a public event entitled 'Happy Birthday Mr Dickens!' was held at the Pavilion in Broadstairs to celebrate the 210th birthday of Charles Dickens. The Dickens Declaimers performed 'The Jellyby Family' from Bleak House, followed by 'Celebrating a Life', a script consisting of character vignettes as varied as Mr Sapsea, Miss Havisham, Mr Jingle, Louisa Gradgrind and Lady Dedlock amongst others. According to new research, Mr Dick and Miss Havisham were both modelled on two real people who were residing in the area when Dickens visited.

#Dickens150: A virtual conference to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Dickens's death, 9 June 2020

Beside receiving an overwhelming number of submissions from global scholars, we also incorporated several innovative features: a video of Jeremy Parrott's new Dickens museum in Hungary, Dickens & Co.;a video exhibition of 'Childhood in Dickensian London' from Senate Library, courtesy of librarians Tansy Barton and Leila Kassir, and a Q&A session with writer and director Armando Iannucci, interviewed by Dickens descendant and author Lucinda Hawksley about his recent adaptation of David Copperfield (2019). Addressing attendees from inside The Charles Dickens Museum itself, director Cindy Sughrue thanked #Dickens150 organisers and participants for contributing a total of £2800 through this virtual conference, which will help support staff and cover necessary expenses until the museum reopens. Throughout the day speakers emphasised Dickens's continuing relevance: in a 'Dickens and Contagion' roundtable with Pamela Gilbert (University of Florida), Sean Grass (Rochester Institute of Technology), Eric Lorentzen (University of Mary Washington), Natalie McKnight (Boston University), Lillian Nayder (Bates College) and Pete Orford (University of Buckingham), the speakers considered several passages from the novels, which depict scenes of social unrest, disease, contagion and troubled social interaction, parallelling the current COVID-19 quarantines and closures.

The Charles Dickens Museum

Yet, unlike many other cultural organisations that receive ongoing funding from the government, the Charles Dickens Museum is an independent charity, conceived as self-funding from the start, 95 years ago. When we were forced to close, it's fair to say that we were in the middle of something of a purple patch: we had just kicked off the anniversary year with the announcement of the acquisition of a major private collection from America;we had installed the eagle-eyed 'lost portrait' of Dickens in his study following its disappearance for 170 years, and we were on the verge of opening a new exhibition, Technicolour Dickens: The Living Image of Charles Dickens, revealing the character of the man more vividly than has ever been possible. Like Dickens, we are unable to stay still;although the Museum is closed, we have enhanced our virtual presence significantly through our social media channels, including a series of short videos called 'Dickens Reads Dickens' featuring descendants of Dickens reading favourite passages, as well as contributions from our theatrical patrons, Miriam Margolyes and Simon Callow.

Branch Lines

PAUL GRAHAM Broadstairs 2020 being the 150th anniversary of Dickens's death, the Broadstairs Branch of the Fellowship decided to site two new benches on Nuckell's Gardens, opposite the Dickens House Museum, to commemorate this event. The gardens, home of the famous 'Donkeys!' scene in David Copperfield, are maintained by the Broadstairs Dickens Fellowship, and in normal times have been our venue each September for our outdoor meeting with a glass of wine and a reading by the Dickens Declaimers. [...]we did manage to organise a meeting for 8 September, at which Professor Tony Pointon gave us an interesting talk entitled 'Dickens and the Detectives', and he brought along some copies of his latest book - Charles Dickens's Last Case: Edwin Drood and the Curious Incident of the Unasked Question for sale to members. On the more local level The Danish Dickens Society has begun a cooperation with the local library in Copenhagen about A Christmas Carol this coming Christmas.

From the Editor

Many elements of life are postponed, held over, to be rescheduled;during this period there have been fewer book releases, fewer theatre productions, and greater difficulties for those conducting Dickens research around the world, from archive access to simply finding time while simultaneously facing issues such as childcare difficulties, job insecurity, and the sheer pressure of the interesting times through which we're all living. [...]2021 has felt like a more hopeful year in other ways, as we have become more innovative in adapting to the necessary shrinking of our worlds and networks;the use of video-calling software such as Zoom to overcome these limitations is one example. [...]it has been a creative year, too: the Dickens Fellowship's annual conference, reviewed in this issue, took place on Zoom, and in a particularly poignant talk, outgoing Editor Malcolm Andrews reflected on windows into Dickens's world in light of our own access to the world being increasingly mediated by phone and computer screens. [...]my heartfelt gratitude goes to Malcolm Andrews, who leaves a mighty reputation to live up to as the journal's longest-serving editor (a tribute to his work can be found in this issue), and also to the Fellowship and its members for the opportunity to be part of this journal's future.