| AdminHistory | Charles John Huffam Dickens, born in Portsmouth, 1812, second child of John Dickens (1785-1851), an assistant clerk in the navy pay office, and his wife Elizabeth, ne Barrow (1789-1863); worked in a blacking factory and as a solicitor's clerk, then as a journalist before becoming a novelist; married Catherine Hogarth, 1836; helped found Urania Cottage, a home for homeless women, 1847; separated from his wife, 1858; died Kent, 1870. Publications include: 'Sketches by Boz' (1836); 'The Pickwick Papers' (1836-1837); 'Oliver Twist' (1837-1839); 'The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby' (1838-1839); 'The Old Curiosity Shop' (1840-1841); 'Barnaby Rudge' (1841); 'Martin Chuzzlewit' (1842-1844); 'A Christmas Carol' (1843); 'Dombey and Son' (1846-1848); 'David Copperfield' (1849-1850); 'Bleak House' (1852-1853); 'Hard Times' (1854); 'Little Dorrit' (1855-1857); 'A Tale of Two Cities' (1859); 'Great Expectations' (1861); 'Our Mutual Friend' (1864-1865).
Eliza Davis was the wife of James Phineas Davis, solicitor, who bought the lease of Tavistock House from Dickens in 1860. |
| CustodialHistory | From the collection of Sir Louis Sterling. |
| PublnNote | Published in Cumberland Clark, 'Charles Dickens and his Jewish Characters' (London, 1918); 'Fagin and Riah', 'The Dickensian' 17 (1921), p. 144-152; some also published in Madeline House, Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson (eds.), 'The Letters of Charles Dickens', (Oxford, 1965-2002). |