Can you ever have too much Dickens? The Portsmouth-born story-teller (1812) still keeps audiences transfixed one-and-a-half centuries after his death in 1870. A prodigious output includes several edited journals, seemingly incalculable novels coining quotes, phrases & abundant dramatisations, numerous novellas, countless short stories and a wealth of non-fiction. He remained a social campaigner, doubtless inspired by his own experiences of poverty and want after his father’s consignment to Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison, and subsequently based many of his books’ characters on his own observations of lost souls ‘getting by’ in Victorian London. Yet ‘The Cricket on the Hearth’ (1845), a Christmas tale set away from the city, featuring the likes of Peerybingle & Tilly Slowboy, remains a personal favourite.
*Now license this rare image of c1859 that shows the great man aged 47, the strains of genius and life clearly etched on his face. #history #authors #scanned #creatives #art #drawings
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