Many Dickens-focused walking tours also take in Seven Dials, then a slum of “dirty men, filthy women, squalid children … reeking pipes … depressed dogs”. His books reveal empathy for the underclass, identifying with poverty-stricken Victorian London.
All Dickensian tours begin or end at 48 Doughty Street, his only remaining family home in London. The Grade I listed building now houses the Charles Dickens Museum. A comprehensive collection of about 100,000 items, including letters, manuscripts, rare editions, prints, photographs, and personal effects, are on display.
Till June 30, 2025, the museum will run Dickens in Doughty Street: 100 Years of the Charles Dickens Museum. Cindy Sughrue, the museum’s director says, the exhibition will feature historic items that have been “gathered together over the past century” and “define Dickens’ life and the museum’s history”. London may have changed since Dickens’ time, but he looked at it “in a very original way”, making it the “chief character in his work”, writes Andrew Sanders, in his book book Charles Dickens’s London that traces Dickens’ footsteps. Like Oliver Twist, you’ll end up asking for more.