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Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Dickens Centenary Stamps
Dickens on the 1912 Centenary Testimonial Stamps

The Charles Dickens Author Collection in the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections contains over 200 works by and about Dickens. Materials range from original serial installments of his novels to various other editions to Dickens-related ephemera.

“Boz”

The Serial Novel

Dickens Rare Print Collection
A playbill from the Tavistock House Theatre, owned by Dickens. This playbill features “The Frozen Deep” on which Dickens collaborated.

In the Theater

  • Besides being a renowned author, Dickens was also heavily involved in the theater.
  • He even owned his own theater house, “Tavistock House Theater,” in which he showed amateur plays.
  • He worked with his close friend and fellow author and playwright Wilkie Collins, producing plays such as “The Frozen Deep” (opens in a new window) together.

Dickens’ Visits to Ohio

  • Dickens made visits to several Ohio towns in his first visit to America, as detailed in his 1842 account, American Notes:
    • He made his way from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, later writing “Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated.”
    • From Cincinnati he traveled on to Kentucky, and as far as St. Louis, but later returned to Ohio. He took a stagecoach from Cincinnati to Columbus, and then to Sandusky and Lake Erie.
    • Finally, he left Ohio and visited Niagara Falls.
  • He also further examined and critiqued American life in some of his letters, which were compiled and combined with excerpts from American Notes and published as Boz on America.

Legacy in Ohio

  • 100 years after Charles Dickens passed through the small town of Marion, Ohio, The Marion Branch of the Dickens Fellowship held their first meeting, Friday, October 23rd, 1942.
  • The Dickens Fellowship (opens in a new window) is a society devoted to the love of Dickens novels, his plays, and his characters.
  • The Mahn Center holds a great number of pamphlets from the Marion Branch (as well as the Philadelphia Branch), and a handwritten journal kept by the founder of the Marion Branch, Dr. Edward Ellsworth Hipsher.
Dickens Marion Inaugural Cover
Dickens Marion Inaugural Back
Dickens Marion Inaugural Spread
A pamphlet from the First Meeting of the Marion, Ohio Branch of the Dickens Fellowship.­

 

For more information about the Charles Dickens Author Collection or the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collection, please contact Miriam Intrator. (opens in a new window)

Page created by Kevin Dennis, ENG 4940 Research Apprenticeship, Spring 2015