Tag Archives: Charles Dickens

The Arts

Brighton Connections

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Concluding our review of Dickens in his bi-centenary year, local author and historian, Rose Collis writes about his connections with Brighton – from the New Encyclopaedia of Brighton.

Charles DickensDickens was a regular visitor to Brighton, first visiting in 1836 while he was writing Oliver Twist. Four years later, he returned for a week and wrote chapters of Barnaby Rudge during his stay. In May 1847, Dickens and his wife Catherine stayed at the Bedford Hotel, while she recuperated from an illness, and he continued writing Dombey and Son. The book is partly set in Brighton, and Chichester House at 1 Chichester Terrace, is said to have been the house described in the novel as ‘Dr Blimber’s Academy for Young Gentlemen’, attended by Paul Dombey Jr.
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The Arts

Curated Pavilion and Museum News

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An Etcher in the Wake of Whistler: gallery tour at Brighton Museum

Sunday 12 February, 2.30-3.15pm Free

Guest curator Alexandra Loske introduces Hove-based artist Robert Goff’s work and discusses his atmospheric etchings of Sussex, Italy, Egypt and Japan.

Charlotte, the Forgotten Princess, at the Royal Pavilion

10 March 2012 to 10 March 2013, Admission payable, members free

The only daughter of George, Prince of Wales and Princess Caroline of Brunswick, Charlotte was a feisty and headstrong child, who became very popular with the public, in stark contrast to her father. Charlotte married in 1816, but then tragically died the following year shortly after giving birth, aged only 21. Her sudden death sent shockwaves across the country and the public outpouring of grief was exceeded in English history only by that following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Charles Dickens, the Royal Pavilion and Brighton at the Pavilion

Wednesday 28 March 11.30am-12.30pm £10, members £8.50

Lecturer in 19th century literature Dr Peter Blake discusses the importance of the Royal Pavilion and Brighton to the life and work of Charles Dickens.

The Arts

Charles Dickens – The Man and his Books

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Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
No writer’s imagination has been more haunted by London than Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and no writer since has more haunted the spirit of London itself or had such an effect on literary treatments of it. The Dickensian vision of London, city of bustle and crossing-sweepers, the foggy river and the marshes, debtor prisons and old crooked lodging houses, ancient inns-of-court and smoky counting houses, ship chandlers’ stores, taverns and coaching inn yards, is the strongest literary vision of the capital we have. His books spill out its sights, smells, and human collisions. His writing captures the voice of London from the cockney of Sam Weller and Mrs Gamp to the chatter of Mr Jingle. However, he was not born there but in Portsmouth in 1812. In 1816, his father, a clerk in the Naval Office, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, was sent to London for two years until he was moved to the dockyard town of Chatham, Kent, that “mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships, in a muddy river” Dickens would often use in his novels.
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