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20-748: The Dickens Fellowship's head office is based at the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street in London , England , the home of Charles Dickens from 1837 to 1839. In 1923 Dickens's former home at 48 Doughy Street was threatened with demolition, but it was saved by three members of the Dickens Fellowship, who raised a mortgage and bought the freehold in 1925. The membership of the Fellowship raised funds and put together

40-555: A collection to exhibit in it. The Dickens House Trust was established to run the house as a museum and library. Membership is open to anybody, anywhere in the world, who shares the Fellowship's interests. The Fellowship has 47 branches, which are in the UK , the United States and nine other countries. Each branch is independent and arranges its own programme of events. There are also five affiliated societies. The Fellowship publishes

60-613: A dozen or so preliminary sketches for the novel, then in its second of twenty instalments. Five of these sketches are in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. His drawings were regarded as adequate, but the process of etching on a steel plate was unfamiliar to him so he hired an expert etcher. Buss realised that the "free touch of an original work was entirely wanting", and that the printed images lifted from his plates seemed lifeless and uninspired. But, he concluded, "Time

80-408: A journal, The Dickensian , which was founded in 1905 and was originally edited by one of the leading founders of the Fellowship, B.W. Matz (1865-1925). The Dickensian publishes articles of literary criticism from scholars around the world. It also carries reviews of books, plays, films and TV productions, together with reports of Fellowship activities and other Dickens-related news. The current editor

100-507: A master engraver and enameller, and then studied painting under George Clint , a miniaturist, watercolour and portrait painter, and mezzotint engraver. At the start of his career Buss specialised in painting theatrical portraits, with many of the leading actors of the day sitting to him, including William Charles Macready , John Pritt Harley , and John Baldwin Buckstone . Later Buss painted historical and humorous subjects. He exhibited

120-456: A newly married couple. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837. She inspired characters in many of his books, and her death is fictionalized as the death of Little Nell . Dickens had a three-year lease (at £80 a year) on the property. He would remain here until 1839 when he moved to Devonshire Terrace. He upscaled to grander homes as his wealth increased and his family grew. However, Doughty Street

140-649: A series of four talks, accompanied by 300 examples reproduced on sixty scrolling cartoons, at literary and scientific institutions in London and the provinces. These talks he published privately in 1874 as English Graphic Satire , a book for which he supplied in various mediums examples of his predecessors' work. Buss also gave lectures on fresco painting and on the picturesque and the beautiful, though these were never published, and from 1850 to 1852 he edited The Fine Art Almanack . On hearing of Dickens' death in June 1870, Buss

160-816: A total of 112 pictures between 1826 and 1859, 25 at the Royal Academy , 20 at the British Institution , 45 at the Suffolk Street gallery of the Society of British Artists , seven at the New Watercolour Society , and 15 in other places. Buss was commissioned by Dickens' publishers, Chapman and Hall , to provide two illustrations for The Pickwick Papers after the original illustrator, Robert Seymour , committed suicide. Buss immediately set aside his other work and prepared

180-613: Is Dr. Emily Bell of the University of Leeds. In 2002 the Fellowship campaigned to save an area of Kent marshland on the Hoo Peninsula which provided the setting to the opening chapter of Dickens's novel Great Expectations where the young Pip first encountered the escaped convict Magwitch . Charles Dickens Museum The Charles Dickens Museum is an author's house museum at 48 Doughty Street in King's Cross , in

200-514: Is his only surviving London house. The two years that Dickens lived in the house were extremely productive, for here he completed The Pickwick Papers (1836), wrote the whole of Oliver Twist (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39) and worked on Barnaby Rudge (1840–41). The building at 48 Doughty Street was threatened with demolition in 1923, but was saved by the Dickens Fellowship , founded in 1902, who raised

220-470: The London Borough of Camden . It occupies a typical Georgian terraced house which was Charles Dickens's home from 25 March 1837 (a year after his marriage) to December 1839. In the nineteenth century, it was an exclusive residential street and had gates at either end to restrict entry and these were manned by porters. Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine Dickens (née Hogarth) lived here with

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240-550: The mortgage and bought the property's freehold. The house was renovated and the Dickens House Museum was opened in 1925, under the direction of an independent trust, now a registered charity . The house was listed in 1954. Perhaps the best-known exhibit is the portrait of Dickens known as Dickens's Dream by R. W. Buss , an original illustrator of The Pickwick Papers . This unfinished portrait shows Dickens in his study at Gads Hill Place surrounded by many of

260-419: The characters he had created. The painting was begun in 1870 after Dickens's death. Other notable artefacts in the museum include numerous first editions, original manuscripts, original letters by Dickens , and many personal items owned by Dickens and his family. The only known item of clothing worn by Dickens still in existence is also displayed at the museum. This is his Court Suit and sword, worn when Dickens

280-501: The couple settled in Camden Town , London, where they had ten children, six of whom survived infancy. Their only daughter, Frances Mary Buss , became a distinguished pioneer of women's education, and was assisted for many years by her father and her clergyman brothers Alfred and Septimus Buss. In 1845, worried by 'money anxieties', Buss's wife started a school for young boys and girls at 14 Clarence Road, Kentish Town , London. In

300-430: The eldest three of their ten children, with the older two of Dickens's daughters, Mary Dickens and Kate Macready Dickens being born in the house. A new addition to the household was Dickens's younger brother Frederick . Also, Catherine's 17-year-old sister Mary moved with them from Furnival's Inn to offer support to her married sister and brother. It was not unusual for a woman's unwed sister to live with and help

320-501: The same premises his daughter Frances began a morning school offering young ladies a liberal education. In 1850 the two schools moved into larger quarters in Holmes Terrace, and Buss assisted by teaching drawing and later science, literature, and elocution. In 1850 Buss's wife retired from the school. Buss also researched earlier British printmakers, and lectured on the topic in his daughter's schools and, from 1853, he delivered

340-619: The unfinished Dickens' Dream . In 1837 publishers Saunders and Otley hired Buss to illustrate a new edition of Frederick Marryat 's Peter Simple and Henry Colburn hired him to illustrate Frances Trollope 's The Widow Married in 1840. These the artist managed to etch satisfactorily, and afterwards he successfully gained several commissions for illustrating fiction. For some years Buss worked for Charles Knight , designing wood-engravings for his editions of London (1841–44), William Shakespeare (1842–43), and Old England (1845–46). Buss married Frances Fleetwood on 21 March 1826, and

360-457: Was moved to attempt a large watercolour, Dickens's Dream , which now hangs in the Charles Dickens Museum in London. The painting portrays the dozing author seated in his Gad's Hill Place study surrounded by many of the characters he had created. The desk, chair and background of the painting were closely based on The Empty Chair , an engraving made at Gads Hill Place in 1870, shortly after Dickens's death, by Samuel Luke Fildes . The painting

380-643: Was presented to the Prince of Wales in 1870. 51°31′26″N 0°07′01″W  /  51.523921°N 0.116902°W  / 51.523921; -0.116902 Dickens%27s Dream Robert William Buss (4 August 1804 – 26 February 1875) was a Victorian artist, etcher and illustrator perhaps best known for his painting Dickens' Dream . He was the father of Frances Buss , a pioneer of girls' education . Born in Bull and Mouth Street, Aldersgate in London in 1804, Buss served an apprenticeship with his father,

400-399: Was up", and the unsatisfactory illustrations for part 3 had to be issued. The publishers summarily dismissed him, which worried Buss throughout the rest of his life. The commission went instead to Hablot Knight Browne , but Buss never held his dismissal against Dickens. Instead, Buss remained his lifelong admirer and went on to produce several paintings celebrating the author's work, including

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