Queen meets Simon Callow at Charles Dickens Museum visit

The house, situated at 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury, was Dickens’s first family home and is now a museum.

It is the place where Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby, which catapulted him to global literary fame.

The centenary event saw the Queen meeting museum patrons and actors Miriam Margolyes and Simon Callow, members of the Dickens family, and other dignitaries.

Jane Davis from the Lord Lieutenant’s Office and HM The Queen arriving at Charles Dickens’s front door at 48 Doughty Street, Bloomsbury, now the Charles Dickens Museum (Image: ©Ash Knotek) The Queen also visited the study where Dickens wrote some of his most famous works and saw the desk where he wrote Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and Our Mutual Friend.

Museum patron Simon Callow gave a reading of the arrival of the ghost of Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol in Dickens’ study.

HM The Queen with Charles Dickens Museum Patron, actor Simon Callow, in Dickens’s study at 48 Doughty Street. Simon Callow read the arrival of the ghost of Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol. The passage ends “I wear the chains I forged in life (Image: ©Ash Knotek) The Queen also had a chat with Miriam Margolyes, who joined her in reading some of Dickens’s letters.

During her visit, the Queen toured the museum’s new exhibition, ‘Dickens in Doughty Street: 100 Years of the Charles Dickens Museum’.

Cindy Sughrue, Director of the Charles Dickens Museum, shows HM The Queen the desk at which Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations (Image: Ash Knotek)

The exhibition celebrates Dickens’ life and the museum, which holds the most comprehensive collection of Dickens-related material worldwide.

Charles Dickens Museum volunteer, Annabel Adcock, with HM The Queen and actor Ollie Dickens, great-great-great grandson of Charles Dickens, in Mary Hogarth’s bedroom at the Charles Dickens Museum (Image: ©Ash Knotek) The exhibition includes some exceptional items, such as Dickens’s earliest surviving writings from when he was just 18, the handwritten manuscript for Oliver Twist, and the only surviving suit of Dickens’s clothes.

Cindy Sughrue, director of the Charles Dickens Museum, said: “It is a pleasure to welcome Her Majesty into 48 Doughty Street to celebrate the museum’s centenary with us, especially as she is a champion of the inexpressible joy and transformational power of reading.

“While the family lived here, Charles Dickens shot to fame and welcomed the leading figures of the day into his home for parties and celebrations.

“We are very pleased to continue that tradition today.”

The Queen, a supporter of literacy, is a fan of Charles Dickens and counts A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol among her favourite books.