What the Dickens!
Welcome to the museum …
A shadowy silhouette of the man himself escorts you as you explore the newly refurbished Charles Dickens Museum in London, pointing you up and down stairs and along corridors. This is nicely evocative not only of the clever interpretation that has been employed to bring this first London home of Dickens to life, but also of the way in which the story of Dickens and his novels is woven into the wider story of the house and Victorian London. The museum is a masterpiece.
The small Regency terrace house has been used to a maximum. In the hall you are met by letters and prints referencing each of his London homes, and his bag, snuff box, stick and calling cards on the hall table, as if Dickens himself has just stepped out for a moment. The floors are then cleverly divided to evoke the life of Dickens and his middle-class readers in the ground and first-floor rooms - his dining room, study, bedrooms - and of his servants and working-class readers in the basement and attics. The house is currently decked for a Victorian Christmas, giving a nice sense of immediacy and boding well for changing interpretation.
Key pieces of furniture from his various homes are turned into display cases for special possessions such as lockets, correspondence and drafts of the novels. The walls display portraits of the family and contemporary prints. All are used to give a sense of his busy and emotional life. In the drawing room, Dickens' self-designed reading desk is paired with superb recorded readings of the novels by actor Simon Callow, giving a sense of his energy and fame (this is an excellent example of combining objects and performance like the British Museum Shakespeare exhibition about which I posted previously). In the dining room, portraits of Dickens' friends and associates are added to the blue and white plates set for dinner, with place names explaining their connection. This is one example of the clever ways interpretation has been subtly incorporated to maintain the feeling of a lived-in home.
In the basement, the kitchen, scullery and wine cellar are filled with period pieces and replica food to give a sense of Dickens' busy entertaining schedule and the constant workload of his servants. Nice little touches discuss Victorian household management. Who knew that domestic hedgehogs were kept in kitchens to eat insects? But it is the attics that are the tour de force. One room considers how powerful Dickens' stories were to the millions of underprivileged readers whom he championed, like his own servants who lived in these rooms. The walls and bed sheets are covered with quotations and illustrations. In stark contrast the other room holds a set of cell bars from Marshalsea Prison, discussing the hidden story of poverty and child labour which started Dickens' own life and lay behind this happy and comfortable home.
Routes opened into the neighbouring terrace house allow for a well-conceived timeline, placing Dickens' life and work within the artistic and political events of the period; and space has been found for a well-stocked shop and good-looking cafe. During my visit, some of the objects referenced in the pamphlet-style labels seemed to have been removed, and some of the digital resources were not yet working. But, the friendliness and knowledge of the staff and volunteers suggest these are only teething problems. The current small exhibition shows posters and costumes from the current film of Great Expectations, setting the house and Dickens firmly in modern culture; a place and a house of which Dickens, the consummate metropolitan showman, would have been proud.