Dickens’ original work for Christmas story on show

LONDON — An exhibition that opened in London on Wednesday will transport visitors back to a time when a famous Christmas story was written.

The Charles Dickens Museum in the author’s former home in Doughty Street, London, is displaying rarely seen material from Christmas Carol, the classic story written by the 19thcentury British author.

Original pencil sketches from the story are included in the exhibition, which charts the creation of the classic work. Original costumes from a new film, The Man Who Invented Christmas, are also on show.

Titled A Ghost of an Idea: Unwrapping A Christmas Carol, the exhibition draws on the museum’s unrivaled collections of original Dickens material to examine the issues that drove the social commentator of Victorian England to write the story.

Dickens completed the novella in just six weeks, aiming to have it in bookshops before Christmas, and 6,000 copies were sold.

Since then, millions of copies have been printed on every continent.

Dickens’ former home in Doughty Street is decorated and dressed in a festive way for the exhibition. Dickens was a little known writer when he moved to the house. He was an international

Asuperstar when he left after also writing The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.

Museum curator Frankie Kubicki says the sketches showing scenes of Ebenezer Scrooge with the ghosts of Jacob Marley, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come are the very first depictions of one of the most significant characters in all of literature.

“They are so delicate that we are unable to display them in public for any great length of time. While the completed illustrations are among the more celebrated in publishing history, the original sketches have rarely been published,” says Kubicki.

Dickens was inspired to write the story by a parliamentary report and growing awareness of child poverty. At the time of publication, one critic declared it “a national benefit to every man and woman who reads it”.

The new film The Man Who Invented Christmas, which opens in Britain on Friday, focuses on Dickens’ motivations for writing Christmas Carol. The museum is displaying original costumes from the film, as well as examples of its set and costume designs, props and other production material.

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