Dickens of a suit goes on display

IT WAS a suit in which he had great expectations... now the woollen outfit with gold buttons and trim once worn by Charles Dickens has gone on display.

The blue trousers and jacket and white waistcoat are the only known clothes of the author’s that are still in existence.

It is believed he wore them to meet Edward, Prince of Wales, at St James’s Palace in April 1870.

The clothes went on display yesterday at Charles Dickens museum in Holborn, London, which received the suit in 2015. It was previously owned by Hungarian Countess Wenckheim, Jeanne-Marie Dickens, widow of Dickens’ great-great-grandson Christopher.

Museum curator Frankie Kubicki said: “This is the only known Dickens suit that survives in the world.

“He wore it to a royal levee, an intimate royal gathering where he was introduced to Prince Edward. He was in good shape for a 58-year-old. He had a 34 inch waist and was about five feet nine inches tall.”

But two months later, on June 8, 1870, the author of Oliver Twist and Hard Times died following a stroke.

In 2008 Countess Wenckheim donated his writing desk, where it is believed he wrote Great Expectations in 1860, to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. It sold for £430,000.