WINDOW SHOPPING DICKENS’S DESK

The very same. This is the desk where he wrote some of his best loved tales including Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and The Pickwick Papers. At his former family home, 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury, London.

CAN I SEE IT?

You can. The Georgian house is now the Charles Dickens Museum (dickens museum.com) and at the moment it’s dressed for a Victorian Christmas.

WHAT’S ON?

A Ghost Of An Idea: Unwrapping A Christmas Carol, which tells the story behind his most famous book, written over six weeks in 1843.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SEE?

A grille from Marshalsea Prison where John Dickens, Charles’s father, was interned for three months in 1824 for failing to pay his debt to a baker.

FESTIVE:

A timely reminder not to overspend this year . . .