By Cathy Butterfield
Collections Development Director

I confess, my thoughts about Charles Dickens, his writings, his life, and his legacy, are deeply conflicted. 

He was definitely a man of his (Victorian) times, but his writing at its best transcended its roots in the gutters of Victorian London to influence readers around the world. Charles Dickens wrote of the people and for the people he grew up with—shopkeepers and costermongers, child laborers and factory overseers, thimble-twisters and gospel-grinders.