Charles Dickens' London
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth on the 7th of February 1812. He moved to London at the age of 10 and he described London as his "magic lantern", his main inspiration for events and characters in his fiction. He suffered from insomnia and would go on nochturnal walks of up to 20 miles in the streets of London. Travel back in time to Victorian London and Dickensian London on these guided walks in the footsteps of Dickens - see where he lived, where he worked and where the most famous episodes in his novels took place. Charles Dickens covered all of London in his life and in his novels, so guided walks in his footsteps could take place all over London. The tours below are only a few of the most popular options:
Charles Dickens' London guided walks
- Charles Dickens' Holborn and Bloomsbury
Visit The Old Curiosity Shop which may or may not have inspired the story about Nell Trent, Lincoln's Inn Fields (setting for Bleak House), Staple Inn (mentioned in The Mystery of Edwin Drood), Gray's Inn (where Dickens worked as a lawyer's clerk),The Dickens House Museum (the only remaining Dickens residence left in London, where Dickens lived with his family 1837-39 and wrote parts of The Pickwick Papers as well as Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby), The Foundling Museum and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (both charities were supported by Dickens).
- Please note that a visit to the Dickens House Museum could be included in some of the guided walks. The museum has been recently renovated to have an original Victorian look and has been expanded with an education centre in the next door house. More info here:
- Charles Dickens' Clerkenwell and City of London
Visit the location of Fagin's Den in Oliver Twist, see the location of the Police Court, where an innocent Oliver Twist was almost convicted of being a pocket thief, visit the Guildhall which was the location for the court case Bardell vs Pickwick in The Pickwick Papers, see the location of Newgate Prison, where Fagin was imprisoned before his execution in Oliver Twist, see the location where a young Charles Dickens fell in love for the first time in his life (later to inspire parts of David Copperfield), see The Royal Exchange, where Scrooge is taken by the ghost of the Future in A Christmas Carol. St Paul's Cathedral and The Mansion House also feature on this walk.
Charles Dickens' Embankment and Covent Garden
- Charles Dickens' Temple and Fleet Street
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