MY “DICKENS” COLLLECTION

I have been collecting books by Dickens for many years and I have quite an extensive array of them. This is not to say that I’ve read them all. Basically I love his writing but some of them, such as “Bleak House”, are just too convoluted for me. (As an aside, I think the reason that I enjoy the writing of John Irving so much…”Cider House Rules”, “The World According to Garp”, etc…. is that he has a distinctive Dickens’ bent.)

Many of Dickens’ characters have become household names… Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Oliver Twist … to name just a few. However, the actual list of characters is immense and only a Dickens’ scholar could name them all. To the best of my knowledge there are 34 works by Dickens in print, as well as miscellaneous papers, plays and poems.

I have 84 books in my collection so you can tell that I have multiple copies of some of them, such as “A Christmas Carol“. Many of my books have come from friends and relatives, as well as those that I’ve found in old book stores. I have a 1st edition of “The Old Curiosity Shop” that I cherish. It was left to me by my friend Douglas when he passed away three years ago.

Of course it stands to reason that I would also be given Dickens’ mementos, such as book ends, plates, and figurines. Among those things is this classic game from Milton Bradley. It consists of 36 cards with delightful pictures from 6 of Dickens’ most famous works. The challenge is to match the picture with the work.


I am under no illusion that Dickens was an endearing person…(read “The Crafty Entrepreneur” that I wrote last year)…but his writings have survived the test of time and he remains one of the most highly quoted authors ever….and one of my favorites.