Charles Dickens Museum

#53

Dickens’s only surviving London home (48 Doughty Street) is intimate, readable and packed with originals. He wrote ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ here; the rooms—kitchen to nursery—still feel lived-in. Expect manuscripts, first editions, stage posters and wonderfully odd personal objects. It’s a 60–90 minute visit that connects the novels to real floors, food smells and family logistics.

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Opening Hours

Sunday: 10:00 – 17:00

Wednesday: 10:00 – 17:00

Thursday: 10:00 – 17:00

Friday: 10:00 – 17:00

Saturday: 10:00 – 17:00

What's not to miss inside?

Study & Writing Desk

Where the breakthrough books formed

Desk, chair and quills anchor the leap from journalist to household-name novelist.

Note how the chair sits angled to the window—light and London’s street-noise as co-authors.

📍 First floor front room

Dining Room

Performance before the stage

Dickens hosted readings and lively dinners here—rehearsing voices that later filled public halls.

Read a short passage from ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ aloud (softly) and feel the room’s acoustics do the rest.

📍 Ground floor

Kitchen & Below Stairs

Fuel behind the fiction

Coal, copper pans and service bells show the domestic machine that kept a 1830s household running.

Trace a servant’s route up the back stairs to the dining room—Dickens observed these circuits closely.

📍 Basement

Nursery & Family Rooms

Work and nine children under one roof

Cradles, toys and letters fill out the home life behind the deadlines.

Match dates on family letters to publication timelines pinned nearby.

📍 Upper floors

🤓 Fun Facts

Dickens kept a letter-opener topped with the taxidermied paw of his beloved cat ‘Bob’—a macabre, tender Victorian keepsake on display.

He wrote parts of ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ in this house while still filing journalism—serialisation rhythms shaped his plotting cliffhangers.

Dickens’s famed public readings began as parlour performances; the breath-control drills and vocal markings survive on his prompt copies.

The museum acquired Dickens’s writing desk and chair after a public appeal—objects that travelled back from later homes to reunite with this address.

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