Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.

Follow us online: Facebook Twitter Flickr

National Museums Liverpool Blog - Happy Birthday Mr Dickens!

 Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Happy Birthday Mr Dickens!


Tuesday 07 February 12

stateroom cabin model

Michelle Walsh, Assistant Curator of Maritime History tells us about the Charles Dickens maritime link:

As Sam has mentioned, today marks the bicentenary of Charles Dickens, born 7th February 1812. This reminded me of the small model, currently on display in the Life at Sea Gallery, of the stateroom that Charles Dickens and his wife stayed in on their voyage to America.

Dickens and his wife were given a first-class stateroom for their 14 day voyage from Liverpool to Boston, USA in 1842. Despite this accommodation being luxurious by the standards of the time, Dickens did not feel it lived up to the advertisement by the agents. He comments in his travelogue American Notes for General Circulation;

 "…that this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, and profoundly preposterous box, had the remotest reference to, or connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand, in the highly varnished lithographic plan hanging up in the agent’s counting-house in the city of London…"

He later stated "…nothing smaller for sleeping in was ever made than a coffin."


Posted by Rebecca | 07/02/2012 15:12   | Comments [0]

Post a comment

All comments require the approval of the site owner before being displayed.
Name
E-mail

Comment (HTML not allowed)  

Enter the code shown (prevents robots):

Live Comment Preview

By posting your comment you have agreed to the terms and conditions below

Terms & Conditions

National Museums Liverpool welcomes your comments. All comments are moderated and will only be published if they adhere to the following standards. The editors reserve the right not to publish comments which they deem inappropriate:

  1. Our Maritime Archives and Library deals with enquiries relating to all aspects of Liverpool's maritime history including ships, passengers, seafarers, shipping and maritime companies. Their web pages describe the information they hold and how to get in touch, along with useful research guides on popular subjects such as tracing seafaring or emigrant ancestors. Please do not submit requests for this type of information as comments on this blog.
  2. Specific enquiries, as opposed to comments on blog posts, should be submitted using our contact system. Please note that we do not provide valuations.
  3. Posts must be text only and under 1000 characters (including spaces). Html code, links or multimedia are not permitted.
  4. We will aim (but do not guarantee) to publish approved comments within 72 hours although there may be delays over weekends and during public holidays.
  5. Please do not post anything that is libellous, abusive, obscene, prejudiced or unlawful.
  6. Do not contravene any rights to privacy (such as personal contact details), copyright or trademark legislation.
  7. Please do not spam or post commercial promotional information.
  8. By posting you agree that you are wholly responsible for the content that you post. Although the blog comments will be moderated National Museums Liverpool will publish comments in the good faith that they comply with the law.
  9. By posting your comment you agree that it may be reproduced by National Museums Liverpool online or in print without compensation.