Dickens’ Former Home Surpasses Even the Greatest Expectations

Charles Dickens had a contemptuous relationship with London. The most renowned author from the Victorian era, Dickens' bleak and melancholic descriptions of the UK capital that pepper throughout his bibliography captures the city’s vibrancy, complexity, and often grim reality.

"The city to which they drive me is called London; it is a dark and dismal city; and I know not what I am to do there," Dickens writes in Great Expectations. Another from Our Mutual Friend reads: “London. At length I have done with it. It’s a huge dead sea, that never changes." And yet, for a man who repeatedly described his di...