Dickens Walking Tour

January 9, 2013

Hi there. My name is Mary Taylor. I am a second-year student at the College of Saint Scholastica, where I mainly pursue Global, Cultural, and Language studies. It has long been a goal of mine to travel internationally, but I’d never traveled outside of the United States before this trip. Because of this, I was eager to go anywhere, but the program in England was particularly appealing to me due to its literary and theatrical nature. So far, it has not disappointed!

Today, the literature group had the morning off—a welcome prospect after yesterday’s early departure for Stratford. My friends, Emily and Laura (also literature students,) and I decided to use this free time to go wander around the National Portrait Gallery near Trafalgar Square. There, we saw many famous faces. Many of them were royals, scientists, artists, and other such figures of public admiration. We even saw portraits of two of the authors we studied during the fall semester—Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens.

Afterwards, we went next door to the National Gallery. There, we saw many remarkable paintings, though the one that was most exciting to me was Leonardo da Vinci’s second Virgin of the Rocks. I remember studying this particular painting in high school, but I had not known that it was in London. I was both surprised and pleased to walk into a room at the Gallery and come face to face with this gorgeous work of art. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in either the Gallery or the Portrait Gallery—hence the conspicuous lack of photos so far.

           In the Charles Dickens Museum, though, photography was encouraged. In the afternoon, the literature class headed over to Doughty Street to visit Charles Dickens’s former home, which has since become a museum paying homage to his memory.  Here we saw many original and recreated artifacts from the man’s life. For example, here is the writing desk at which he most likely penned such works as Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities. 

               We also got a glimpse of the Dickens family structure. Apparently, Dickens referred to this particular house as “the hospital ward,” as it is where he and his wife began to have their ten children. There, he also experienced the traumatic sudden death of his 17-year-old sister-in-law, an event that greatly influenced his writing. Finally, we were able to learn a bit about the household structure. Of particular interest to me was the use of hedgehogs in the house. Apparently, hedgehogs were kept in order to eat any bugs that might infest the kitchen.

   As the owner of bug-eating hedgehog, I approve.

               We then left the museum, but remained in the area. After a brief respite, we reconvened for a Dickens-themed walking tour of London. Though the tour was long, it was also extremely informative. We saw many Dickensian landmarks, such as the square in which his publishing career began, an office in which Dickens chose to fling cherry pits at pedestrians rather than work, many places that feature prominently in his novels, the house in which he wrote The Pickwick Papers, and much more. We even saw some non-Dickens-related literary landmarks, such as the alley off of Fleet Street that would have held the barbershop of one Sweeney Todd (see also: demon barber.) 

               It really does live up to expectations.

               In short, I would say that today was an exciting, interesting, and productive day for the literature group.