Charles Dickens at NYPL

The New York Public will celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens with a special exhibition. “Charles Dickens: The Key to Character” will open on September 14, 2012 and run through January 27, 2013.


Held in the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the display will include works that were influenced by Dickens’ writing. Nearly 30 illustrators contributed projects to the exhibit. Some of the pieces on view include watercolor paintings, original sheet music and Dickens’ own memoranda book.

Here’s more from the release: “The exhibition looks at characters across Dickens’s career, from beloved novels like A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield to lesser-know works including Martin Chuzzlewit and Dombey and Son…Also on display: an 1867 pocket diary filled with the code Dickens used to communicate with his mistress, Ellen Ternan; a couture gown by Prabal Gurung, a contemporary fashion designer inspired by the decayed elegance of Great Expectations‘s Miss Havisham; and recordings from the special collections of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.”