The Museum

When Charles Dickens was born in this modest house in Portsmouth, on 7th February 1812, Britain's Navy was still at war with Napoleonic France. Charles's father, John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, had brought his young bride Elizabeth down to Portsmouth in the summer of 1809, renting the house as the first home of their married life.

The furniture, ceramics, glass, household objects and decorations faithfully re-created the Regency style which Charles's parents would have favoured, although their actual possessions have long since been dispersed.

There are three furnished rooms: the parlour, the dining room and the bedroom where Charles was born. The exhibition room features a display on Charles Dickens and Portsmouth, as well as a small collection of memorabilia: the couch on which he died at his house in Kent, together with his snuff box, inkwell and paper knife, poignant reminders of an author celebrated for his prodigious talents and creative output.

The Major works of Charles Dickens

These are the major works of Dickens in date order.

Sketches by Boz Pickwick Papers Oliver Twist Nicholas Nickleby Old Curiosity Shop Barnaby Rudge American Notes Martin Chuzzlewit A Christmas Carol The Chimes The Cricket on the Hearth Dombey and Son David Copperfield Bleak House Hard Times Little Dorrit A Tale of Two Cities Great Expectations Our Mutual Friend Edwin Drood (uncompleted)

1836 1836 1837 1838 1840 1841 1842 1843 1843 1844 1845 1846 1849 1852 1854 1855 1859 1861 1864 1870