Place | Extract |
| Boulogne-sur-Mer | The family stayed at l'hôtel des Bains in Boulogne, n°69 rue de l'écu (now rue Victor Hugo), before leaving for Genoa in Italy the following day... |
| Boulogne-sur-Mer | Beaucourt-Mutuel and situated where the present-day lycée Mariette is, rue Beaurepaire... |
| Broadstairs | Several of his letters coax their recipient to spend a few days at the seaside town by favourably describing the place... |
| Broadstairs | Mr and Mrs Dickens entertained a great deal in Broadstairs... |
| Broadstairs | However, he often mentioned in his letters a certain Ballard, whom he found difficult to bear... |
| Broadstairs | Dickens was obviously enjoying the summer in Broadstairs when he wrote this letter entreating his friend Mark Lemon and his wife to come visit the family in Broadstairs... |
| Broadstairs | By 1849 Dickens knew Broadstairs very well... |
| Broadstairs | The family were staying in the Albion Hotel that had acquired a house that was once simply adjoined to it in which the Dickens had stayed several times before... |
| Broadstairs | Dickens greatly enjoyed the outdoors and some of Broadstairs’ attraction lay in the fact that after intensive writing he could escape on walks of several hours or bathe in the sea... |
| Broadstairs | This letter to John Forster sheds light on the details of travelling... |
| Broadstairs | One of the reasons why Dickens prized Broadstairs so much was that it had an aura of tranquillity around it that allowed him to recuperate from his busy career and write in peace and quiet... |
| Broadstairs | The following letter, addressed to his American friend Professor Charles Felton, provides first-hand insight into Dickens’s habits in Broadstairs... |
| Broadstairs | In this letter to his friend Macready, Dickens ‘solemnly declares’ his affection for Broadstairs and proclaims it to be ‘the finest feature in all creation’... |
| Broadstairs | By 1849, when this letter was written, Dickens was well acquainted with Broadstairs and with its unpredictable weather... |
| Broadstairs | Dickens gives a delightful portrayal of Broadstairs in this letter to his friend Miss Allan... |
| Broadstairs | The house, now baptised ‘Dickens House’ was minutely described by Dickens in David Copperfield and as no house of such description, nor any inhabitant of such peculiar description, have ever been identified in Dover, it is safe to assume that the cottage in Broadstairs and its occupier are what originally inspired Dickens... |
| Broadstairs | The following letter, addressed to Miss Marguerite Powers, is distinct from his other pieces about Broadstairs in that it presents the town as an unattractive stormy place, full of ill children and boring speakers... |
| Broadstairs | Having written just a month before to his friend Mark Lemon describing the tranquillity of Broadstairs, Dickens now finds the place invaded by musicians whose musical abilities are inversely proportionate to their over-enthusiasm... |
| Broadstairs | After a period of fatigue which he was seeking to recover from at Broadstairs, Dickens wrote to a friend that he was now ready to write the 18th number of the Pickwick Papers (which does not allude to the town)... |
| Chalk | After the birth of their first child the following year, the new family returned for another stay in Chalk... |
| Chatham | He was young enough not to be affected by the money troubles of his parents, but old enough to begin to build up abiding memories and to turn the lively enquiring gaze on his surroundings which would store up such rich material for the future novelist’s use... |
| Chatham | ’ in 1863... |
| Chatham | Together with most of the rest of the local population he must have turned out to watch the military reviews, mock battles and practice manoeuvres which frequently animated the area with noise, colour and movement... |
| Cliffe-at-Hoo | Later in the book Pip is lured by Orlick to an old sluice-gate hut on the banks of the canal near the lime-works... |
| Cobham | Pickwick and friends, in search of the lovelorn Mr... |
| Cobham | The village and ‘Leather Bottle’ Whenever friends, such as the American poet Longfellow, came to stay with Dickens at Gadshill, he used to take them on a whistle-stop tour of that part of Kent, cramming in visits to Chatham, Rochester, villages, churches, woods and hop-fields... |
| Condette |
The link between Dickens and Condette still remains as in 1978 the first meeting of the « Friends of Charles Dickens Boulogne-Condette » took place... |
| Cooling | Ten of them, all under two years old and who died within three years of each other, come from the same family... |
| Faversham | An article of uncertain authorship, featuring Faversham and entitled ‘Assault and Battery’ (1864), was published in Dickens’s periodical All the Year Round... |
| Gadshill | The sale was completed in March 1856 for £1,790... |
| Gadshill | The locals also benefited from the sociability of their famous resident... |
| Gravesend | From his long walks in the area, which took him around the villages of the Hoo Peninsula to the bustling Thames waterside, Dickens must have been familiar with the chaotic, emotionally charged scenes of departure for new lives in the colonies, which were a feature of Gravesend life... |
| Herne Bay | org... |
| Margate | Ramsgate was only known to him as a place of transit between London and Broadstairs or as the place where one of his publishers was established... |
| Margate | Consequently, the town is not described in great detail in any of his writings... |
| Pegwell Bay | Among these was a comic tale entitled ‘The Tuggses at Ramsgate’, which tells the story of the family of Mr... |
| Ramsgate | Accommodation seems to have been a problem for Dickens at the time when he wrote this letter to John Forster in September 1839... |
| Ramsgate | literatureandplace... |
| Ramsgate | The town, full of equally flirtatious and pretentious characters, at first seems to be the perfect back-drop for their story, as the excerpt below exemplifies... |
| Ramsgate | Bathing was one of Dickens pastimes when he was in Kent... |
| Rochester |
Although not mentioned by name, Rochester is clearly the ‘market town’ used as a very specific background in ‘Great Expectations’ (1860), one of the major novels Dickens wrote at Gad’s Hill Place... |
| Sheerness | uk/database/en/author/Jerrold%20Douglas%20William">Douglas Jerrold between 1807 and 1815... |
| Strood | Dickens not only knew the Medway towns well enough to describe their individual characteristics, he was also able to capture the impression they would collectively make on the visitor such as Mr... |
