Happy Birthday Charles Dickens!

Dickens 20 1850 c.1

February 7, 2012, is truly a hallowed date for the history of English literature, marking as it does, the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great writer Charles Dickens. We could not forget, because the RBC includes a wonderful Dickens collection, begun by donor William A. Whitaker (UNC A.B. 1904), as well as strong holdings of the graphic work of George Cruikshank, one of the most important illustrators of Dickens.

For our post, however, we choose not a picture but – quite aptly, we believe – an image of the opening chapter of David Copperfield, “I Am Born.”

Indeed, today we celebrate Dickens as the hero of his own life!