Talks & Speaking Engagements

Southwold Arts Festival: Dickens and Travel

Date: 26 June 2025
Time: 11am
Location: Southwold Arts Centre, St Edmunds Hall, Cumberland Road Southwold, Suffolk, IP18 6JP
Talks & Events
Dickens and Travel

Charles Dickens was fascinated by tales from other countries and cultures and longed to see the world. Lucinda Hawksley looks at the journeys made by the Victorian author – who is also her great great great grandfather. …

Dickens and Unitarianism: Talk at Annual Conference of The Dickens Fellowship

Date: 15 July 2025
Time: 9am
Location: Conference Centre, Canterbury Cathedral - Canterbury Cathedral Lodge, The Precincts, The King's Mile, Canterbury, CT1 2EH
Talks & Events
Annual Conference of The Dickens Fellowship

Speaker at the 118th Annual Conference of The Dickens Fellowship. …

Persuasion Salon with Lucinda Hawksley at Jane Austen’s House

Date: 21 September 2025
Time: 10-11am
Location: Jane Austen's House, Chawton, Hampshire, GU34 1SD
Talks & Events
Jane Austen's House Museum, Chawton
Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Join the inspiring author and historian Lucinda Hawksley for an intimate salon, discussing all things Persuasion! Over tea and cake, Lucinda will share some of her favourite scenes, characters and moments from the novel, and lead a discussion on everything from long engagements to hedgerow rambles, romantic letters and seaside ramparts. …

‘Loving longest’: In Conversation with Emily Howes at Jane Austen’s House

Date: 21 September 2025
Time: 12-1pm
Location: Jane Austen's House, Chawton, Hampshire, GU34 1SD
Talks & Events
Emily Howes Author Credit Katrina Campbell
Emily Howes - Photo credit: Katrina Campbell

Join acclaimed author Emily Howes for a fascinating conversation with Lucinda Hawksley about Persuasion and how it deals with women’s relationships, the intricacies of class and social mobility, and the expectations around caring and care. …

Dickens And The Detectives

Date: 25 September 2025
Time: 7-9pm
Location: Medina Bookshop, 50 High Street, Cowes, Isle of Wight, PO31 7RR
Talks & Events
Dickens And The Detectives event poster

Join authors Angela Buckley and Lucinda Hawksley for a special event looking at Victorian detective stories, from real-life mysteries to those created by Charles Dickens (Lucinda’s great great great grandfather). The talk will explore the legendary author’s fascination with detectives …

Judge at Isle of Wight Book Awards 2025

Date: 7 October 2025
Location: Isle of Wight Literary Festival
Talks & Events
Isle of Wight Book Awards 2025

This year’s award ceremony marks the opening event of the Isle of Wight Literary Festival. Taking place at the Island Sailing Club in Cowes on Tuesday 7th October, the Presentation Lunch will include an opening speech by award founder Hunter Davies, with all three judges in attendance. …

Past Events

Doughty Street: the history of the area and its Dickens connections

Date: 10 June 2025
Time: 3pm
Location: Zoom / Live talk at St Dunstan's Church Hall, 80 London Road, Canterbury, CT2 8LS
Talks & Events

This is a hybrid meeting. Please join us in St Dunstan’s Church Hall, Canterbury, if you can, or request the Zoom details by email from [email protected]

Celebrating the 100th birthday of The Charles Dickens Museum, with free entry

Date: 9 June 2025
Time: 10-6pm
Location: Charles Dickens Museum, 48-49 Doughty Street, London, WC1N 2LX
Talks & Events

On 9th June 1925 the Charles Dickens Museum first opened to the public. Eager crowds gathered on the street in a wave of jubilation that the home of the great author had been saved from demolition and was now a space to be admired and enjoyed. 

On Monday 9 June, we’ll be celebrating the 100th birthday of The Charles Dickens Museum, with free entry. I’ll be there for most of the day, together with other family members. Maybe I’ll see you there?

Freud’s 4 pm session: Dickens, Freud, and the Making of David Copperfield

Date: 7 June 2025
Time: 4-5pm
Location: Freud Museum London, 20 Maresfield Gardens London, NW3 5SX
Talks & Events

In June 1882, Sigmund Freud gave a copy of David Copperfield, his favourite Dickens novel, to Martha Bernays. This copy — one of the 1,600 volumes which were brought from Vienna to London in 1938 when the Freud family fled Nazi persecution — remains in Freud’s library at the Museum today. In this special event, Lucinda Hawksley will explore what was happening in Dickens’s life at the time of working on David Copperfield and the inspirations behind what is widely considered to be his most autobiographical novel.

Photo credit: “Freud’s library” by Thomas Quine on Flickr is licensed under CC BY 2.0

In conversation at the Munnings Art Museum

Date: 6 May 2025
Time: 2pm UK Time
Location: The Munnings Art Museum, Castle House, Castle Hill, Colchester, United Kingdom
Talks & Events

Author, art historian, broadcaster and President of the International Dickens Fellowship, Lucinda Hawksley will talk about her life and work in conversation with James Clarke, writer and lecturer.

Lucinda Hawksley on Charles Dickens and Travel

Date: 28 March 2025
Time: 5.30 pm
Location: 2nd Floor, Dining Hall - The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College
Talks & Events
President of the International Dickens Fellowship

Join the English Department at the Dining Hall for an event in memory of Jackie Elmquist ’22. Renowned author Lucinda Hawksley will speak on Charles Dickens and travel, two of Jackie’s favorite topics, as all who knew her can confirm. Hawksley is a prolific writer who is in great demand as a speaker; she is also the beloved London professor of many a Skidmore First-Year London student. What’s more, she happens to be the great, great, great, great granddaughter of Dickens himself.

Come out to enjoy and to learn from a lively speaker and to honor the memory of a dearly missed alumna, who died tragically in December 2023. A reception will follow the talk.

This event is free and open to the public.

Fund-raising event to restore ‘Little Dorrit’ vestry at St George the Martyr Church

Date: 19 March 2025
Time: 2pm UK Time
Location: St George the Martyr Church , Borough High Street, SE1 1JA
Talks & Events
Meet the Authors Poster - St George the Martyr Church

An Afternoon of Readings and Discussion at St George the Martyr Church (the ‘Little Dorrit’ church) on Borough High Street, SE1 1JA — a fund-raising event in aid of the restoration of the church’s ‘Little Dorrit’ vestry. Further details to be announced.

Stanfords Travel Writers Festival: Charles Dickens, The First Modern Travel Writer

Date: 18 January 2025
Time: 1pm UK Time
Location: Stanfords Travel Writers Festival
Talks & Events

Lucinda Hawksley in conversation with Andrew Dickens

About the Talk:
From childhood, Charles Dickens was fascinated by tales from other countries and other cultures and he longed to see the world. Lucinda Hawksley talks to Andrew Dickens about the journeys made by her great great great grandfather in Europe, long before the arrival of high-speed rail, toured America (twice) and Canada and, before his untimely death, was planning a tour of Australia.

‘A Victorian Christmas’ with Lucinda Dickens Hawksley

Date: 16 December 2024
Time: 7-9pm
Location: Medina Bookshop, 50 High Street, Cowes, Isle of Wight, PO31 7RR
Talks & Events

Join us and make your yuletide merry with mulled-wine, a mince pie and a talk by Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, a descendant of Charles Dickens, as she reveals the fascinating tale of Christmas traditions during Queen Victoria’s reign.

‘A Victorian Christmas’ with Lucinda Dickens Hawksley poster

Lucinda Hawksley in Conversation with Victoria Drew-Batty

Date: 7 November 2024
Time: 7.30-9pm UK Time
Location: The Fisher Theatre, Bungay, Suffolk
Talks & Events

Lucinda Hawksley is rightly very proud of her lineage to Charles Dickens (she is his great-great-great granddaughter) – his influence runs through much of her work and writing. However, she is very much an author in her own right and has over twenty published books, many about women through history who have inspired her, and travel books.

Lucinda will talk to Victoria about her most exciting adventures, most-admired women and favourite books – an evening that will be peppered with snippets of Dickensian drama and Victorian music!