Talks & Speaking Engagements

From childhood, Charles Dickens was fascinated by tales from other countries and other cultures, and he longed to see the world. In Dickens and Travel, Lucinda Hawksley looks at the journeys made by him.

Although Dickens is usually perceived as a London author, in the 1840s he whisked his family away to live in Italy for year, and spent several months in Switzerland. Some years later he took up residence in Paris and Boulogne (where he lived in secret with his lover). In addition to traveling widely in Europe, he also toured America twice, performed onstage in Canada and, before his untimely death, was planning a tour of Australia.

Dickens and Travel enters into the world of the Victorian traveller and looks at how Charles Dickens’s journeys influenced his writing and enriched his life.

Lucinda Hawksley is a biographer, art historian and broadcaster, and a great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Her topic will be ‘Charlie & Wilkie Collins and their relationship to the Dickens Family‘.

Please join us in St Dunstan’s church hall in Canterbury if you can, or request the Zoom link by email: [email protected]

Image credit: Wilkie Collins by Rudolf Lehmann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Success After Stroke biennial fundraising event. The BrushStroke art exhibition held at St. Peter’s Church, Market Hill, Sudbury.

Event presented by Artistic Fields.

Talking with fellow author Victoria Panton-Bacon. Tickets are on sale now.

New venue for this event. Please book early to avoid disappointment.

By the winter of 1843 Charles Dickens was in trouble. His most recent book series, Martin Chuzzlewit, was not selling well. His wife, Catherine, was pregnant with their fifth child and he was facing financial difficulties, made worse when his publishers threatened to drop his income if his book sales did not improve. Under pressure, Dickens decided to embark upon an entirely new project. Drawing upon his experience of the desperate poverty he saw in London and Manchester, and determined to open people’s hearts to the extremity of need all around him, he picked up his quill and created one of the most famous books in English literary history.

This December, join the 3x great granddaughter of Charles Dickens, Lucinda Hawksley, as she examines the remarkable story of A Christmas Carol. Examining Dickens’s early childhood, the beginnings of his literary career and the pressures of juggling his new found fame with his young family, Lucinda will explore how A Christmas Carol came to be written and unpicks the impact of this most famous of Christmas stories.

Photo credit: © Charles Dickens Museum

We’ll visit London locations that inspired Charles Dickens’s Christmas writing and look at the beautiful sights of London dressed up for the festive season. This year marks 175 years of The Haunted Man – Dickens’s final Christmas book. Come and discover the stories that inspired his festive writing. The walking tour will be led by Dickens’s great great great granddaughter, Lucinda Hawksley, author of Dickens and Christmas and Dickens and Travel.

Lucinda Hawksley (also known as Lucinda Dickens Hawksley) is an author, lecturer and broadcaster. She has written more than 20 books, including three biographies of 19th-century artists – Lizzie Siddal, Kate Perugini (née Dickens) and Princess Louise. She is a patron of the Charles Dickens Museum in London.

A talk with Charles Dickens’ great-great-great granddaughter as well as a celebrated author about Dickens and Victorians.

Talk set against readings of A Christmas Carol with Lisa Bostnar and Ken Sheldon.

Brush off your bowlers and prepare your petticoats as Galveston Historical Foundation presents the 50th annual Dickens on The Strand. Held the first weekend in December, the annual festival is a holiday tradition with great family programming, live entertainment, special events and more. Dickens on The Strand, based on 19th-century Victorian London, features parades, non-stop entertainment on four stages, new additions like Tiny Tim’s Play Land, Shopkeeper Skills Village, and roaming characters throughout the festival. Costumed vendors peddle their wares from street stalls and rolling carts laden with holiday food and drink, Victorian-inspired crafts, clothing, jewellery, holiday decorations, and gift items.

Join SoA member and author of Dickens and Christmas on a walking tour around Dickens’s London. Lucinda Hawksley will walk you along Dickensian streets, including some of the sites that inspired his seasonal writing. The tour will end at the Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury, attendees will then have the option to have a self-guided tour around his former home, or grab a refreshment at the museum’s cafe.

Lucinda is an SoA member, a patron of the Charles Dickens Museum and a great great great granddaughter of Charles and Catherine Dickens.

Spaces are limited, so please book your tickets in advance