His books include Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist and Dombey and Son.
Dickens is associated with London, writing about some of its worst and most corrupt institutions, often wandering the capital city’s streets at night thinking about plots for his novels.
But he travelled across the country and abroad, delivering lectures and theatrical productions.
Yorkshire was no exception, his perambulations across our county is recorded by Stephen Duxbury in his book Dickens and the North.
1. York, which has a special place in Dickens’ heart
In1938 the author wrote to his friend and fellow novelist Harrison Ainsworth of his intention to tour North Yorkshire schools. Armed with fake papers of introduction, Dickens intended to gather information on their cruelty and neglect to use in Nicholas Nickleby.
Dotheboys Hall, run by the villainous Wackford Squeers and where the eponymous hero worked, was the result of that visit.
York held a special place in Dickens’ heart. It is believed the character of Mr Micawber in David Copperfield was partly based on Richard Chicken, recorded in the Leeds Mercury as an eccentric person with "pecuniary difficulties and gloomy forbodings".
2. View over to Huddersfield from Castle Hill
Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield awaited in industrialised valleys of the south Pennines.
Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield awaited in industrialised valleys of the south Pennines.
On September 8 1858 Dickens performed a reading from A Christmas Carol at the Gymnasium Hall, Ramsden Street, Huddersfield. The following night he read from the same seasonal story at the Corn Exchange, Westgate, Wakefield.
3. The Piece hall in Halifax
He was in Halifax, reading the tale of Scrooge on September 16 1858, his only appearance in the town. It was reported in the Halifax Guardian that the audience was "large and enthusiastic, attentive and responsive".
Afterwards, in a letter, Dickens said: “Halifax was too small for us. I never saw such an audience though. It is as horrible a place as I ever saw. The trains are so strange and unintelligible in this part of the country that we were obliged to leave Halifax at eight this morning and breakfast on the road.”
Dickens had a further link with Halifax, His father-in-law George Hogarth became editor of the Halifax Guardian in 1832 and his family, including Dickens’ future wife Catherine, lived there for a time.
4. The Royal Hall in Harrogate
Dickens read twice at the Spa Rooms in Harrogate on September 11 1858. In a letter to Georgina Hogarth, he described Harrogate as “the queerest place with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest lives of dancing, newspaper-reading and table d'hôte”.