Morgan Library exhibit shows the hand of Dickens
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The august Morgan Library in midtown Manhattan houses the second largest collection of manuscripts and letters after the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, including the original manuscript of "A Christmas Carol," one of only a handful of Dickens' original works located outside Britain, said Declan Kiely, the Robert H. Taylor Curator of Manuscripts at the library.
The exhibition at the Morgan, 225 Madison Ave., continues until next Sunday; admission is $15.
Sifting through the Morgan collection's 1800 letters to choose excerpts for the exhibition was difficult, Mr. Kiely said, noting that visitors usually can tolerate close inspection of about 20, although true Dickens fans can peruse through more on Mr. Kiely's blog.
Dickens' handwriting made that a particularly challenging exercise, "although if you spend enough time with it, once you crack the code, you can read his handwriting much more easily and accurately than you ever thought possible," he said. "People who received Dickens' letters on a regular basis didn't have a problem, but today we read so much on screens and in print that it's difficult."
Dickens wrote out all his novels by hand, and given the demands of monthly serializations, printers "had to work very fast to set up the type. It must have been excruciating."
He "was a strenuous writer, and you can see that in the manuscripts," Mr. Kiely added. "It's a very muscular style, crammed full of text, with marks on the page showing the sheer physical force of the man."
At a prior Morgan exhibition of Mark Twain's letters, which "to my mind are one of the most readable handwritings in the business, elegant and consistent," Mr. Kiely said, a Columbia University student wrote a review complaining that Twain's "chicken scratch handwriting is barely legible."
"A cold shiver ran down me," added the curator. "I thought, if they think Twain's handwriting is tough, what would they do with Charles Dickens or W.B. Yeats or John Steinbeck -- or Sir Walter Scott, God forbid."
The Morgan exhibition draws on the strengths of its collection -- letters and manuscripts on philanthropy, his two American tours, his interest in "mesmerism," known today as hypnosis; his Christmas books and his story-telling process. The Morgan show doesn't, however, touch upon Dickens' unhappy marriage, his mistreatment of his wife or his secret affair with actress Nelly Ternan, which began when she was 18, because Dickens made sure to destroy any traces of that liaison.
Still, Dickens' wife, Catherine, saved all his letters, which go back to their courtship days, but she willed them to the British Library, which has them all.
"Mrs. Dickens told her daughter Katie to 'safeguard them so people will know he loved me once,'" Mr. Kiely added.
If you happen to be in New York on Dickens' 200th birthday, you can go to the exhibit free, Mr. Kiely said. "Tell the ticket office, 'I'm here because it's Dickens' birthday.' If you utter the magic word, you're in."
First Published February 5, 2012 12:00 am
