Dickens and Doyle

Today was a rather laid back day. Everyone having gone to Paris, campus was very quiet. I did get to sleep in until about 10:45, at which point I met with my friend Sarah to go over plans for the weekend. We decided we were going to get to the Sherlock Holmes Museum and the Charles Dickens Museum today. We left at noon, got lunch at a pub called The Volunteer and went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum first. There was nothing spectacular about it. It was just a house on Baker Street, but not quite 221B, and it was decorated as though Sherlock Holmes had lived in it. Incidentally, parts of the Baker Street tube station are decorated with this tile on the walls:

If you didn't know anything about Sherlock Holmes, the museum would not have been very amusing to you. I don't know that much about him, but I knew enough to appreciate the place. By the end of it, I was doubtful of his being a fictional character; the place was very well designed. He has lots and lots of odd things stacked everywhere. There was a room for Dr. Watson and a room for Mrs. Hudson. They had wax figures of some of the prominent characters in the stories as well. If nothing else, it was a glimpse into a house of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's time period (Victorian, I think?).

There's the Museum. It's easy to miss if you're not paying attention.

He had so much stuff. Supposedly.

There's Professor Moriarty- Sherlock Holmes's rival.

Figures from "A Scandal in Bohemia"
After the Sherlock Holmes Museum, Sarah and I made our way to the Charles Dickens Museum. It was an adventure because it was a little bit of a walk from the nearest tube station (Chancery Lane), and we got to walk through residential areas and streets full of cafes and shops. The Charles Dickens Museum is at 48 Doughty Street, which is where Dickens lived in London during his prime years of writing. We were very fortunate to be here during this time because this year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of A Tale of Two Cities, my favorite Dickens novel thus far. There was entire exhibit dedicated to the book...mostly to the history behind the book (French Revolution), but there was a wall dedicated to Sydney Carton, and I was lost for words. Sydney Carton is the hero of the novel, even though he is not given the credit for being a hero until the very end. We toured the house, saw where he wrote Oliver Twist, which was neat considering I saw the musical associated with the book earlier in the week. We spent a good hour and a half looking through some of the manuscripts and even got to hold a first edition copy of Nicholas Nickleby. If there was anything more I learned about Dickens from this visit is that he was very involved in social work. Having been through a rough childhood (his family was put in debtors' prison and he was sent to work in a blacking factory) in the Victorian Era, he was committed to bettering the lives of others when he had the means to do so. He opened a house where prostitues could seek refuge from society and visited various schools reputed to treat students harshly. It was a good day spent indulging myself in literary things. It just made me want to read more Dickens and Doyle.
The rest of the night was spent on campus, keeping accounts of my expenditure, relaxing and watching TV shows on my laptop. Tomorrow will be a long day considering we have plans to get tickets for Wicked, see the British Museum and the British Library, and then watch Wicked at night. Here are pictures from the Dickens Museum:

Dickens' Study, where he wrote Oliver Twist.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." One of the best opening lines ever.
That would be me outside the Museum.