 Charles Dickens is, no doubt, one of the most famous writers in English literature. Despite his lack of formal education, he wrote 15 novels, 5 novelas, hundreds of short stories, and non-fiction articles. His stories, such as Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Christmas Carol, have continued to shape the way in which we understand Victorian era. How we celebrate Christmas, and even how we speak, there are enormous words and phrases in English which are invented or popularized by Mr. Dickens. London, its street, and its people provided an enormous inspiration to Charles Dickens, and today I am standing right in front of the Charles Dickens Museum, which was once the home of this great literary giant. This only surviving family home of Dickens was opened as a museum in 1925. Visitors can step back in time and experience Dickens' home as if he had just stepped out of his house. In the museum, you will find paintings, manuscripts, original furniture, and many more items relating to the life of this great Victorian man. This Charles Dickens Museum, at 48 Doughty Street, was Dickens' home from 1837 to 1839. Charles and Catherine Dickens had been married for about one year when they moved here with their baby son Charlie. The two years that Dickens spent here was extremely productive for him. For here, he completed Pickwick Papers, wrote The Hole of Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickel. Spread over five floors, the museum is set in an original Georgian townhouse which dates back to 1809 and resembles a perfect Victorian home. So without any delay, let me collect my entry ticket and give you a room-by-room tour of Dickens' house. The tour begins in the hallway where we'll find a beautiful clock that was once owned by Charles Dickens. What is special about this clock is that it sounds every 15 minutes. There are in total 10 rooms in Dickens' house and we are going to start our tour by covering the rooms situated on the ground floor. Right now, I'm standing in Dickens' dining room. Dickens entertained many leading and influential Victorian figures in this room. By the time Dickens moved to this address, he became a very well-known writer. Thanks to the success of his first full-length novel, The Pickwick Papers, Charles and Catherine were keen to show off their lovely new home to a growing number of famous friends. Regular guest includes Daniel McCleef, a successful painter, William McCready, a famous actor-manager, William McPhee Stakre, who illustrated Pickwick Papers and Charles' best friend, writer and critic, John Foster. By the way, Charles and Catherine loved throwing dinner parties for their friends and family. And guess what? One of their favourite dishes was toasted cheese. The next room that we enter is known as the morning room. Catherine Dickens used this room to manage the domestic and household matters. Mrs. Dickens spent a lot of her time in the morning room. Some of her pastime included making beautiful embroidery. You can see an example of that in the lap in the portrait right behind me. She also spent time socialising and managing the household work. Like many Victorian women of her social class, Catherine wrote many letters to friends and family from this room. We all know that Charles Dickens spent much of his time travelling away from home. And he used to keep in touch with his wife through letters. Many of their surviving letters demonstrate that their time in this house was a particularly happy time for the Dickens couple. Here are some surviving letters that Catherine wrote from this room. In many modern homes today, the kitchen is a place where families spend a lot of their time together. However, in Victorian times, for families like that of Dickens, things were quite different. They would not have spent much time in this room at all. In fact, this kitchen which is found at the basement of the house would be managed completely by the servants and the cooks. The cook would spend nearly all her time in the kitchen. And I'm pretty sure that kitchen would have been a hive of activities from early in the morning until late at night with the cook and the maids frantically preparing meals for Dickens, family and friends. Right next to the kitchen, you will also find a wash house. Doing the laundry was a very big time-consuming, difficult and complicated job back then. A complete cycle of laundry could take nearly one week. Modern inventions such as washing machine, tumble dryers and electric ions save us a lot of time today. But these were tools that the Victorians simply didn't have access to. They used something called the wash house copper. Now, this was used to wash clothes. However, there is another use of this wash house copper. Once a year, it was cleaned and used to boil Christmas pudding. This tradition was later celebrated by Dickens in his famous book, A Christmas Carrot. As we move to the first floor of this Victorian house, you will find yourself in Dickens' drawing room. Now, this was called drawing room not because people used to draw pictures in it but because this is a short form of withdrawing room. After dinner, people would withdraw from the dining room to this room where people would feel more comfortable and relaxed after a big meal. This was a place for relaxation and entertainment. There were a lot of ways people would entertain each other. They'll talk, joke, played the piano and sang song. What do you think? What kind of music guest would have listened to in a Victorian drawing room? By the way, Dickens also tested out his latest stories on his guest and did imitations of his favorite actors in this room. In the drawing room, you will find Dickens' famous reading desk. Oh yes, Dickens had this special reading desk which he used while giving his public performances and he was very particular about the design of the desk. So much so that you will find an original sketch made by Charles Dickens specifying the design of this desk. This stinked from any podium, Dickens had this reading desk specially crafted to fit his needs on the stage. Dickens loved reading his books to the audience. Do you know that he even annotated his books for the performances by writing stage directions such as sigh, moan, knocking? This is Dickens' study. Charles Dickens spent most of his mornings writing in this room. Here you will see the manuscripts of one of his most famous stories. It is incredibly difficult to read but the longer you look, the easier it will be. See if you can pick out some key words that will give you clue as to which story this belongs to. Did you guess? Yes, yes, that's right. This page is from one of Charles Dickens' most loved stories, Oliver Twist. This is so messy because this is the first draft. This is when Charles for the first time was transferring the story from his imagination to the page. Dickens had to work very quickly because his books were published in installments in series. Each month he had to write around 7500 words for each story. But often he was working at two stories on the same time. When Dickens was working on Oliver Twist, he was also working on his next novel that was Nicholas Nicolby. In his study, you will find Charles Dickens' writing desk and chair. This is museum's most popular and important possession. Can you believe Charles Dickens' museum received $1.2 million grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund to purchase this desk and chair? Which was used by Charles Dickens to pen down some of his most famous works including Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. Kept near the desk is the original manuscript of Dickens' novels. It shows the painstaking work that went into each of his novels. Written in his own handwriting, these manuscripts bear witness to Dickens' writing process. Next room that we are going to explore is Dickens' bedroom. It has a bed and a set of almirah just like any other normal bedroom. But this bedroom has some item that you might not expect to see in bedrooms today. That's right, this chair that you see here in front of me is a toilet. Most Victorian homes didn't have bathrooms. That's why Victorian houses had toilet seats like these in the bedroom itself. You must have seen a similar seat in Dr. Watson's room in my Sherlock Holmes vlog. By the way, there's a big problem with such toilets. The chair didn't have a flush handle. Why? Because there weren't any pipes for the poo and the weed to go down. This means that every time someone used the toilet, the poo house maid would have to empty the waste out. On the second floor next to Dickens' bedroom is Mary Hoggard's room. Mary was Catherine's younger sister. Mary often stayed with Charles and Catherine in this house. You might wonder why? Isn't it weird to stay with your sister after marriage? Let me tell you, in many Victorian marriages, a younger unmarried woman would often accompany her newly wedded sister to help her with the new role of the mistress of the house. What is sad is that Mary died here in this house at the age of 17. Dickens was very attached to Mary and she died in his arms after a brief illness in 1837. She inspired characters in many of Dickens' books. Her death fictionalised as the death of Dickens' famous character, Little Men. This is indeed quite a fancy house as this also has a separate dressing room. Charles Dickens was very lively and energetic and his clothing reflected this. He loved jewellery and brightly coloured waistcoats and he was very proud of his early hair. He enjoyed shopping and chose his clothes very carefully so that he would stand out from the crowd. Accessories were also important to looking good during Victorian times. Like this bracelet which belongs to Catherine, jewellery was not just a fashion statement but often it had special meanings. In her will Catherine left this bracelet to her daughter Katie showing her feelings for her daughter. The coiled snake symbolises eternity, the turquoise symbolises love and the rubies symbolises strength. By the way if you haven't noticed we also have Catherine's engagement ring kept delicately in her morning room. Finally we come to the top most floor of this grand house. This is where we have the nursery. When Charles and Catherine moved to this house, their eldest son Charlie was just a baby. They lived here for two and a half years and had two more kids. This is where children used to live with their nanny or nursemaid. As you walk around the third floor of this house, you will also find famous lines from Dickens' novels inscribed on the walls. By the way do you know how many kids Dickens had? After he moved out of this house, his family became even bigger and he had 10 children altogether. The tour of Dickens' museum cannot end without visiting the famous Pickwick Catholic Church. While I am going to grab a cup of filter coffee from this cafe, you can have a look at the beautiful gift shop. They gladly call it the Curiosity Shop, a perfect place to buy curious and interesting gifts. After looking at the wonderful coasters and fridge magnets, I can proudly say that Charles Dickens' Museum holds one of the most important collection of materials relating to this great Victorian novelist and social commentator. Glossing through his books, I wonder how Dickens used his stories to call us to kindness. And though they have passed through generations, they still speak to the heart today. And now as I head home from this cafe, I guess it's time to bid adieu to this famous beloved writer who through his works campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education and other social reforms.