By Angela Lovely
In Dickens & the Workhouse which has been published to coincide with the 200 years since the birth of Charles Dickens, eminent historian Ruth Richardson tells the story of how she came to discover that London’s most famous author lived twice in the same house just yards from a poor law workhouse.
In this lively and highly readable book she describes how she got involved with a campaign to get the former Georgian and Victorian workhouse in Cleveland Street protected as a listed building and save it from demolition. Richardson traces Dickens early life and gathers together many of the real life characters, streets and buildings that influenced the many novels he would go on to write. Continue reading
