Congratulations to the Carrara Branch of the DF whose members have translated three of Dickens's ghost stories into Italian. The stories are: The Haunted Man, The Goblin who Stole a Sexton, and To be Taken With a Grain of Salt. The collection, with new illustrations, will be published by Blackdog in November.

The Dickens Fellowship conference in 2021 will be in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The website address is: http://www.dickensfellowshipconference2021.nl

At an online presentation ceremony on Wednesday 15 July 2020, our President, Mr Ian Dickens, announced the winner of the competition organised earlier this year by the Journalists’ Charity in partnership with the Dickens Fellowship.
The winner was Mr David Whewell with his character Barbara Copeland – ‘the B of the Q’ at a famous DIY store!

Although the coronavirus pandemic prevented the annual wreath-laying in Westminster Abbey on 9th June taking its usual form, the 150th anniversary of Dickens’s death was commemorated when the Dean of Westminster laid wreaths on behalf of both the Fellowship and the Dickens family.

The Fellowship are very sorry to announce that the Présidente of the Boulogne-sur-mer Branch of the Fellowship, Mme Janine Watrin, passed away on 25 May.

Janine was a stalwart member of the Boulogne branch and, for many years, an ever-present at DF Conferences. Janine was author of the bilingual ‘Charles Dickens and M. Beaucourt-Mutuel: Une Histoirie D’Amite’ (2013) and the guidebook ‘Parcours sur Les Pas De Charles Dickens & Boulogne-Sur-Mer’ (2019).

Given the current Covid-19 outbreak, it is likely that all events organised by each and every branch of the Dickens Fellowship will be cancelled for the immediate future. Please check with the relevant branch before travelling if you are unsure whether the event will proceed or not.

The annual Dickens Fellowship Birthday Dinner took place at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall on Friday 7th February. The toast to the Immortal Memory was proposed by Armando Ianuccii whose film version of David Copperfield had just been released. Photos courtesy of Lucinda Hawksley.

The Dickens Fellowship is delighted to assist the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street to acquire a remarkable collection of material from a private collector in the United States. The financial help amounted to a donation of £800K – made possible by a bequest from the estate of the late Ronald Gordon Hill. The donation from the Fellowship fulfils one of our aims: “to assist in the preservation and purchase of buildings and objects associated with his name or mentioned in his works.”