Charles Dickens’ Doughty Street home in photos

ONE former home of Charles Dickens houses the writer’s museum. The building on 48 Doughty Street, London, has been restored. It’s where Dickens wrote Oliver Twist. I used to live a few roads away. My family home was on Pear Tree Court, EC1. It’s believed to be the site where Oliver Twist sees the Artful Dodger and Charley Bates pick Mr Brownlow’s pocket. It’s partly yuppified now. But the bricks are stained. The shape of the streets remains much the same as it was back in the 1830s. When the office staff and drinkers have gone home, the short street is in shadow, narrow and quiet. In 1995, it was the scene for a fight in the football hooligan film Green Street. I looked out my kitchen window and watched the action below. Dodger would have have loved it. He wouldn’t have fought too hard. He’d have nicked your wallet, sold you some weed and ridden off on a nicked mountain bike…

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An early portrait of Dickens by his aunt Janet Barrow, an early writing to a school friend, top, and his books 'Child History of England' are seen in an exhibit in the nursery room in Charles Dickens' home, part of the Charles Dickens Museum in London, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012. For years, the four-story brick row house where the author lived with his young family was a dusty and slightly neglected museum, a mecca for Dickens scholars but overlooked by most visitors to London. Now, after a 3 million pound ($4.8 million) makeover, it has been restored to bring the writer's world to life. Its director says it aims to look "as if Dickens had just stepped out." (AP Photo/Sang Tan)