From now until April 28, students will be able to take a step back in history just by walking through the doors of Hill Memorial Library.
The library has compiled an exhibit to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birthday.
Michael Taylor, assistant curator of books, said the library wanted to commemorate Dickens’ work and took the opportunity to highlight the University’s collection.
“We don’t have a huge collection, but we’ve displayed all different kinds of his work here,” he said.
The exhibit includes first editions of novels like “Oliver Twist” and “A Tale of Two Cities,” along with an engraved plate originally used to illustrate the author’s books and several magazines containing short stories.
Taylor said many of Dickens’ readers were poor, and he published some of his stories in magazines or in parts so they could afford to read them.
“When you see that first edition, it tells you about how it was to be a reader in that time,” he said.
The exhibit also boasts several fliers for performances of Dickens’ work.
“He’s had a really long afterlife,” Taylor said. “He died in 1870, and by 1880, people were adapting his stories for theater productions.”
Taylor said people also used to host bazaars where they would dress up as Dickens characters and converse with each other as if they lived in the stories.
He said several of the books and pieces of work were already in the University’s library and were moved to a special collection as they became rarer.
The library purchased others, including a first edition of “Oliver Twist” for $2,000.
 
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Contact Rachel Warren at [email protected]