Charles Dickens museum captures Christmas spirit with new exhibition

1 December 2017: The Charles Dickens Museum in London got into the festive spirit on Wednesday, unveiling its A Christmas Carol exhibition centred on English novelist Charles Dickens' famous tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas.

The book helped to shape the way Britons celebrate Christmas and carried a strong social message after a scathing report on child labour that had deeply shocked him, curators said.

The exhibition is housed in a Victorian building where Dickens and his family lived between 1837 and 1840 - and where he penned several classics including Oliver Twist. The museum holds more than 100,000 Dickens-related items, such as furniture, personal effects, paintings and letters.

Mr Frankie Kubicki, the exhibition's curator, said although Dickens did not "invent" how the British celebrate Christmas, he helped "crystallise" it.

"He hits the zeitgeist and the feeling within the 1830s and 40s of a nostalgia for Christmas, of this idea of wanting to celebrate it within a new urban context," he added.

The exhibition, which runs until Feb 25, also features costumes from the new film The Man Who Invented Christmas, which is showing here and stars Dan Stevens