The New York Public Library, Berg Collection of
English and American Literature

The 1867 Pocket Diary: Traces of a Very Private Man
Edgar Johnson begins his classic biography with the observation that "Charles Dickens belongs to all the world." But Dickens wanted the world--and posterity--to possess the work, not the life. And so, in early September 1860, in a field behind Gad's Hill Place, he made a great bonfire of nearly his entire correspondence. Only those letters on business matters were spared; and as he watched the fire, how he wished that every letter he had ever written were part of the conflagration! (After Dickens's death, Georgina Hogarth would keep a sharp eye out for anything compromising.) Dickens's little Almanack for...1867 miraculously survived the general fate of his private papers (the flames) only because, late in December, it was either lost or stolen in New York City during the American tour. Resurfacing more than fifty years later at a New York auction house, it was purchased by the Berg brothers along with other Dickensiana, and is now a prized part of the NYPL collection that bears their name.

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Dickens's 1867 pocket diary for December, detailing his movements between Boston and New York. The pace was punishing, especially for a man with multiple health problems, including a swollen foot that troubled him horribly. Dickens's notation for Christmas Day reads: "To New York. Heavy cold, ill and miserable."

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